Ambrose

Bert Ambrose is the bandleader most often associated with Elsie Carlisle. She recorded with him during the years 1932-1935, often accompanied by singer Sam Browne.

Ambrose – Wikipedia
Ambrose – Mike Thomas
Bert Ambrose – John Wright

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Ambrose, Solo Recordings

“This Little Piggie Went to Market” (1934)

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“This Little Piggie Went to Market” is a mock-lullaby based on the famous nursery rhyme and game of playing with an infant’s toes. One might, therefore, expect it to have had a fairly innocuous origin. Instead, one finds that the song was composed for the 1934 American movie 8 Girls in a Boat, which tells the story of a teenage girl at a boarding school in Switzerland who finds that she is pregnant and contemplates suicide.1

These unwholesome themes are typical of movies made in the period before the so-called “Hays Code” went into effect and ushered in an era of Hollywood self-censorship. All the more representative of the pre-Code period are the numerous scenes portraying teenage girls exercising in swimsuits, who at one point go so far as to blast each other with water from hoses and giggle with glee. The filmmakers seem to have sobered up from their gratuitous portrayal of the youthful feminine form at some point and had the girls of the school sing Coslow and Lewis’s “This Little Piggie Went to Market” as they have their evening glass of milk before bed (and instrumental versions of the theme can be heard at other points in the score). Perhaps we can take the lyrics “I dream and pray one day I’ll say / To a cute little piggie of my own, / ‘This little piggie went to market, / And this little piggie stayed home'” as a hint that this salacious and yet somehow quite forgettable film will have a happy ending, as it does? But only, of course, after considerably more rope-skipping and swimming.

“This Little Piggie Went to Market.” Lyrics by Sam Coslow, music by Harold “Lefty” Lewis. Composed for the Paramount picture 8 Girls in a Boat (1934). Recorded in London on February 2, 1934 by Ambrose and His Orchestra with vocalist Elsie Carlisle. Brunswick 01694.

This Little Piggie Went To Market – Ambrose & his Orchestra (w. Elsie Carlisle)

Video by David Weavings

The Ambrose version of “This Little Piggie Went to Market” features an impressive arrangement that gives the impression of a pastoral lullaby, although at points it grows so powerful and insistent that it almost jars with the simplicity of the vocal refrain. Elsie Carlisle’s cooing intonation of the latter is a sincere depiction of the hope of future motherhood. One can entirely understand why Ambrose chose her, only a few months later, to sing in his version of “Little Man, You’ve Had a Busy Day” (especially as she had already made a lovely version of that other nursery-themed song with her own name on the label). This is just one of many cases where the coquettish flapper Elsie of the late 1920s is converted to the more sentimental tastes of the new decade — but the conversion is not an entirely unhappy one. Her versatility as an artist who can evoke a convincing character in under a minute and twenty seconds is on display here, and one can enjoy it even while admitting that the song is rather saccharine.

“This Little Piggie Went to Market.” Recorded in London on February 7, 1934 by Elsie Carlisle with orchestral accompaniment. Decca F. 3887 mx. GB6532-2.

Elsie Carlisle – “This Little Piggie Went to Market” (1934)

It seems highly likely that the orchestral accompaniment to Elsie’s solo version of “This Little Piggie Went to Market” consisted of members of Ambrose’s band, as they had been recording at Decca’s studios that day, and the two record matrices preceding this recording are theirs.2 The arrangement is comparatively subdued, leaving more room for Elsie’s gentle interpretation of the simple lyrics. All the same, the instrumental interpretation of the theme is quite beautiful and enjoyable.

“This Little Piggie Went to Market” was recorded in late December 1933 in Los Angeles by the Pickens Sisters on a Victor transcription, and in New York in early 1933 by Victor Young and His Orchestra (v. Jane Vance), Freddy Martin and His Orchestra (v. Helen Ward), and Chick Bullock and His Levee Loungers. In London it was recorded in early 1934 by Jack Payne and His Band (v. Jack Payne), Ray Noble and His Orchestra (v. Al Bowlly), Harry Leader and His Band (with an unknown vocalist), and Howard Flynn and His Orchestra (v. Harry Bentley).

Notes:

  1. Henry Parsons has pointed out to me that 8 Girls in a Boat is also the origin of the song “A Day Without You.” ↩
  2. Johnson, Richard J. Elsie Carlisle: A Discography. Aylesbury, UK, 1994, 25. ↩
Ambrose, Solo Recordings

“It’s the Talk of the Town” (Two Versions; 1933)

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The lyrics of “It’s the Talk of the Town” present a delicate situation: a couple engaged to be married has broken up after having already sent out wedding invitations. The song could be considered a torch song, but it is an atypical one, insofar as the singer’s argument for reconciliation rests less on passionate desire than on feelings of personal embarrassment resulting from gossip, the refrain being “Everybody knows you left me: it’s the talk of the town.”

Elsie Carlisle recorded three takes of “It’s the Talk of the Town” with Ambrose and His Orchestra on October 10, 1933, but they were rejected by Brunswick. On the morning of October 13, she made a successful recording for Decca with an eight-person band whose makeup is unknown but which probably contained Ambrose men:

“It’s the Talk of the Town.” Music by Jerry Levinson, words by Marty Symes and Al J. Neiburg (1933). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with orchestral accompaniment in London on October 13, 1933. Decca F. 3696 mx. GB6186-1.

Elsie Carlisle – “It’s the Talk of the Town” (1933)

In the early afternoon of the same day, Elsie would make her more famous and instrumentally more compelling recording of the song with Ambrose and His Orchestra. In this version, the emphasis on social awkwardness is highlighted by the band members’ snarling whisper: “IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN!”:

“It’s the Talk of the Town.” Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra with vocals by Elsie Carlisle in London on October 13, 1933. Brunswick 01607 mx. GB6175-4.

Personnel: Bert Ambrose dir. Max Goldberg-t-mel / Harry Owen-t / Ted Heath-Tony Thorpe-tb / Danny Polo-reeds / Sid Phillips-reeds / Joe Jeannette-as / Billy Amstell-reeds / Bert Read-p / Joe Brannelly-g  / Dick Ball-sb / Max Bacon-d (also humming and speaking by members of the orchestra)

Ambrose and His Orchestra (w. Elsie Carlisle) – “It’s The Talk of The Town” (1933)

“It’s the Talk of the Town” was one of two hits written in 1933 by the team of Levinson, Symes, and Neiburg, the other being “Under a Blanket of Blue.” Neiburg had three years earlier penned the lyrics to “(I’m) Confessin’ (That I Love You),” and Levinson (under the name “Livingston”) went on in later decades to compose noteworthy music for movies and television, although his role in composing the 1943 novelty song “Mairzy Doats” should not be forgotten.

In the late summer of 1933 America saw versions of “It’s the Talk of the Town” recorded by Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra (with vocals by Kenny Sargent), Connee Boswell, Dick Robertson and His Orchestra, Will Osborne and His Orchestra, Annette Hanshaw, Red McKenzie and His Orchestra, and Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra.

As summer turned to autumn, British bands did their own versions. In addition to Ambrose’s recording and Elsie’s solo version on Decca, there were recordings made by the BBC Dance Orchestra (under the direction of Henry Hall, with vocal refrain by Phyllis Robins), Jay Wilbur and His Band (with vocalists Dan Donovan and Phyllis Robins), Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (with vocals by Eve Becke), Billy Cotton and His Band (Alan Breeze, vocalist), Jack Payne and His Band (with vocals by Billy Scott-Coomber), Joe Loss and His Band (with Jimmy Messini), George Glover and His Band (also with Jimmy Messini), Bertini and His Orchestra (Jack Plant, vocalist), and Oscar Rabin and His Romany Band (as “Art Willis and His Band,” with vocals by Harry Davis).

Ambrose, Sam Browne

“Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” (1932)

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“Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” Originally titled “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?”; words and music by Hughie Cannon (1902). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra with vocalists Sam Browne and Elsie Carlisle in London on March 18, 1932. HMV B. 6162.

Personnel: Bert Ambrose dir. Max Goldberg-Harry Owen-t / Ted Heath-Tony Thorpe-tb / Billy Amstell-cl-as / Joe Crossman-cl-as-bar / Joe Jeanette-cl-ts / Ernie Lewis-Teddy Sinclair-Peter Rush-vn / Bert Read-p / Joe Brannelly-bj-g / Don Stuteley-sb / Max Bacon-d1

Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey? Ambrose & his Orchestra (with Sam Browne & Elsie Carlisle

Video by David Weavings (YouTube)

Now a jazz standard, “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” originated as a ragtime piece by American songwriter Hughie Cannon and predates Ambrose’s recording by thirty years. It has as its characters an emotionally desperate and abandoned battered wife and a smug husband who seems to think her situation serves her right. Somehow the song usually manages to sound upbeat, most often perhaps because musicians keep the refrain and omit the verses, leaving us to wonder who Bill Bailey is and why he is gone in the first place. In this her first recording session with Ambrose and His Orchestra, Elsie Carlisle plays the wife, who has ejected her husband from their home after he “took and throwed her down, / Bellowing like a prune-fed calf” — but she nevertheless blames herself. For this piece, Elsie adopts an attempt at negro dialect suited to her character:

Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey?
Won’t you come home?
I moans de whole day long.
I’ll do de cooking honey,
I’ll pay de rent!
I knows I’ve done you wrong!
‘Member that rainy eve that
I throwed you out
With nothin’ but a fine-toothed comb?
I knows I’s to blame —
Well, ain’t dat a shame?
Bill Bailey, wont you please come home?

The Ambrose recording lacks the second verse, in which it is revealed that Bill Bailey has somehow become rich and experiences Schadenfreude as he hears his wife moan for him.

“Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” had been recorded in Britain in late 1931 by Jay Wilbur and His Band (with vocalist John Thorne) and by Jack Leon’s Band — in both cases as part of a medley.

Notes:

  1. Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes, British Dance Bands on Record (1911-1945) and Supplement, p. 25. ↩
Ambrose, Harry Hudson, Solo Recordings

“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” (Three Versions; 1932)

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“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” Words and music by Milton Drake, Walter Kent, and Abner Silver (1932). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra with Elsie Carlisle as vocalist on November 22, 1932. Regal Zonophone MR-769.

Personnel: Bert Ambrose dir. Max Goldberg-Harry Owen-t  / Ted Heath-tb / Danny Polo-Joe Jeannette-Billy Amstell-reeds / Harry Hines-as / Bert Read-p / Joe Brannelly-g / Don Stutely-sb / Max Bacon-d / Freddie Bretherton-a

“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway” (Ambrose and His Orchestra with Elsie Carlisle, 1932)

Transfer by Clive Hooley (YouTube)

“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway” is a composition by notable songwriters Milton Drake (also known for “Java Jive” and “Mairzy Doats”), Walter Kent (most famous for “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “The White Cliffs of Dover”), and Abner Silver (who would co-write “No! No! A Thousand Times, No!” — another Elsie Carlisle hit).  Elsie recorded “Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway” five times in November and December of 1932, more times than any other song in her career: first “solo,” then with Ambrose and His Orchestra (by far her best-known version), then in two takes with Rudy Starita and His Band (one on Sterno, the other on Four-in-One), and finally with Harry Hudson and His Melody Men.

“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” remains one of Elsie’s most popular songs, most likely on account of her impeccable comic delivery of its risqué lyrics — indeed, it is outdone in sexual suggestiveness only by her two recordings of “My Man O’ War” (perhaps “My Handy Man” would also qualify in this regard). It is the complaint of an attractive woman who admits to liking a bit of flirtation but who has apparently met someone who takes it too far: a certain “Mr. Hemingway.” As the song progress, her description of his impertinent advances escalates, with Mr. Hemingway’s behavior sounding increasingly physically rough. The culmination is justly famous:

And I don’t mind your osculations,
But my dear, my operation!
Oh, pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!

Two days before she recorded the version with Ambrose and His Orchestra, Elsie had committed to shellac a “solo” recording:

“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” Recorded by Elsie Carlisle on November 28, 1932. Decca F. 3312.

Personnel: probably Max Goldberg-t / t / tb / 2cl / as / 2 or 3 vn / Claude Ivy-p / g / sb / d

"Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!" Decca F. 3312A.

Elsie Carlisle – “Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!”

Transfer by Erik Høst

This version is at a slightly slower tempo, and Elsie’s delivery is more conversational. The arrangement is surprisingly similar to the one that Freddie Bretherton produced for Ambrose.

The last version of “Pul-eeze! Mister Hemingway” that Elsie would record was with Harry Hudson and His Melody Men:

“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” Recorded by Harry Hudson and His Melody Men (as Rolando and His Blue Salon Orchestra) with Elsie Carlisle as vocalist on December 20, 1932. Edison Bell Winner 5536.

Rolando and His Blue Salon Orchestra (a.k.a. Harry Hudson, w. Elsie Carlisle) – “Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway” (1932)

Transfer by Charles Hippisley-Cox

Here the arrangement is a little different, and the orchestra is given a little more time to itself at the end. Elsie’s delivery is chatty, but perhaps not as much as in her solo recording.

There were a number of other artists recording “Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” in late 1932. One problem they ran into was how to have a male singer deliver the song, which was risqué but not entirely unconventional in its sexuality. In America, George Olsen and His Music had male singer Fran Frey recount hearing a woman speak the lyrics, while Gene Kardos and His Orchestra (as Bob Causer and His Cornellians) had Dick Robertson rebuff a certain Mrs. Hemingway! In Britain there were versions by Billy Cotton and His Band, Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans (with vocals by the Caryle Cousins, using the original lyrics), Ann Suter, Jay Wilbur and His Band (as Phil Allen’s Merrymakers, with vocalist Les Allen), and Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (in a Billy Ternent arrangement, with singer Pat O’Malley). Interestingly, the last two bandleaders mentioned did not seem to be bothered by having their male singers complain about being pestered by Mr. Hemingway! Gracie Fields recorded a version of the song that was only released in Australia, and Albert Whelan made one for Panachord accompanied by Harry Hudson’s Melody Men, but I have not been able to discover much about it.

Two final points need to be addressed. People often ask me if it is Ernest Hemingway that Elsie is singing about. I see no particular reason to identify the fictional masher with the American novelist. An open letter addressed to Ernest Hemingway entitled “Please, Mr. Ernest Hemingway” appeared in the American Criterion in 1935, but the addition of Hemingway’s first name would suggest that the letter’s author did not consider the song title that he was citing in jest to be originally about Ernest Hemingway.

And yes, there is a Steampunk Jazz version of “Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway!” that samples the Ambrose recording. Pu-leeze!

"Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway" Sheet Music featuring Elsie Carlisle's photograph
“Pu-leeze! Mister Hemingway” Sheet Music featuring Elsie Carlisle’s photograph
Ambrose, Sam Browne

“Let’s Make Love” (1934)

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“Let’s Make Love.” Words By Stanley J. Damerell, music by Tolchard Evans (1934). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra with vocals by Sam Browne and with Elsie Carlisle in a speaking role on November 1, 1934. Decca F. 5297 mx. TB 1704-1.

Personnel: Bert Ambrose dir. Max Goldberg-t-mel / Harry Owen-t / Ted Heath-Tony Thorpe-tb / Danny Polo-reeds / Sid Phillips-reeds / Joe Jeannette-as / Billy Amstell-reeds / Ernie Lewis-Reg Pursglove-others?-vn / Bert Barnes-p / Joe Brannelly-g / Dick Ball-sb / Max Bacon-d

Ambrose & His Orchestra (w. Sam Browne & Elsie Carlisle) – “Let’s Make Love” (1934)

“Let’s Make Love (In Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter)” is a light waltz written by British songwriters Stanley J. Damerell and Tolchard Evans, who collaborated on such notable songs as “Lady of Spain” (1931) and “If (They Made Me a King)” (1934). There seems to be a general rule that whenever Damerell and Evans have collaborated on a song, Elsie Carlisle ends up with a speaking role.  That would appear to be the case in the Ambrose recording of “Hyde Park Corner” (Hargreaves-Damerell-Evans; 1933), in which Sam Browne sings and Elsie and drummer Max Bacon have speaking parts, as well as in the Maurice Winnick version of “Da-Dar-Da-Dar” (also Hargreaves-Damerell-Evans; 1933), in which Sam Browne sings and Elsie is a mere interlocutor. So it is in this Damerell-Evans piece, “Let’s Make Love.”

Jack Payne and His Band had made, in late October 1934, a version of “Let’s Make Love” that relied for its entertainment value largely on comical Northern and Cockney voices provided by Jack Payne and Charlie Asplin; there was yet another version of “Let’s Make Love” in November by Jay Wilbur and His Band, with Fred Latham on the vocals. After an impressive instrumental introduction, the Ambrose recording has Sam Browne sing just the refrain and the first verse of the song. He then proceeds repeatedly to try to sing the first few words of the refrain (or something like them) in foreign accents which are intentionally abysmally done. His try at a Russian accent (“Letsky makesky loveskevitch”) is perhaps the least embarrassing.  I cannot say whether his announcing the Russian lover a second time and then correcting himself to “a Spanish lover” is a feigned mistake or a real one. The cannibalistic Zulu with his war cry “Yum, yum, yum!” is awkward at best, as is the shivering Eskimo.

Elsie Carlisle, for her part, merely interjects on occasion that Sam’s “impressions are lousy,” or the like. Sam and Elsie had already played bickering lovers in the 1933 Maurice Winnick recording of “Seven Years with the Wrong Woman,” and it was only weeks after recording “Let’s Make Love” that they would berate each other in “I’m Gonna Wash My Hands with You” with Ambrose and His Orchestra.  In “Let’s Make Love,” by contrast, it is not apparent that Sam really means it when he repeatedly sings “Let’s Make Love” to Elsie, nor that her rebuffing of him is anything more than a negative review of his talent.  What is clear is that this song is one of the silliest things Sam and Elsie ever collaborated on in their years of working for Ambrose.

"The Idol of the Radio." British dance band singer of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.