Bands & Directors

Embassy Rhythm Eight

“I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance” (1935)

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“I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance.” Words and music by Marty Symes, Al J. Neiburg, and Jerry Levinson (1934). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with the Embassy [Rhythm] Eight in London on February 15, 1935. Decca F. 5456 mx. GB6978-1.

Personnel: Max Goldberg-t / Lew Davis-tb / Danny Polo-cl / Billy Amstell-ts / Bert Barnes-p / Joe Brannelly-g / Dick Ball-sb / Max Bacon-d

Elsie Carlisle (with The Embassy Rhythm Eight) – “I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance” (1935)

“I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance” is the plaintive report of a woman who is reluctant to go to a party that might feature her ex-boyfriend (or possibly even fiancé), accompanied by a new sweetheart. Because she is hopeful for a possible reconciliation, her main concern is to prevent awkward gossip. The focus on idle talk in the context of a breakup might remind us of Elsie Carlisle’s 1933 recordings of “It’s the Talk of the Town,” and in fact that song had the same three composers.1

Elsie imbues the argument of “I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance” with poignancy while developing a vocal persona strong enough to make up for the vagueness of the lyrics. We do not know, for example, whom the woman blames for the breakup or any of its circumstances. Elsie seems to deliberate over each syllable to reveal what we do know about her character’s motivations, namely her desire to be reunited with her lover.

The melancholy  atmosphere is enhanced by the elegant but subdued playing of The Embassy Rhythm Eight (mentioned on the label simply as The Embassy Eight), a studio recording band made up of core members of the Ambrose Orchestra. I should note that on this record (unlike the one with “Whisper Sweet” and “Dancing with My Shadow,” songs for which The Embassy Rhythm Eight almost certainly played the accompaniment), both Elsie Carlisle and the band are credited on the label — a very rare occurrence. Elsie’s records are almost perfectly divided into groups that mention her name and not the band, or that mention the band and not her. Perhaps the Embassy Rhythm Eight, which had been recently formed, wanted the extra publicity.

“I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance” was recorded in America in 1934 by the Casa Loma Orchestra (with vocalist Kenny Sargent), Hal Kemp and His Orchestra, Paul Pendarvis and His Orchestra (with vocals by Eddie Scope), the Will Osborne Orchestra (with vocals by Will Osborne), Ruth Etting, and A. Ferdinando and His Orchestra.

British versions of “I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance” were made in 1935 by Roy Fox and His Band (with vocalist Denny Dennis), Billy Cotton and His Band (with vocals by Harold “Chips” Chippendall), Jay Wilbur and His Band (with singer Cyril Grantham), the New Grosvenor House Band (under director Sydney Lipton, with vocalist Gerry Fitzgerald), Lou Preager and His Romano’s Restaurant Dance Orchestra (with vocal refrain by Pat Hyde), and Scott Wood and His Orchestra (in a medley).

Notes:

  1. In addition to composing “It’s the Talk of the Town” and “I’ve Got an Invitation to a Dance,” Symes, Neiburg, and Levinson also collaborated on the 1935 “Star Gazing,” and Symes wrote the lyrics to “Somebody’s Thinking of You Tonight,” which Elsie would record in 1938. ↩
Jay Wilbur

“When the Blackbird Says ‘Bye-Bye'” (1940)

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“When the Blackbird Says ‘Bye-Bye’ (and the Bluebird Says ‘Hello’).” Words and music by Art Noel and Don Pelosi (1940). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with orchestral accompaniment under the musical direction of Jay Wilbur on December 31, 1940. Rex 9904 mx. R5204-1.

Elsie Carlisle – “When the Blackbird Says ‘Bye-Bye'”

British songwriters Art Noel and Don Pelosi co-wrote a good number of Elsie Carlisle’s later songs: “Little Drummer Boy,” “Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major,” “A Mother’s Prayer at Twilight,” and “Nursie, Nursie” are among them (and Art Noel made still further contributions to Elsie’s songbook). “When the Blackbird Says ‘Bye-Bye'” is a particularly beautiful representation of what the British music industry could turn out even during the dark months of the Blitz. The song’s theme of blackbirds departing and the apparently preferable bluebirds appearing does not appear to me to refer to ornithological facts about changing seasons. It is, rather, to musical tradition that we must look for the roots of this upbeat theme of better times and happy reunion, to the 1920s songs “Bye Bye, Blackbird” and “My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now,” which also use breeds of birds to represent changing moods and fortunes.

The incredible sweetness of Elsie Carlisle’s later recording voice comes through nicely on this Rex record, which suffers from somewhat less “crackle” than the label was famous for. It is is quite satisfying to aficionados to hear Elsie reprise her famous theme of “The Clouds Will Soon Roll By” at 1:26. The orchestra is not identified on the label and the precise personnel is unknown, but the violin is particularly memorable.

“When the Blackbird Says ‘Bye-Bye'” was also recorded in 1940 by the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra (under the direction of Ronnie Munro, with vocals by Sam Browne), Geraldo and the Savoy Hotel Orchestra (with vocalist Jackie Hunter), Lew Stone and His Band (with Sam Browne), and Joe Loss and His Band (in a “Quick-Step Medley”).

Ray Noble

“Cavalcade” (1931)

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“Cavalcade.” Composed by various artists, including Noël Coward. Recorded under the direction of Ray Noble (uncredited) in London on November 24, 1931, with narration by Henry Oscar and with uncredited soloists (including Elsie Carlisle), full chorus, orchestra, and organ. HMV C. 2330, matrices 2B-1546-2 and 2B-1547-1.

“Cavalcade” — Descriptive Record (1931)

“Cavalcade (32 Years of England)” is derived from a stage play of the same name by Sir Noël Coward that was enormously successful in 1931 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with 405 performances. The play concerns the life of a British family and their servants and spans over the first three decades of the twentieth century. It was the inspiration for a 1933 Fox film.

The play “Cavalcade” includes music contemporary to each period it depicts that was either chosen by Noël Coward or even written by him (“Lover of My Dreams” and “Twentieth Century Blues” were both introduced in the drama). The musical revivals inspired a number of recordings, such as the HMV medley with Noël Coward as vocalist (side one and side two), one by The New Mayfair Orchestra (under the direction of Ray Noble, with prologue and epilogue spoken by Noël Coward), and medleys by Sam Greening’s Rhythmic Troubadours, Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (both in early November and in mid-December; you may hear side A and side B of the latter on YouTube), and Jay Wilbur and His Band.

The 1931 record labelled by HMV as “‘Cavalcade’–Descriptive Record (’32 Years of England’)” credits prolific British actor Henry Oscar as narrator, but leaves the “soloists, full chorus, orchestra, and organ[ist]” unnamed. Ray Pallett has identified Ray Noble as the leader and arranger and Max Goldberg as one of the trumpet players,1 but it is the audible presence of Elsie Carlisle as soloist (and presumably also as ensemble member) that interests me most.

The numbers performed on the record include

  • Soldiers of the Queen
  • Has Anyone Seen a German Band?
  • Knocked ‘Em in the Old Kent Road
  • I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside
  • The Merry Widow Waltz
  • It’s a Long Way to Tipperary
  • I’ll Make a Man of You
  • Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
  • Rhapsody in Blue
  • Twentieth-Century Blues
  • Pomp and Circumstance

Elsie takes the solos in “I’ll Make a Man of You” (5:29-5:58) and “Twentieth-Century Blues” (7:44-8:22). The former is a reprise of a WWI recruiting song that encourages young men to enlist by suggesting that they will get more dates. Elsie brightly sings out

On Sunday I walk out with a Soldier,
On Monday I’m taken by a Tar,
On Tuesday I’m out with a baby Boy Scout,
On Wednesday an Hussar;
On Thursday I gang out wi’ a Scottie,
On Friday the Captain of the crew —
But on Saturday I’m willing, if you’ll only take the shilling,
To make a man of any one of you!

Elsie’s great moment, though, comes just after an instrumental excerpt from that declaration of modernity, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The music of Gershwin gives way to that of Noël Coward, and Elsie bursts out with

Blues!
Twentieth-century blues
Are getting me down!
Who’s
Escaped those dreary
Twentieth-century blues?
Why,
If there’s a God in the sky,
Why shouldn’t he grin?
High
Above this dreary
Twentieth-century din?

Elsie would record Coward’s music again one year later, with Mad About the Boy (recorded with Ray Starita and His Ambassadors).

Even though her role in this HMV recording is easily overlooked, Elsie distinguishes herself with gestures to music dating from the beginnings of her career as well as to current compositions. The brevity of her solos allows her to show her dexterity at summoning up a character at a moment’s notice. Bold, saucy, querulous, and comical, Elsie Carlisle shines as a talented singer on this strangely anonymous record.

Notes:

  1. Liner notes to Elsie Carlisle (with a different style), a CD issued by Memory Lane in 2011. ↩
Solo Recordings, Spike Hughes

“Hangin’ On to That Man” (1931, 1932)

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The dark and moody song “Hangin’ On to That Man” has music written by Russian-born composer Josef Myerow, who later as Joe Myrow would compose the popular “You Make Me Feel So Young” (1946). “Hangin’ On to That Man” is recognizably a torch song, insofar as it involves a woman describing how she keeps loving a man in spite of all the misery that he causes her. The song is thus very much in the mold of Mistinguett’s “Mon homme” or its anglophone version “My Man” (made popular by Fanny Brice in the 1921 Ziegfeld Follies).

It is not clear to me if anyone other than Elsie Carlisle ever recorded “Hangin’ On to That Man”; Ethel Waters is mentioned on the sheet music, but I have no evidence that she ever committed the song to shellac (she probably performed it on stage). It is therefore interesting that Elsie recorded the song not once but three times. She made the first two recordings with Spike Hughes and His Dance Orchestra, and we are fortunate enough to have Spike Hughes’s own account of the genesis of his sessions with Elsie.

In 1935, Spike Hughes published an autobiography serialized in Swing Music. He recollects

In the days when I had had colourful visions of making a fortune writing blues and low-down songs, I had a great ambition to write a song that Elsie Carlisle would sing, perhaps even sing on the radio and record. I don’t think, as a matter of truth, that I had ever heard her sing in those days, but her face made a pretty picture on a song of which I was very fond around 1929, and I thought she would probably sing my masterpieces better than another other native singer.

…

When she first started recording for Decca a contingent from the band used to accompany her, and I found that my dream-singer, whose picture I had liked so much in 1929, sang every bit as well as I had imagined. But I had no songs, no blue masterpieces to offer her. Obviously, she must appear in one of my records, for she was good company. After sessions she would entertain at a neighbouring public-house with unlimited Lancashire stories, which endeared her particularly to young William Walton, whose local the “Six Bells” was, and who, like Elsie, also came from Oldham.

Some time before the session of which I am writing, we had had a session from which no records resulted. For some reason everything had gone wrong. We had made Minnie, The Moocher, a long while before that epic became popular; we had tried a commercial number, To Whom It May Concern, in which Val Rosing made a fleeting appearance, but we made a mess of that; we had also recorded an Ethel Waters tune, Hangin’ On To That Man, but without vocal refrain and the solos had been bad, for it was a difficult tune to improvise upon. In short, it had been an unsuccessful session.1

The session that Hughes describes seems like a poorly remembered version of the June 18, 1931 session, at which the three songs mentioned were recorded and not issued; but Elsie did record a version of “Hangin’ On to That Man” that day, at least if eminent discographers Brian Rust and Richard Johnson can be trusted (I am not fortunate enough to own a copy of the unissued Decca recording with the matrix GB2920).

Of the second recording of “Hangin’ On to That Man,” Spike Hughes recalls

I decided, however, that if we were to do anything with the tune, it must have a vocal refrain to it. So Elsie Carlisle learnt it–not without some difficulty in finding the right key, I think she will confess. Apparently, Elsie liked it for she adopted it as her signature tune. For our part, we produced a record with the longest introduction that has ever gone on a ten-inch disc.

Here is the recording described by Hughes with his mixture of snark and admiration:

“Hangin’ On to That Man.” Lyrics by Frank Capano and Harry Filler, with music by Josef Myerow, alias Joe Myrow (1931). Recorded by Spike Hughes and His Dance Orchestra, with vocals by Elsie Carlisle, in London on November 18, 1931. Decca F. 2735 mx. GB3601-2.

Personnel: Spike Hughes-sb ldr. Chick Smith-Leslie Thompson-Jimmy Macaffer-t / Lew Davis-Bill Mulraney-tb  / Harry Hayes-as / Billy Amstell-cl-as / Buddy Featherstonhaugh-ts / Billy Mason-p / Claude Ivy-chm / Alan Ferguson-g / Ronnie Gubertini-d

Spike Hughes & His Dance Orchestra (v. Elsie Carlisle) – “Hangin’ On to That Man” (1933)

I am not sure exactly what Spike Hughes was referring to when he wrote that Elsie “adopted [‘Hangin’ On to That Man’] as her signature tune,” but certainly it is noteworthy that she recorded it a third time many months later:

“Hangin’ On to That Man.” Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with orchestral accompaniment in London on June 23, 1932. Decca F. 3038.

Personnel: ?Johnny Rosen-?Maurice Loban-vn / g / sb / ?Max Abrams-d

Elsie Carlisle — Hangin’ On to That Man

Transfer by Andy LeMaitre (YouTube)

In this version Elsie sings a languid introduction, and indeed the first half of the song is comparatively subdued. The contrast with the quicker and more impassioned second half gives Elsie the opportunity to engage in monodrama, which happens to be a specialty of hers. We can appreciate, with Spike Hughes, the attraction of Elsie’s pretty visage reproduced on sheet music, but we must admit that it was her ability to create a persona with nothing but her voice, in the small time allotted by the size of a shellac record, that will always define Elsie best.

"Hangin' on to That Man" sheet music signed by the composer
“Hangin’ on to That Man” sheet music

Notes:

  1. Spike Hughes, “Decca Days.” Swing Music 1.4 (June 1935): 84, 112. ↩
Jay Wilbur

“Dada, Dada” (1928 & 1930)

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“Dada, Dada (D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-da-da)” is a “stuttering song,” a song in which the performer either pretends to stutter or plays around with words that naturally sound a bit like stammering (in the present instance, a young woman’s call to her father — “Dada!  Dada!” — serves the purpose).  One might think that, in imitating a speech impediment, “Dada, Dada” might risk being insensitive, and yet when one considers every other facet of the song, it is the stuttering that emerges as least offensive. “Dada, Dada” is primarily known for its humorous dramatization of a very innocent young woman being taken advantage of by a somewhat predatory boyfriend. Her cries of “Dada! Dada!” reach her father’s ears, but they only serve to remind him of how he came to have a daughter in the first place; he does not come to the aid of the comically naïve and therefore actually rather unfortunate girl. The primary songwriter, Arthur Le Clerq, was not averse to edgy humor; he would go on to write “Is Izzy Azzy Woz?” (1929) which gives ample opportunities for a singer to practice Yiddishisms, and the overtly ageist “Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s Forty” (1934).

Having admitted that the theme of “Dada, Dada” is fundamentally unwholesome, I must admit that I rather enjoy hearing Elsie Carlisle singing it; her talent for interpreting bawdy, inappropriate lyrics is well known, and the song allows her to show off her upper vocal range by way of adolescent squeaks. A gauge of how much contemporary listeners must have liked her impersonation of a clueless girl is the fact that Elsie recorded it three times in a two-year period.

“Dada, Dada (D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-da-da).” Words by Arthur Le Clerq and Wallace Dore, music by Arthur Le Clerq (1928). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with Jay Wilbur and His Orchestra, London, c. December 1928. Dominion A. 43 mx. 1055-2.

Personnel possibly includes Max Goldberg-Bill Shakespeare-t / Tony Thorpe-tb / Laurie Payne-Jimmy Gordon-cl-as-bar / George Clarkson-cl-as-ts / Norman Cole-vn / Billy Thorburn-p / Dave Thomas or Bert Thomas-bj-g / Harry Evans-bb-sb / Jack Kosky-d-chm

Elsie Carlisle – “Dada, Dada” (Dominion; 1928)

In all versions of “Dada, Dada” Elsie alternates between narrating the story and playing its protagonist. In this latter role she is the expert comedian in terms of reenacting the awkward youthful encounter and keeping the mock-stammering from being too implausible or even just annoying and repetitive (for variation she appears to do an imitation of a sort of infantile cuckoo-clock at 1:48). The naughtiness of the lyrics is highlighted by a highly inappropriate reference to Scripture1:

He says I am an angel
And a heavenly little thing!
If angels feel like I do,
“Oh death, where is thy sting?”

In this 1928 version, Jay Wilbur’s orchestra shines out admirably even from the asphalt-like shellac of Dominion Records.

Elsie would sing a bit of “Dada, Dada” again with many of the same accompanists in the “Imperial Revels” medley, recorded in late September 1930. She recorded the whole song again the next month, again with Jay Wilbur and His Orchestra (uncredited):

Elsie Carlisle with Jay Wilbur and His Orchestra, London, October 1930. Imperial 2381 mx. 5536-4.

Personnel possibly includes the following: Max Goldberg-Bill Shakespeare-t / Ted Heath or Tony Thorpe-tb / Laurie Payne-Jimmy Gordon-cl-as-bar / George Melachrino-cl-as-vn / George Clarkson-cl-ts / Norman Cole-vn / Billy Thorburn or Pat Dodd-p / Bert Thomas-g / Harry Evans-bb-sb / Jack Kosky-d

Elsie Carlisle – “Dada, Dada” (Imperial; 1930)

The accompaniment on Imperial 2381 is punchier, heavier on the brass and lighter on the strings, and more explicitly comical: the musicians seem to mimic Elsie’s singing at times. Her delivery of the “Dadas” is less sing-song than in her original version and more closely approaches natural speech, if her strange exclamations can be called that. Overall, one gets the impression of performers trying very hard to keep an inherently repetitive piece fresh and succeeding admirably.

Other versions of “Dada, Dada” were recorded in Britain in 1929 by Ray Starita and His Ambassadors’ Band (with vocals by Phil Allen), The Rhythmics (under the direction of Nat Star, with vocalist Tom Barratt), Clarkson Rose, and comedian Jack Morrison (accompanied by Bidgood’s Broadcasters).  The full lyrics that Morrison uses depict an increasingly rough struggle between the young people, thus fully realizing the song’s creepy potential.

It should finally be noted that although Elsie Carlisle does speak briefly in a 1933 recording by Maurice Winnick and His Orchestra entitled “Da-Dar-Da-Dar (Da-Dar-Da-Dee),” stuttering the words “d-d-d-darling” and “d-d-d-dearest,” that song concerns the difficulty young lovers have finding privacy — it is a much less troubling piece delivered almost entirely by Sam Browne, and it should not be mistaken for harder stuff.

Notes:

  1. 1 Corinithians 15:55. ↩

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