“Coming Thro’ the Cornfield.” Words and music by Horatio Nicholls (a.k.a. Lawrence Wright). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle with piano accompaniment by Carroll Gibbons on June 21, 1926 at the Gramophone Company’s Studio B at Hayes in Middlesex. Zonophone 2772 mx. Yy-8563-2.
Elsie Carlisle sang “Coming Thro’ the Cornfield” at her second recording session for what was to be her second record, accompanied by pianist Carroll Gibbons, who would soon become the famed director of the Savoy Hotel Orpheans. The song was written by performer, music publisher, impresario, and composer Lawrence Wright, who tended to use the pseudonym “Horatio Nicholls” on his own original compositions. Elsie handles this effusive expression of love in a rustic setting with her usual sweetness, and the pairing with “I Love My Baby” on the other side of the record allows her to adopt the personae of two very different girls in love.
“Coming Thro’ the Cornfield” was recorded two days later by the Savoy Havana Band, in late July 1926 by Bert Firman’s Dance Orchestra, and again in late September by Bert Firman’s band (as “Newton Carlisle’s Dance Orchestra” on Homochord and as “Dan Frederick and His Dance Orchestra” on Sterno).
“My Dog Loves Your Dog.” Music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Jack Yellen and Irving Caesar for the film George White’s Scandals (1934). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle and Sam Browne with orchestral accompaniment on June 22, 1934. Decca F-5079 mx. TB-1332-2.
In June, Elsie Carlisle and Sam Browne would tackle the song themselves, but with less than three minutes to sing it — including an instrumental interlude — they present a considerably abbreviated version. Their male-female duet adds flavor to the song, though, and ultimately allows the entrance of the element of strife between lovers that one would expect in a Sam-and-Elsie bit. When Sam first accosts Elsie and begins to observe the growing familiarity of their respective dogs, she responds, “Yes. Someone mentioned it today. You can see it in their eyes” in a stilted delivery that must either betoken haughtiness on the part of Elsie’s character or perhaps exhaustion on the part of Elsie herself! Either way, I find her awkward beginning intensely funny. Some very nice singing ensues, but Elsie’s observations about the dogs ultimately serve as a riposte to Sam’s advances. The dogs begin to fight, and the two singers conclude “And if our doggies bite each other, why can’t we?” — a comic twist not present in the movie.
“Mr. Magician (Won’t You Bring My Honey Back to Me?).” Words and music by Charles O’Flynn, James Cavanaugh, and Frank Weldon (1934). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle and Sam Browne with orchestral accompaniment on June 22, 1934. Decca F-5079.
O’Flynn, Cavanaugh, and Weldon were prominent Tin Pan Alley songwriters, but their 1934 “Mr. Magician” does not appear to have inspired many recordings. It may have seemed outrageously corny even by the standards of the time (consider the lines of the refrain: “Hocus, pocus, Mr. Magician, won’t you bring my honey back to me?”). All the same, this melodramatic arrangement (complete with an anonymous carnival barker, with Sam Browne as a grandiose, boasting circus magician, and with Elsie Carlisle as an earnest girl who wants to “find [her] man somehow”) has a certain appeal. Elsie plays the Dorothy to Sam’s Great Oz with a comical insistence; the whole piece is cartoonish, funny, and sweet.
