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“Thank You So Much, Missus Lowsborough-Goodby” (1935)

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“Thank You So Much, Missus Lowsborough-Goodby.” Words and music by Cole Porter (1934). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra with Elsie Carlisle on February 6, 1935. Decca F-5448.

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

Ambrose and His Orchestra – Thank You So Much, Mrs. Lowsborough-Goodby – 1935

Video by Martin Schuurman (YouTube)

“Thank You So Much,  Missus Lowsborough-Goodby” is a 1934 Cole Porter composition whose lyrics convey sarcasm dished up by a dissatisfied high-society house guest.The speaker fantasizes about the sort of thank-you letter that the host deserves to receive after a weekend of apparently sub-par entertaining; there follows an epistolary monologue “thanking” her by way of backhanded compliments for what are presumably overstated deficits in her hospitality (e.g. “For the ptomaine I got from your famous tinned salmon, / For the fortune I lost when you taught me backgammon…”). Cole Porter recorded the song himself on October 26, 1934, accompanying himself on the piano, and published the music in December. It is likely that “Missus Lowsborough-Goodby” was originally written for the 1934 hit musical Anything Goes, as a typescript of it was found amongst other material discarded from that project.1

Ambrose’s February 1935 version of the song benefits from an arrangement whose orchestral component highlights the musical merits of the piece independent from the funny acerbity of its lyrics. Elsie Carlisle’s contribution is the impersonation of a particularly snarky lady of the smart set. In the Decca recording, Elsie has just over two minutes in which to introduce and develop her character, and the result is a perfect picture of ridiculous ill will. A comparable mocking of the presumably petty concerns and silly pretensions of high society can be heard in her versions of “Home James, and Don’t Spare the Horses” and “Algernon Whifflesnoop John,” both recorded with Ambrose at around the same time.

“Thank You So Much, Mrs. Lowsborough-Goodby” had been recorded in late January by Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, with Brian Lawrance as their vocalist. There was also a version by Lew Stone and His Band, with Lew Stone doing the singing himself, in his own arrangement of the song.  John Tilley recorded it as a “Humorous Monologue” spoken, not sung, over slight piano accompaniment; Fred Astaire would give it a similar treatment a quarter of a century later on television with considerable comic success.

Notes:

  1. The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter, ed. Robert Kimball, p. 274. ↩
Ambrose

“My Kid’s a Crooner” (1935)

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“My Kid’s a Crooner.” Composed by Marion Harris and Reg Montgomery. Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra, with Elsie Carlisle as vocalist, on January 3, 1935. Decca F. 5393.

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

Elsie Carlisle – My Kid’s A Crooner (1935)

Video by Clive Hooley (YouTube)

“My Kid’s a Crooner,” a song whose subtitle is, naturally, “(Boo-Boo-Boo-Boo),” was written by British composer Reg Montgomery and American songstress Marion Harris, who had relocated to London in the early 1930s and had retired there. It involves a mother who is concerned about her infant child’s future, seeing as he mostly makes the sound “boo-boo-boo-boo” (and occasionally “ah-cha-cha!”). Concluding that he aspires to be a crooner, she resolves to contact Bing Crosby for advice. Elsie Carlisle takes this song, which is inherently very silly, and makes it even funnier by sounding almost genuine in her mock-maternal concern — yet not so much so as to let her quavering voice overwhelm her rather cute, moderately infantile, and decidedly Crosbyesque boo-boo-booing.

“My Kid’s a Crooner” was also recorded in London in December 1934 by Pat Hyde (accompanied by Edgar Jackson and His Orchestra) and in early 1935 by Harry Roy and His Orchestra (with vocals by Harry Roy himself), the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra under the direction of Carroll Gibbons (with vocals by Frances Day and five-year-old Sybil Jackson, the latter of whom is surprisingly not that bad), Lou Preager and His Romano’s Restaurant Dance Orchestra (with Pat Hyde), and Billy Cotton and His Band (with vocalist Harold “Chips” Chippendall). There were other 1935 recordings by Phyllis Robins, Kitty Masters, and Eve Becke, and an apparently unissued take of Helen Raymond singing “My Kid’s a Crooner” is extant.

Ambrose

“Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses” (1934)

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“Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses.” Words and music by Fred Hillebrand (1934). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra with Elsie Carlisle as vocalist on December 11, 1934. Decca F. 5371 mx. GB6806-2 (also F. 6926; Brunswick A. 81929).

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

Ambrose & His Orchesta (w. Elsie Carlisle) – “Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses” (1934)

“Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses” is an expression of pressing urgency that goes back to the mid-nineteenth century, but the statistics on its recorded use skyrocket around the time that Elsie Carlisle recorded the song with Ambrose and His Orchestra. Like the other comedy waltz “No! No! A Thousand Times No!” that Elsie had recorded the previous month (in November 1934), this song is set in the nineteenth century and is rather cartoonish. In it Elsie tells a funny story about a classy lady rebuffing a lover who has paid too much attention to other women. “Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses!” she declares at various points in the story as she dashes off in anger. Elsie’s recitative is delivered in an exaggerated upper-crust accent with many a trilled  “r” as she describes the heroine and her footman kicking the penurious former lover’s posterior. Elsie would record other such comic songs about high society in the following year, such as Cole Porter’s “Thank You So Much Mrs. Lowsborough-Goodby” and “Algernon Whifflesnoop John.”

The popularity of “Home, James” is attested to by its being mentioned as particularly successful on the backs of 1934 and 1935 cigarette cards. Elsie would issue a record of medleys in late 1937 that featured “Home, James” along with its comedy waltz partner “No, No, a Thousand Times No!” (HMV BD 476).

Other versions of “Home, James” were recorded in Britain in late 1934 and early 1935 by Jay Wilbur and His Band (with vocalist Bertha Willmott), Charlie Kunz’s Casani Club Orchestra, Jack Jackson and His Orchestra, the Debroy Somers Band (with vocals by Bertha Willmott), Billy Cotton and His Band (with Alan Breeze as vocalist), and Harry Roy and His Orchestra (with singing by Bill Currie and chorus).

I discuss this song in greater detail in my article “Elsie Carlisle’s Top Hits, Then and Now” in the December 2014 issue of the Discographer Magazine.

A photograph of Elsie Carlisle, signed "Home, James - Elsie Carlisle"
A photograph of Elsie Carlisle, signed “Home, James – Elsie Carlisle”
Ambrose, Sam Browne

“I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You” (1934)

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“I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You.” Words by Eddie Pola, with music by Franz Vienna (a.k.a. Franz Steininger). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra, with vocal chorus by Sam Browne and Elsie Carlisle on November 20, 1934. Decca F. 5318 mx. GB6777-1.

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

Ambrose & His Orchestra (w. Sam Browne & Elsie Carlisle) – “I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You” (1934)

This foxtrot of vituperation is particularly suited to Sam Browne and Elsie Carlisle, who had convincingly played the part of the bickering couple in “Seven Years With the Wrong Woman” in 1932. “I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You” has lyrics by Eddie Pola, who co-wrote other songs that Elsie recorded, such as “My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes,” “I Wish I Knew a Bigger Word Than Love,” and “Till the Lights of London Shine Again.” As the flip side to “No! No! A Thousand Times No!” “I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You” is a suitably dramatic complement. It involves somewhat more genuine singing and somewhat less booming, mock-thespian declamation; moreover, it includes more opportunities for the instrumental excellence of Ambrose’s band to be heard. For this author, however, the high point of the song is when Elsie sings  “You cheat, you!  I wish you were a gong so I could beat you!” and Sam replies “You wanna beat me, huh?” This song’s excellence lies in its fundamental goofiness.

Nat Gonella made a particularly “hot” recording of “I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You” in January 1935, and Billy Cotton followed suit the following month (with Teddy Foster as vocalist). The French group “Patrick et son orchestre de danse” (directed by Guy Paquinet, with Django Reinhardt on the guitar) turned out a pretty version in June 1935, with suitably sinister-sounding vocals by Maurice Chaillou. That year Pathé released a film short of “The Radio Three,” a female close-harmony group made up of Joy Worth, Kay Cavendish, and Ann Canning, singing a version of “I’m Gonna Wash My Hands of You” that recalls the style of the Boswell sisters.

Ambrose, Sam Browne

“No! No! A Thousand Times No!” (1934)

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“No! No! A Thousand Times No!” Words and music by Al Sherman, Al Lewis, and Abner Silver (1934). Recorded by Ambrose and His Orchestra on November 20, 1934, with vocal chorus by Sam Browne and Elsie Carlisle. Decca F-5318 mx. GB-6772-2.

Personnel: Bert Ambrose dir. Max Goldberg-t-mel / Harry Owen-t / 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) – “No! No! A Thousand Times No!”

In “No! No! A Thousand Times No!” Sam Browne and Elsie Carlisle evoke the spirit of Victorian stage melodrama with its stock heroes: the damsel in distress, the villain, the hero. By 1934 melodrama risked seeming hackneyed and passé, and this novelty waltz accordingly treats the genre as a source of bathetic farce. The orchestra serves as a competent background to a long series of dramatic lines almost belted out, or even shouted out, rather than sung, with Sam and Elsie employing strangely exaggerated pronunciations to emphasize their ridiculously stylized sentiments.

“No! No! A Thousand Times No!” seems to have made quite an impression on the public. The 1934 Wills’s and 1935 Ardath Elsie Carlisle cigarette card reverse sides suggest it as one of Elsie’s two most popular songs, which is interesting, as she sang quite a few memorable songs in those years, including other very good ones with Sam Browne. That this comical waltz had staying power is attested to by its appearing in Elsie’s top-two list in her 1977 London Times obituary.

“No! No! A Thousand Times No!” was recorded in America by Harry McDaniel and His Orchestra in November 1934. It seems to have been more popular with British artists, however, with versions done in late 1934 and early 1935 by the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra (under the direction of Percival Mackey, with vocals by Bobbie Combier), Jan Ralfini and His Band, Phyllis Robins and Pat O’Malley, and Leslie Sarony and “Girl Friend” (identity unknown). In May 1935 Max Fleischer released a Betty Boop short film featuring the themes and music of “No! No! A Thousand Times No!” under the same title.

The National Portrait Gallery has three photographs of Sam Browne with Elsie Carlisle at the 1935 Radio Olympia Exhibition, in two of which they appear to be in costume for this very number (NPG x224380 and NPG x224381).

I discuss this song in greater detail in my article “Elsie Carlisle’s Top Hits, Then and Now” in the December 2014 issue of the Discographer Magazine.

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