Love this song, lyrics by Johnny Mercer. music by Hoagy Carmichael, and especially this version performed by the Harry James orchestra with vocalist Helen Forrest, a top hit in 1941 and 1942, when it reached No. 11 on the Billboard chart.
Well, it's No. 1 with me!
And this is the car, a 1935 LaSalle, I would drive to the Manhattan Room in the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City, to listen and dance to one of the great big bands of that era, my very favorite brief era in history, lasting maybe five years, really ending with Pearl Harbor, though it lingered through the war years, which were a kind of pause in the development of popular culture.
Here's a live broadcast with Benny Goodman's orchestra and vocalist Martha Tildon from October 21, 1937.
1937 Manhattan Room Live Broadcast
And here's a photo of the crowd gathered around the bandstand and CBS microphones that very night (look at the handwritten sheet music!):
Wouldn't you like to invite me on a date back to 1937? We'd have so much fun. You would wear a suit and tie and I'd dress like this:
One more broadcast, from the 27th of October, 1937, at the Manhattan Room, featuring the song, "The Lady is a Tramp." Its lyrics pretty much define me, though I'm not a tramp, just gossiped about as one by frumps and scolds. Phooey.
Manhattan Room Live Broadcast from 1937
Helen Forrest recalling the Big Band era in 1982:
"We did not know that we were living through an era - the Big Band Era - that would last only 10 years or so and be remembered and revered for ever...it's hard to believe, but the best times were packed into a five-year period from the late 1930s through the early 1940s when I sang with the bands of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James. The most dramatic moments of my life were crammed into a couple of years from the fall of 1941 to the end of 1943. They seem to symbolize my life...that was when the music of the dance bands was the most popular music in the country, and I was the most popular female band singer in the country and Harry had the most popular band in the country. It didn't last long, but it sure was something while it lasted."
