Evening star., 1940-05-19
Those Girls
Singing Are
A Problem
But Some Bandsmen
Feel They're Worth
All the Trouble
BY Marx Barron,
Associated Press Stan Writer.

NEW YORK.
Girls with eager, provocative eyes
and promise in their voices today
are singing old and new songs that
are Turing listeners and dancers back
to star name bands and to Tin Pan
Alleys old music with the enthu-
siasm of a gold mine rush.
The result is a new turmoil in the
clatter and rumble of Tin Pan Alley,
which long ago conceded that musi-
clans are anything but logical lot.
The overnight tempest revolyes
about those fetching girl singers
with a come-on quality in the init
mate way they sell their torch songs.
1t is quality which has been a life
saver for more than one band that
was walking tight rope to hold its
popularity.
But, some of the more hardy all
male groups are still holding out
and contending that the absence of
women, cute and chic as they are,
makes for better music and fewer
headaches.
True, there is a minority of the
top-f1ight orchestras still holding
out. And, one needs only to hear
wee Bonnie Baker sing her "Oh,
Johnnie, Oil" in her cute voice to
understand why the majority of
bands feel they need a bit of femi-
nine allure in front of them to act
as spark plug.
Love Walks In.
Glen Gray with his Casa Iona
Orchestra, top cooperative group
which was organized more than a
decade ago in Detroit and now lures
Manhattan night life crowds across
the Hudson River to the Meadow
brook on New Jersey shores, has
never had a girl vocalist. Howard
Woods and his band, now at Rich
mond, Va, spurns girl singers with
Woods, who plays the celeste, and
Lou Valero, his guitarist, sharing
the singing.
Sammy Kaye and his swing and
sway players who started from Ohio
University, Guy Lombardo and his
Royal Canadians, Del Courtney, Ray
Noble and Ted Lewis are other No
bands who will have no part of q
girl vocalist.
Their argument against the girls
so Glen Gray will tell you, is that
the pretties are a disrupting influ-
ence when the musicians are on
their arduous tours and during their
nerve shattering hours of practice
The girls have so much of their
time taken up by rehearsals. and
performance that they meet few
outside people and invariably wind
up by falling in love with some one
in the band.
This makes the lucky in love
musician feel overly important and
he loses his esprit de corps which
is 50 necessary for good music from
a group" Gray explains. Then
the musician starts fighting for spe-
cial privileges for the girl and this
causes bad feeling. Sometimes the
band leader falls in love with the
girl vocalist and this is devastating
for she invariably tries to take ovel
his duties and boss the band.
The Other Side.
"On the road good travel accom-.
modations are often difficult to gel
for a woman, and also the boy
must be under continual restrain
to watch their language and man.
ners for practically "a hours a day
This giving up of relaxation ane
the usual informal male converse.
ton doesn't contribute to gooe
nerves and temperament"
On the other side of the argument
there is, as example No. /, 23-year-
old Bonnie Baker who brought
fame to her orchestra, Orrin Tuck
er's, and q fortune to a forgotten
song writer (Abe Olman) by singing
a song he had written quarter Of
century ago.
Miss Baker has her own way o1
keeping amicable relations with the
Tucker Orchestra. I'm not mar
ried, I'm not engaged, I'm not in
love-" she said. I'm just one OF
the guys in the band"
Probably the first top band leader
to use a woman vocalist, even be-
fore Paul Whiteman started fea-
turing Mildred Bailey more than II
years ago, is George Hall. His first
singer was FRITZ White, a cousir
of George Gershwin, and. his cur
rent one is Dolly Dawn, fetching
lass from Newark. Miss Dawns
name really is Teresa Anna Maris
Stable.
Il hired Miss White because Jack
Robbins, the music publisher, tolc
me pretty girl singer would stimu.
late business. She did," Hall said
eses BARRON. Page F-30