The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-12-06

Take the subject of romance where Maestra Powell has been stymied two or three outstanding times. Or music publishing, Q pain ful incident best forgotten. Or bandleading where he got off on $25,000 worth of the wrong ofot and made an astounding recovery only to have destiny thwack him once or twice, just for remember ance.
 Take all of these, but always keep in perspective the indisput- able fact that Powell is one of oul better Tin Pan Alley composers one of our best glhtarlsts, Q finC fellow and really good band leader with a band expert enough to win the aeeolade of "The Sur prise Band Of l94l,"
 Sense of Hum0r
 A sense of humor is oil that saved Teddy from breeding complex, When he lost his first and hard-earned $25,000 he was torn between e swan dive from the George Washington Bridge or thumblng his nose at Lady Luck He chose the latter course and commemorated 1t with 0 ditty en- titled: "25 Gs In the Red
 But every little Febuff has It's place. Teddy's string started with romance. A transplanted Cali- forian (and therefore more Broad way" than any native New Yorker) Teddy quickly acclimated himself by developing an epic case of eir- cles under the eyes. The reason was a pretty chlorine named Ruth dree- ley,
 He met her when he came here with Abe Lymans band, Powell had started at $35 a week with Q small band and thought Lyman was crazy to offer him Sl25, It turned out that Lyman knew what he was doing for Powell wrote Q number Of hit tunes which re. bounded to the credit of the band, Two of them-"Give Me My Boots and Saddles" and Singing Tn the Saddle" = were definitely comboy. although Powell has never bee non Q horse.
 "Bewlldered"
 To celebrate his attachment for Miss Greeley, Powell wrote . song "BeWildered, also c good seller, Miss Greeley liked the song tre- mendously. As 1t happened she went to Chicago for a visit and heard Jackie Heller singing at a night club. She asked him to sing "Bewildered." He did. And so they were married.
 Powell took this setback In good grace. He wished the couple luck and turned his attention to a petite band singer, Judy Starr, They made lovely pair and Teddy dragged out his old guitar Che Is one of the three composers who use this instrumenD and dashed off Love Of My Life,' which ex- emplified the way he felt about Miss Starr.
 It also exemplilled the way Miss Starr began to feel about Jack Sherr, a musician. And so THEY were married.
 Since then Teddy has been con- stant to Marguerite James, lovely Grecian dancer. He has carefully refrained from writing her any songs.
 This is disappointment enough for most ordinary folk but Teddy went into bandleadering. He thought he could gather group of well-known musicians and that t would constitute good musical ag- gregation. It cost him.$25000 to find out that a band is like a football team and everybody on 1t can't be the ball carrier.
 He went back to composing music-arranging and guitar play ing and alnassed another bankroll This time he picked his musicians with regard to their ability to work as a team. The first engagement showed he had builded well. HG booked his band into the Rustic Cabin in New Jersey with a loca' theater engagement to follow al the fine figurt of s5,000 week This would have compensated fol the first fiscal fiasco.
 StiII Jlnxed
 The jinx was still around, how. ever. The Rustic Cabin burned