Search - Benny Goodman :: Benny's Girls: Goodman's Rare Songbirds

Unsung Canaries

A. Clark | Rome | 07/19/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Although there were singers that Benny Goodman admired (i.e., Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald), he didn't like having vocalists on his payroll. During the Thirties and Forties, being hired and fired by Goodman was almost a rite of passage for any canary worth her salt. "Benny's Girls" is an interesting collection of some of the many women who sang for the King of Swing. Although Goodman went through half a dozen vocalists after Helen Ward quit the band in 1936, the Thirties are represented by only two singers: Ann Graham (1934), who sounds like Ward with a Southern accent, and Louise Tobin (1939), an underrated, under-recorded singer who'd also worked with Jack Jenney and Will Bradley. Three of the four Tobin tracks are disposable pop. "Untitled Blues", however, reveals a singer who belongs in the same class as Kay Starr and Teddy Grace, but whose potential was never realized. Bypassing Helen Forrest, Peggys Lee & Mann, et al., the disc jumps ahead six years to Jane Harvey, a cabaret singer who could handle sweet and swing with equal aplomb. "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" and the bluesy "Two Little Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread" make one wish that she'd stayed with the band for a couple more recording sessions. Harvey is followed by Kay Penton, whose discography is entirely too small, and Dottie Reid, who sounds like a young Peggy Lee. Liza Morrow, yet another Goodman Girl of 1945, had attracted attention with her distinctive sound the previous year, when she filled in for Lee Wiley at Eddie Condon's Town Hall concerts. Her big hit with Goodman, "Symphony", isn't on this album, but "That's All That Matters to Me" is a particularly fine performance. Eve Young, a singer in the Doris Day mold, and Nancy Reed, the lone Fifties representative, round out the album. While I don't think anyone really needs tunes like "Scatterbrain" or "Sweet I've Gotten on You" in their collection, it's a nice compilation and puts the spotlight back on some worthy singers who might otherwise be overlooked."

Gordon Anderson does it again!

Bop Man | USA | 06/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The "Truth" about this CD is: It is actually a compilation of songs that have been OVERLOOKED on previous CD reissues. "Scatterbrain", a hit for BG in 1939, being a perfect example. This CD is like, "Fill In the Blanks." As a performing artist, Benny Goodman never missed, and this CD proves it. These songs are actually taken from a list of tunes that I sent to Gordon Anderson because he did such a good job of bringing back forgotten music. The reason why various songbirds are featured here is because some of them didn't last long, but collectively they recorded enough tunes to fill a present-day CD."