But the fact is Everything today is thoroughly modern Check your personality Everything today makes yesterday slow Better face reality "It's not insanity" Says _Vanity Fair_ "In fact It's stylish to raise your skirts And bob your hair!" Have you seen the way They kiss in the movies? Isn't it delectable? Painting lips and pencil-lining your brow Now is quite respectable Men say "It's criminal what women'll do" What they're forgetting is This is 1922!
I'll never forget Rudy flying out east to New Jersey in the early 70's to visit with two teenagers who (unlike everyone else listening to rock and roll at that age) were restoring old vintage phones, Victrolas and Panatropes, and listening to the crooner and his peers! That chance meeting left me with a life long love of his music and the '20s era
Have you seen *MAX RAABE?* He is like this Rudy Valee video but with our higher quality recording equipment. Actually like being in the audience hearing it live during the 1920's
it's been so long, but one thing I remember he said: "If there are any ladies in the audience that would like to get pregnant, please meet me in the alley after the show!"
Oh,, wow, that is pretty risque, especially for that time period. Incidentally, what were the '50s like? We all have our own vision of that era (especially those of us who were born decades afterward), but it must've been an altogether different experience if you actually lived through it. :-D
I saw the movie Vagabond Lover (1929) the film that made got Rudy Vallee into film. Big star already from Radio. He was appearing at another theater and made a short personal appearance. It opened in NYC to a sell- out crowd and seats were I think $5.00, an outrageous price at the time. All star cast Marie Dressler, Sally Blane.
His own band members encouraged Rudy not to sing. His quavering tenor annoyed them. But his sincerity and good looks endeared him to young ladies, and he was a hearthrob long before Sinatra or Elvis. He was in fact a good musician and very serious about the music his band played. Later, he had a prominent and singing role in several movies and played a key role in the Broadway musical and the 1967 movie, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Not bad for a guy who couldn't sing.
I will never forget inviting Rudy out from California to dinner in norhtern NJ. I was in high school then ... back in the early 70's ... listening to his songs on my Victrola while the rest of my classmates listend to the Dead! He is timeless!
This performance is from the film "Glorifying the American Girl." It was introduced that way as was other "stage" performances in the film by Helen Morgan and Eddie Cantor. On the other hand The RKO Rudy Vallee film "Vagabond Lover" did not in fact have an onscreen performance of the title song by Vallee, he just sung it under the opening titles.
I went to Yale at the same time as Rudy...I peed in his saxophone once as a fraternity prank....he was SO mad! Such wonderful days back in the Roarin' '20s.
@@rashione982: He seems to be taking his time replying to your question. Let’s see-he was at Yale when Rudy was, which means sometime between 1925 and 1931 … and here he is at age 113+ leaving a comment. Hmmm.
For those unfamiliar with Mr. Vallee at the top of his fame he was about as big as they get. Eddie Fisher did a version of this song as a salute to Mr. V that is just dynamite.
I don't know why, but I have always felt connected to this error of music... Is reincarnation a real thing??? I have no idea but this music seems to resonate with me and feels so familiar
That's a pretty good band, especially the drummer using the brushes. I had only seen Rudy in movies, like "The Palm Beach Story." I did not realize he was an instrumentalist also.
1924 saw Rudy come to London to play saxophone at the Savoy Hotel.Being an American he did not lack self confidence and persuaded the band leader to allow him to sing one night.After a couple of numbers the audience and fellow players stopped him and he was instructed to stick to his day job of playing the saxophone.Undaunted he again at a Zonophone studio session for Bert Firman's band attempted to sing,and once again his nasal,affectational style of singing was howled down.Ho hum!.
I remember hot wiring a model T back in the day and driving to the big city to see Rudy sing through a megaphone at a speakeasy owned by Luck Luciano..
The drummer behind Rudy Vallee is easily recognizable from clip to clip. Lol, I'm curious now: who was he, what happened to him, does he have descendants?
steffenLarsen54: The drummer was Ray Toland. Ray was six and half foot tall with size 15 shoes. A big guy! Rudy said Ray was "a happy-go-lucky" personality.
Watching these old clips of Rudy, I realized that the drum set didn't have a High Hat which was just being developed. Enter the High-Hat Goodbye Banjo.
I'm 13 and I only listen to 20s 30s 40s and 50s. If anything I listen to a little elton john or queen but that's the newest I listen too. Those were the best songs. I don't like songs like old town road or listen to singers like Eminem. Its too bad we don't have songs like these anymore
A crooner, not a belter. But he is singing without amplification here, and without his "signature" megaphone, indicating he could fill a house over the band, which surprises me.
They seem to have tried to "sweeten" the audience murmur at the beginning but all we hear is one guy saying "Rudy Vallee! Rudy Vallee!" over and over. Great song and great performance though I wish they'd miked him closer. Rudy is obviously about to perform a saxophone solo at the end. Instead they cut to the audience reaction. Why?
I agree! I'm no film or early sound on film expert, but I imagine it boils down to, "en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unaccustomed_As_We_Are" I'm guessing the sound guys were just new and figuring things out.
He has a nice, lyric tenor voice which I sometimes find surprisingly moving. I have read that he was a Yale man, a reactionary old Republican, and that his first wife, Jane Greer, divorced him after she caught him in bed with another man.
I can believe that. I have a feeling that he was a closet Queen. 👑 he was married a number of times but never had any children. the marriages were just to throw people off. nothing wrong with that, the times were just different back then.
@davidglow3 History teaches us that all empires decline. This is of course the case with Britannia. Nobody gives a hoot what the Savoy crowd thought, or how they came to be so misguided.
(prelude) Some girls are quickly forgotten And gone with the dawn of the day Some you'll remember Like last, glowing embers Haunting your memory and dreams For I'm just a vagabond lover In search of a sweetheart it seems And I know that someday I'll discover her The girl of my vagabond dreams (interlude) For I'm just a vagabond lover In search of a sweetheart it seems And I know that someday I'll discover her The girl of my vagabond dreams
Not bad but nothing compared to the hits of Dickie Crickets or Kid Jersey. Automobile, Aeorplane, Electric Tie Rack, Counterfeit Money Machine? Classics.
