Sharing time :
These girls are great!
Four sisters, all in their late teens and early 20s, when they began singing with Tommy Dorsey's huge war time band in 1943.
They were billed as "The Sentimentalists" which likely didn't help their name value when they left the band. However......
Ann, Jean, Peggy and Mary
These girls romp! They had a handful of hits with Dorsey, then left the band in 1946, retired in 1948, came back in '58. '59 and '62 to do three LPs and that seems to have been it.
I heard an interview with one of the 'girls' on line and the host asked her what kind of music she liked to listen to and her reply was immediate - "Swing music!" Go, Granny, go! I think she is about 85 y/o nowadays.
http://www.answers.com/topic/well-git-it
If you're set up for Itunes, you can pick up their hot LIVE broadcast version of "Chicago", along with their ultra hip "Sunny Side of the Street" and "You're Driving Me Crazy".
High energy, fun stuff and dance-able, especially the first two sides by the sisters. 40s rule!
I can't get over their near riotous version of CHICAGO on this broadcast. On the original record, they shared the tune with Sy Oliver, but here on the live broadcast, it is all theirs and they are pumping it out like wild women....hep new lyrics blended with the original lyric as previously written years earlier and at a clip that almost makes it hard to sing and breathe at the same time!
This is King Sisters quality four part sister harmony. A blend so tight you can barely hear their individual voices, even at the tempo chosen.
And the Dorsey band is just whipping it....with a frigging string section yet!
I must have played this 30 times over the weekend.
The Clark Sisters - 4 hep chix singing with Tommy Dorsey
Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy
The Clark Sisters - 4 hep chix singing with Tommy Dorsey
Last edited by Eyeball on Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Just a thought to say that it is a shame when the talent gets railroaded and winds up 'making records' instead of recording music.
The girls had it down perfectly in the 1940s. They come out of 'retirement' (I suppose) and record an LP with a rhythm section only! How cheap can you get, Dot Records?
Their next LP on DOT has them singing counterpoint via over-dubbing. Gimmicky, plus all that echo, plus...their style has been updated to reflect changes in vocal groups in the 1950s. No! They were fine. Not everyone had to sound like the Four Freshmen.
The third album for CORAL Records at last has a big band backing them up as the girls cover other vocal group hits of the past.
Tight four part harmony seems to fallen into disfavor in the 1950s. Pity.
I am going to play these again and I am sure they have some merit, but I wish these three LP 'reunions' had been as roaring and tight as their work with Tommy Dorsey.
Don't blame the girls, blame the times that were.
Samples from the second and third LPs :
http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Salute%20th ... 1921215076
LPs -
SING SING SING - DOT 1958
SWING AGAIN - DOT 1959
SALUTE TO THE GREAT SINGING GROUPS - CORAL 1962
The girls had it down perfectly in the 1940s. They come out of 'retirement' (I suppose) and record an LP with a rhythm section only! How cheap can you get, Dot Records?
Their next LP on DOT has them singing counterpoint via over-dubbing. Gimmicky, plus all that echo, plus...their style has been updated to reflect changes in vocal groups in the 1950s. No! They were fine. Not everyone had to sound like the Four Freshmen.
The third album for CORAL Records at last has a big band backing them up as the girls cover other vocal group hits of the past.
Tight four part harmony seems to fallen into disfavor in the 1950s. Pity.
I am going to play these again and I am sure they have some merit, but I wish these three LP 'reunions' had been as roaring and tight as their work with Tommy Dorsey.
Don't blame the girls, blame the times that were.
Samples from the second and third LPs :
http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Salute%20th ... 1921215076
LPs -
SING SING SING - DOT 1958
SWING AGAIN - DOT 1959
SALUTE TO THE GREAT SINGING GROUPS - CORAL 1962
Last edited by Eyeball on Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: The Clark Sisters - 4 hep chix singing with Tommy Dorsey
So they're the vocal group singing on Tommy Dorsey's "Sunny Side of the Street" - a sort of relaxed (perhaps more 'swinging') version of the Andrews Sisters. The 50s and 60s stuff is too 'smooth', but yeah, the 40s stuff is greatEyeball wrote:These girls are great! Four sisters, all in their late teens and early 20s, singing with Tommy Dorsey's huge war time band.
They were billed as "The Sentimentalists" which likely didn't help their name value when they left the band. However......
Ann, Jean, Peggy and Mary
These girls romp! They had a few hits with Dorsey, then left the band in 1946, retired in 1948, came back in '58. '59 and '62 to do three LPs and that seems to have been it.
If you're set up for Itunes, you can pick up their hot broadcast version of "Chicago", along with their ultra hip "Sunny Side of the Street"
Sorry, Haydn. I didn't see your post til now.
Yeah - I usually don't bash the Andrews Sisters b/c they were good and their music was fun, but they functioned at a certain level and the Kings and the Clarks functioned at another. A lot of it is simply the extra voice the Ks and the Cs carried. The As were just 3 voices. Much more harmony with 4 voices.
"Sunny Side" was their biggest hit. Like "Chicago", it's the work of Sy Oliver. The girls gave him a lot of credit for helping them.
I need to listen to the 50s and 60s stuff again. I remembered it as good, but on rehearing it recently (just in online samples) I was very disappointed in the outcome.
40s rule!
Yeah - I usually don't bash the Andrews Sisters b/c they were good and their music was fun, but they functioned at a certain level and the Kings and the Clarks functioned at another. A lot of it is simply the extra voice the Ks and the Cs carried. The As were just 3 voices. Much more harmony with 4 voices.
"Sunny Side" was their biggest hit. Like "Chicago", it's the work of Sy Oliver. The girls gave him a lot of credit for helping them.
I need to listen to the 50s and 60s stuff again. I remembered it as good, but on rehearing it recently (just in online samples) I was very disappointed in the outcome.
40s rule!
I wrote this on another forum, but might as well put it here with the other stuff.
----------------------------
The Clark Sisters aka The Sentimentalists joined the TD band at it's peak, but at a time, 1943, when there were no recordings being made. By the time they began recording with TD in 1944, the big band era was just beginning it's ending cycle. TD was just beginning to lose his audience as the war had ended and the Clark Sisters really scored only two hits that people remember. Additionally, for reasons unknown to me (and I have never seen this mentioned) Dorsey added a second vocal quartet called The Town Criers. No big band ever carried 2 vocal groups at the same time. Then the Clark Sisters leave the band, though I do not know why....maybe some other gig, but then, essentially never to be heard from again except for their 3 reunion LPs. Maybe they all got married or maybe they were working in clubs or early television or radio. I just don't know.
The one sister said they were hired by TD at 35 dollars per week, which was on the cheap side, but they needed the work really badly and knew they were in a good place. Dorsey gave a lot of attention to his vocalists and his previous vocal group, The Pied Pipers, has gone out on their own and were recording extensively for Capitol Records. But that didn't happen for the Clark Sisters.
If one TD biographer's numbers are correct, TD was carrying 46 musicians and singers and arrangers at the beginning of 1945. That was unheard of! The dance band itself was 17 pieces, but he had added an 18 piece string section and a harp! That 36 instrumentalists on the stage at one time, plus the Clark Sisters and a male and female vocalist. And all that at a dance, not a concert. Astounding.
Amusing story from that period - Nelson Riddle was arranging for TD at that time doing charts for this huge band with 18 strings and a harp....working like crazy. Dorsey sits him down and tells him that his work is fine, but not to spend so much time and effort on the strings 'because they're basically a tax dodge'! Hahahahaha! Guy's busting his butt and TD is just keeping the strings around until he doesn't need the tax break any longer.
----------------------------
The Clark Sisters aka The Sentimentalists joined the TD band at it's peak, but at a time, 1943, when there were no recordings being made. By the time they began recording with TD in 1944, the big band era was just beginning it's ending cycle. TD was just beginning to lose his audience as the war had ended and the Clark Sisters really scored only two hits that people remember. Additionally, for reasons unknown to me (and I have never seen this mentioned) Dorsey added a second vocal quartet called The Town Criers. No big band ever carried 2 vocal groups at the same time. Then the Clark Sisters leave the band, though I do not know why....maybe some other gig, but then, essentially never to be heard from again except for their 3 reunion LPs. Maybe they all got married or maybe they were working in clubs or early television or radio. I just don't know.
The one sister said they were hired by TD at 35 dollars per week, which was on the cheap side, but they needed the work really badly and knew they were in a good place. Dorsey gave a lot of attention to his vocalists and his previous vocal group, The Pied Pipers, has gone out on their own and were recording extensively for Capitol Records. But that didn't happen for the Clark Sisters.
If one TD biographer's numbers are correct, TD was carrying 46 musicians and singers and arrangers at the beginning of 1945. That was unheard of! The dance band itself was 17 pieces, but he had added an 18 piece string section and a harp! That 36 instrumentalists on the stage at one time, plus the Clark Sisters and a male and female vocalist. And all that at a dance, not a concert. Astounding.
Amusing story from that period - Nelson Riddle was arranging for TD at that time doing charts for this huge band with 18 strings and a harp....working like crazy. Dorsey sits him down and tells him that his work is fine, but not to spend so much time and effort on the strings 'because they're basically a tax dodge'! Hahahahaha! Guy's busting his butt and TD is just keeping the strings around until he doesn't need the tax break any longer.