A web log, an æthereal scrap-book if you will, with a somewhat vintage flavour. News items, occurrences, experiences, thoughts and opinions related to Victoriana through to Fifties Americana can all be found here.
I say, it's been a while, hasn't it (where have we heard that before)?! Crikey, even the Blogger interface has changed since my last post! I've almost forgotten how all this works. I fancy I shall also have to do a bit of Spring cleaning around the old thing. Has it really been nearly 3 years?! Does anyone still do this blogging malarkey any more or has everyone moved on to InstaTwitFaceWhatsTok, wearing funny goggles and waving to each other over the aether? Anyway, do feel free to say "What ho!" in the comments if you are still following this cobwebbed corner of the Internet and although I won't threaten promise anything it is my intention to start posting again (in the same vein as before) as time, sources and health allows. In the meantime, it's good to be back!
With this blog very much back up and running again I think it's time for another selection of topical tunes to celebrate that especially spooky time of year - All Hallow's Eve! In fact, looking back at this blog's post history it seems to have been a frankly astonishing (and almost unacceptable) 8 years since I last did a Hallowe'en-themed entry, so let's put that to rights right now with the following five frightening refrains from the terrifying Twenties and thrilling Thirties.
We kick off with British bandleader Jack Hylton & His Orchestra and their 1929 recording Bogey Wail. One of four sides the band cut on the very un-Hallowe'en date of the 13th February 1929 it features a common motif of the time in the form of the Bogeyman, the æthereal monster hiding under the bed/ in the cupboard and which has scared the pants off generations of children around the world for centuries. This particular recently-uploaded video features some very well done period-style animation which just adds to the overall eeriness of the song.
Jumping forward eight years and something slightly different but no less scary is lurking in the cupboard in this next tune, consummately performed by another great of the British dance band era, Nat Gonella & His Georgians. The Skeleton In The Cupboard was originally recorded a year earlier by Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra for the 1936 Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven. The title song rightly went on to become a jazz standard, subsequently recorded by multiple artists over the years, but in the process left the likes of The Skeleton In The Cupboard slightly forgotten - an oversight I'm happy to try to rectify by including Nat Gonella's bouncy version here.
From Bogeymen to skeletons to zombies next in this 1934 recording by the now obscure American dance band leader Gene Kardos. With his orchestra Kardos actively recorded from 1931 until 1938 (with vocalists including Dick Robertson and Bea Wain) at which point he "retired" and went to work for the New York City postal department(!) while at the same time performing in a small Hungarian restaurant in the Manhattan suburb of Yorkville. Cut on the 26th June 1934, Zombie is an early example of the term appearing in musical form and was allegedly inspired by the pre-Code 1932 Bela Lugosi horror film White Zombie.
Another forgotten American band leader features in this next song from 1930, written, composed and performed by Wayne King and His Orchestra. Known at the height of his fame from 1931 to 1940 as "the Waltz King" after his most favoured variety of jazz he slowly faded into obscurity after the early 1960s and although he continued to perform at various venues around America right up to the 1980s he had by then, like Gene Kardos, gone into "early retirement" from the music scene and in between appearances ran a cattle farm and car rental business from his Savanna, Illinois home. Swamp Ghosts is a wonderfully typical example of early 1930s creepy jazz, helped along in this video by some fittingly ghostly images!
For the final tune in this post we return to Britain and another top band leader of the 1930s, Roy Fox and His Orchestra, with their 1934 offering The House Is Haunted. Sung by the equally-noted (and brilliantly named!) British vocalist Denny Dennis it is actually really more of a romantic ballad, as the lyrics suggest, but teamed with some superbly spine-chilling footage from the 1922 film Nosferatu it earns its place here as a suitably supernatural offering.
Well there we have it then - five spooktacular songs from the 1920s and '30s to hopefully help your Hallowe'en go with a swing. I hope you all have as enjoyable an All Hallow's Eve as it's possible to have in these trying times - do let me know what you have planned or what you got up to in the comments. Noseferatu happens to be my favoured choice for the Partington-Plans' 2020 Hallowe'en showing although it's facing some stiff competition this year, with my fiancée pushing for Pride And Prejudice And Zombies (I'm still not sure myself...) or the 2019 animated remake of The Addams Family. Maybe we'll end up doing a triple-bill, we'll have to see...
Well that's been rather a long break between posts, hasn't it? Must be some kind of record, I shouldn't wonder. Certainly longer than 3 months, at any rate, for which I must humbly apologise. "What have you been doing these last 3½ years?", (ahem!) I hear nobody you cry. Well sadly my health took a little bit of a dip again and I've been struggling on and off with it since 2018, but hopefully things will shortly be resolved once and for all as the quacks want to poke around my insides again (supposedly next month, although whether that comes off or not now I wouldn't like to say!) and fix things one way or another. In more positive news I got engaged in 2018 and am now a happily affianced chap (albeit currently living apart thanks to the prevailing conditions - health and other issues having also conspired to keep us from tying the knot and moving in together, although these two things are definitely on the horizon once my health is sorted and the current crisis is past).
It seems like now is a good time to revisit the dear old blog, seeing as we're all confined to barracks at the moment, and I'm glad to see it's still here and all in one piece (and not taken over by naughty hackers or some such!). Now I've just got to remember what all the buttons do. I've taken the opportunity to give it a little spring clean and may well tweak it some more in the coming days, so don't be alarmed if it changes again. Feedback is always appreciated too, so do let me know if you think anything looks a bit odd.
I won't condescend to repeat what we all know and feel about these unparalleled times (except just there!) as that's not what this blog is or ever was about. Instead I mean to pick up where I left off and (hopefully) entertain and enlighten you with vintage-related thoughts, musings and news items (if I can find any at the moment), with the odd personal post thrown in for good measure. I have been lurking on t'interweb all this time so have still been following all the wonderful [vintage] bloggers out there and I'm looking forward to taking my place amongst you all again. With my impending hospitalisation (and subsequent recovery) - not to mention the other forthcoming and far more welcome changes to my personal life - I can't guarantee for how long that will be but I hope to make the most of it in the meantime (lets face it, we've all got a lot of time on our hands right now!). In the long run I hope to keep Eclectic Ephemera running as it was in its heyday but if there's one thing the last 3½ years of my life has taught me it's not to make any promises, so we will see how things go. Pip-pip for now, though!
Apologies for another long period of radio silence (what is it this time, 3 weeks - but who's counting?). A little hiccough rendered me slightly indisposed again but now normal service can resume, although regrettably health will probably not permit my attending this weekend's Barrelhouse Stomp - still, there will be other events of that I have no doubt.
In the meantime here's a jolly little 1932 ditty by Roy Fox & his band featuring Al Bowlly and Nat Gonella, a favourite of mine which poses the musical question I'm often asked (and ask of myself). Cheerio for now!
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