The Sweetheart of Columbia Records

In 1926 she was heard by a record company executive and immediately signed up for an exclusive recording contract. Records were a natural for Etting, capturing that worm, intimate quality of her voice. This medium also afforded her a nationwide audience for the first time. 3

What really set Ruth Etting apart was her remarkable styling, the evolution and range of which are highlighted in this album. Her early recordings in 1926 featured a pleasing, straight-forward delivery that was noteworthy for its simplicity. Ruth personally disliked her recordings from this period..."I sounded like a little girl on those records!" she complained. She insisted that her voice was much deeper than indicated by her early records. By 1927 Ruth was experimenting with phrasing, as evidenced by the second chorus of I'm Nobody's Baby. In the late 20's, she had mastered the use of an emotional voice which she used to advantage in torch songs such as More Than You Know. Another Etting hallmark was changes in tempo-alternating between normal tempo, half-time or double-time to create and maintain interest. An early example of this approach is demonstrated by Maybe Who Knows. Ending songs with a prolonged fade was a technique that Ruth borrowed from Al Jolson - a friend she admiringly referred to as a "swell guy" and the per-former she considered "the greatest". Several selections in this album exemplify that ending. Side one of the album covers the 1927-29 period, marked by a spirit of experimentation and innovation. By contrast, side two focuses on recordings from 1931-35, a period in which the inimitable Etting style was polished to a fine art. 3

Mean To Me sold over a million copies in 1929, and I'll Get by (As Long as I Have You) got to number #3 on the charts. In 1930, Ten Cents A Dance hit #5 nationally, More Than You Know charted at #9, and Exactly Like You ended up at #11. 1931 saw her hit the charts at #4 with Guilty, and in 1932 she had a hit with Cuban Love Song which reached #10. In 1933 she saw Try A Little Tenderness reach #16 and in 1935 she held the #1 slot with Life Is A Song. Me!

1927
It All Belongs To Me (Irving Berlin) (charted at #17 in 1927)
Shaking the Blues Away (Irving Berlin) (from Ziegfeld Follies) (charted at #4 in 1927)
The Song Is Ended  (Irving Berlin) (charted at #7 in 1928)
Together We Two (Irving Berlin)  (charted at #12 in 1928)

1928
Love Me Or Leave Me (Kahn, Donaldson) (charted at #2 in 1929)

1929
I'll Get by (As Long as I Have You) #3 in 1929)

1930
Don't Tell Her What Happened - Ruth Etting (charted at #6 in 1930)
Exactly Like You - Ruth Etting (charted at #11 in 1930)
I'll Be Blue Just Thinking Of You - Ruth Etting (charted at #14 in 1930)
Just A Little Closer - Ruth Etting (charted at #10 in 1930)
More Than You Know - Ruth Etting (charted at #9 in 1930)
Ten Cents A Dance - Ruth Etting (charted at #5 in 1930)

1931
#4 with Guilty (charted at #7 in 1931)
I’m Good For Nothing But Love - Ruth Etting (charted at #7 in 1931)
Love Is Like That - Ruth Etting (charted at #5 in 1931)
Now That You’re Gone - Ruth Etting (charted at #13 in 1931)
Overnight - Ruth Etting (charted at #18 in 1931)
Reaching For The Moon (Irving Berlin) (charted at #6 in 1931)


1932
Cuban Love Song - Ruth Etting (charted at #10 in 1932)
It was So Beautiful - Ruth Etting (charted at #13 in 1932)
The Night When Love Was Born - Ruth Etting (charted at #14 in 1932)
When We’re Alone - Ruth Etting (charted at #8 in 1932)

1933
Try A Little Tenderness (charted at #16 in 1933)

1935
Life Is A Song (charted at #1 in 1935)

1937
In The Chapel In The Moonlight - Ruth Etting (charted at #20 in 1937)
 

"In the late 1920's and early 1930's Ruth ranked as the Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand of her era." 1

Then, Etting became a frequent guest on top radio variety shows, and then was given her own twice-weekly, fifteen-minute program, alternating in the same time spot on CBS with Bing Crosby's three-times-a-week program. 7

"On radio she had established herself as America's preeminent torch singer. In listener polls she alternated with Kate Smith as the most popular female singer on the air." 1

"It is the singers who have given classic pop its life - a life that goes beyond the notes and words on the sheet music. The singer's life infuses the life he or she gives the song and, in turn, the way the song touches on the life of each listener." 7

To further quote the liner notes, "This unique and passionately felt point-of-view distinguishes this entertaining source-book on American popular music from all others. By exploring the fascinating lives of the singers who created classic pop, we come to understand their influence on the development of one of the most enduring music forms of our century, and its substantial role in America's cultural history from the 1920's to the present day."

Cheryl, please listen to this song {the second last selection on the compact disc "Ten Cents A Dance"} and really pay attention to the words before you continue reading this story.

For example, I read each and every column by Walter Winchell - they became such good friends that Walter Winchell and his wife and Ruth Etting and her husband socialized together in New York!2

I also recall from the microfilm, one more time, that your cousin was regularly included in the syndicated columns of such luminaries of the day as Nick Kenny, Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell among several others.  You will notice that two of the co-writers of the song "Laughing At Life" were "N.& C. Kenny" - the syndicated columnist Nick Kenny co-wrote the very sensitive lyrics of this excellent song!

I will always remember one newspaper article in the microfilm which told the story of a young mother who was in the depths of despair during the height of the great depression.  She was having a great deal of difficulty coping with her problems and came very close to taking her own life.  Coincidentally, she heard your cousin's record played on the radio one day with its very poignant lyrics, some of which are as follows:

"Live for tomorrow, be happy today
Laugh all your sorrows away.
It's time to cheer up, the skies will clear up
And you'll find yourselp laughing at life."

You guessed it! After listening to the song, she reconsidered, decided not to take her own life after all and made the best of a bad situation.  She wrote Ruth Etting a letter telling how her recording of "Laughing At Life" actually saved her life and thanking her from the bottom of her heart.  I believe that your cousin wrote her back expressing her gratitude and wishing her the best of luck in the future.  I can feel a twinge of emotion even telling you the story. Ruth Etting was so immensely popular in her day that she influenced groups of people as well as individuals, as evidenced by the above stories, and in the process contributed very positively to the fabric of society - this in addition to having entertained millions upon millions of people during the late 1920's and early 1930's. What a legacy!  She was "a class act" all the way.

Prom Queen Host to Composer Irving Berlin, noted song writer, is shown chatting with Ruth Etting, singing star of NBC's Kellogg College Prom, at the Hollywood Studios where Ruth is making a picture. 12/23/1934

A quick review of her recorded output from these early years amply illustrates the richness and diversity of the Chicago musical pool of the late 1920's. Chief among Etting's musical assets at that time was her first accompanist, Rube Bloom, who was destined to have a long and respectable career as the writer of such hits as "Fools Rush In" and "Day In - Day Out." Bloom is heard here on five of Etting's sides, all made after she migrated to New York and took him with her. Another musician from her Chicago days who was fated to be a bright musical light was Alfred Newman, heard accompanying her on the very rare 1926 recording of "Nothing Else to Do." Newman went on to become the most awarded screen composer and conductor in Hollywood, but he started his career at the keyboard and worked with many top artists such as Etting and Al Jolson in the pre-Hollywood days. Still another of Ruth accompanists was Carl Hoefle, responsible in the 1940's for some of the early hits of Spike Jones. 8

Although Etting was by no means a jazz singer, she certainly had the benefit of some the best jazz sidemen of the day. Guitarist Eddie Land and violinist Joe Venuti are at the front of this group. Etting always moved gracefully and "in synch" with her accompanists, but there's an extra degree of fluidity on Venuti and Lang collaborations such as "Love Me or Leave Me," which has more than vaguely autobiographical tones as well. 8

What is even more amazing is that she could somehow impart that same vocal classiness when accompanied by the the ricky-ticky rhythms and blatant novelty tricks of bandleader Ted Lewis, as on "Keep Sweeping the Cobwebs Off the Moon." Anyone who could emerge from a Ted Lewis collaboration with grace intact must rate as a great artist. 8

For more on Joe Venuti see http://www.redhotjazz.com/venuti.html
Ted Lewis see http://www.redhotjazz.com/tlband.html

Ruth Etting performing with Nathaniel (Nat) Shilkret and His Orchestra. Shilkret was the musical director of RCA Victor Records during the late l920's and early 1930's.

By the late 20's, Etting's career was at its pinnacle. In 1929, she cut no fewer than 20 sides while keeping up her grueling pace of stage and radio work. She was then appearing in seven weekly performances of "Whoopee" with Eddie Cantor and was a regular guest on many early network radio shows out of New York. Eight of those sides from that last gasp of the Roaring Twenties are included in this collection. Especially noteworthy is the fact that half of those sides can easily be considered pop classics more than 60 years later: "I'll Get By," "You're The Cream in My Coffee," "Mean to Me" and "Button Up Your Overcoat." 8 Obviously, Etting was then one of the superstars of the musical world, courted by top songwriters and backed by first-rate musicians. And there was even more to come...but that's a story to accompany a later dip into the Etting recorded catalogue.  8

The Ruth Etting we will share on our record represents the artist at the very peak of her powers, all selections having been originally cut between the years 1929-1936. Several of the songs are enduring classics. In addition to the familiar title song, such selections as You've Got Me Going Again and Try A Little Tenderness are wondrously beautiful, particularly when performed as aristocratically as they are here. A Crosby classic, It's Easy to Remember, is sung most lovingly - recalling her long radio association with the beloved crooner - and what unalloyed pleasure to hear again It's Been So Long, from, appropriately enough, the Academy Award winning GREAT ZIEGFELD. 10

 

Ruth's radio appearances followed in greater and greater profusion. She performed under the commercial banners of Chesterfield, Oldsmobile and Kellogg at around the same time that Hollywood was luring the singer into yet another phase of her career. 10

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From Remembering Ruth Etting at http://members.home.net/palruth/

Ruth with Will Rogers and Jimmy Durante

A rare photo of Ruth as she appeared sometime after the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. The picture was taken in California and given, as it appears, to her driver in thanks for a vacation she had there. Her inscription reads: "Best Wishes to Mr. Fred Clampett in memory of a wonderful vacation with your Best of all cars 'Stutz Waymann.' Ruth Etting 'Sweetheart of Columbia Records' Ziegfeld Follies of 1927".

Ruth Etting was one of the most popular singing stars of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Florenz Ziegfeld, who glorified Ruth in the Follies, rated her as "the greatest singer of songs" that he had managed in a forty-year career. On radio she established herself as America's pre-eminent popular singer, continually voted in listener polls as the top female singer on the air. Even though radio and the recording industry were still in their early developing years, Ruth Etting recorded over 200 songs by such composers as Irving Berlin, Johnny Green, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. She was a regular performer on at least eight network radio programs. ebay listing

1934 Six page radio program from the Columbia Broadcasting System Network show COLUMBIA RADIO PLAYHOUSE broadcast from NY's Hudson Theatre starring Mary Eastman, Vera Van, Alexander Semmler, Evan Evans, Edwin C. Hill, Nina Martini, Colonel Stoopnagle & Budd, Ruth Etting, Albert Spalding, Jacques Fray, Mario Braggiotti, Big Crosby, Burns, Allen and Lombardo (George Burns, Gracie Allen and Guy Lombardo), Five Spirits Of Rhythm, Alexander Woollctt, Lucrezia Bori, George Jessell and Gertrude Niesen. Inside the program features a letter from CBS president William S. Paley, number selections, program notes and seating chart exits. The condition is fair with some surface wear and coloring in of some letters on the front cover. Fair postage added. Payment expected within ten days of auction closing.

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Sources:
1. Ginger, Loretta and Irene Who?, by George Eells, 1976
2. Joel Harris
3. Jim Bedoian, Take Two Records, 1981
4. The personal letters of Brail Wright, submitted by his daughter, Mimi
5. Jim Bedoian, Liner Notes from The Original Torch Singers, Take Two Records, 1980
6. Fred Hyatt, KPFK-FM Los Angeles, Liner Notes from Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Take Two Records, 1987
7. Discovering Great Singers of Classic Pop" by Roy Hemming and David Hajdu
8. Greg Gormic in Liner Notes from Ruth Etting - Love Me or  Leave Me", English Flapper Label, 1996
9. David Jamieson, Documentary Filmaker on Castille del Lago, 1999

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