In August 1984, pianist Tommy Flanagan performed in Dublin, Ireland, with Lindsey Horner on bass and John Wadham on drums. Horner was from New York and Wadham was from Ireland.

When the gig was over, their groove was so together that Wadham suggested they re-group to continue playing. Now, the result of that after-gig session has been released by Irelan…

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Pianist Red Garland’s heyday was in the 1950s, when he was a member of the first Miles Davis Quintet from 1955 to 1958 and was recorded as a trio leader and sideman for Prestige. In the 1960s, his popularity waned as his straight-ahead style of piano was sidelined by the changing pop and jazz landscape.

Mid-decade, he returned home to Dallas, Texas, and …

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I spent much of yesterday listening to the newly released special edition of the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. Originally issued on Dec. 3, 1965 in the U.K. and three days later in the U.S., the album has been newly mixed by Giles Martin (George Martin’s son) and Sam Okell (the Grammy-winning engineer who has worked on remixes for recent box sets centered on individual Beatles albums).

The sound on the new set is clean, distinct and lavish, with additional sonic information that will be new to the ear. The music is more alive and springs from the speakers, and the vocals are more dimensional and colorful.

For American consumers who grew up in the 1960s, you’ll be compelled to confront the fact that Rubber Soul issued by EMI’s Parlophone label in the U.K. was a very different product and experience than the one Capitol issued here. In short, the British Rubber Soul is a combination of the songs we listened to here on the album plus four that would wind up on our Yesterday and Today.

The strategy for EMI was simple: Record buyers in the U.K. were reluctant to shell out for albums unless there were 14 songs. In the U.S., we (or our parents) were willing to pay for 12. I’m not a stranger to both versions, though I grew up with the America Rubber Soul and still have my original LP and listen to it.

The American release (with toasted brown lettering on the cover) was like a great book you read in the quiet of a forest—each song was a chapter that had a specific order and vibe. The British version (with burnt orange lettering) seemed all over the place, stylistically. In essence, the U.K. LP was envisioned as an art-pop experience while ours had a folk-rock feel, largely to show-up Bob Dylan and win over his fans.

The U.K. vinyl opened with Drive My Car and included tracks such as Nowhere Man, If I Needed Someone and What Goes On. The U.S. vinyl omitted the songs above and added two songs pulled from the British version of Help! (I’ve Just Seen a Face and It’s Only Love).

The newly mixed Rubber Soul comes in 10 formats: standard 1CD and 1LP editions, 2CD and 2LP Special Editions, and 4CD and 5LP Super Deluxe editions. The collection will also be available on Blu-ray, featuring the new Dolby Atmos mix, high-resolution stereo audio and promotional films for Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out, alongside limited-edition orange vinyl and D2C exclusive Zoetrope vinyl editions.

To buy the Beatles’ new Rubber Soul, shop through the different formats here.

Today, something a little different. Here’s my Wall Street Journal piece on the album’s 50th anniversary in 2015:

***

The Wall Street Journal/Dec. 2, 2015

The Beatles’ ‘Rubber Soul’ Turns 50

Is it possible to make a better Beatles? Debating different versions of an iconic album

©By Marc Myers (all rights reserved)

For most American teens, the arrival of the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” 50 years ago was unsettling. Instead of cheerleading for love, the album’s songs held cryptic messages about thinking for yourself, the hypnotic power of women, something called “getting high” and bedding down with the opposite sex. Clearly, growing up wasn’t going to be easy.

Released in the U.K. on Dec. 3, 1965, and in the U.S. three days later, “Rubber Soul” remains one of the most critically acclaimed albums in rock history, influencing a generation of artists, including Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder. It also marked rock’s shift from formulaic pop to studio experimentation and high art.

But while “Rubber Soul” has been hailed as an epic masterpiece and one of the first fully developed folk-rock albums, the vision for the U.S. release wasn’t entirely the work of John, Paul, George and Ringo or the Beatles’ producer, George Martin.

The 12-song album issued in the U.S. was markedly different from the British version, which featured 14 songs. Though both versions shared Robert Freeman’s cover photo and psychedelic lettering (ginger here and burnt orange in the U.K.), the U.S. version dropped two songs and replaced two others.

Over the years, many U.S. critics have hailed the British release as the true masterpiece, a pure reflection of what the Beatles and Mr. Martin intended. But the U.S. version of “Rubber Soul,” with its more consistently poetic sound and narrative, is arguably the more powerful statement. It’s also the version that changed the direction of American rock.

The invisible hand behind the U.S. release belonged to Dave Dexter Jr., the head of Capitol’s international A&R in Los Angeles. Dexter and his team set out to keep the compelling folk narrative running throughout the album.

In 1965, Capitol had contractual permission to alter British versions of Beatles albums for the U.S. market. The agreement dated back to 1955, when British EMI purchased Capitol. At the time, EMI didn’t want to lose U.S. executives and figured they’d know best how to milk their own market.

Once the Beatles were signed to Capitol in late 1963, Dexter was put in charge of reprogramming U.K. versions of their albums for the U.S. market. U.S. versions usually used 11 songs to stay within licensing budgets. The dropped songs were then used on subsequent albums released only in the U.S.

But by late 1965 the Beatles had a problem. Bob Dylan’s album “Highway 61 Revisited” and the single “Like a Rolling Stone,” with its socially conscious folk-rock theme, was resonating with draft-age listeners in the States. To remain relevant, the Beatles needed a more mature, acoustic album.

Fresh off their successful stadium tour in August ’65, the Beatles returned to London and recorded “Rubber Soul” in just four weeks. When the recording was completed, a master reel was shipped to Dexter in Hollywood.

Earlier that fall, Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, spoke with Voyle Gilmore, Capitol’s head of U.S. A&R. Gilmore, in turn, wrote a memo to Capitol president Alan Livingston and Dexter urging that the cover and tracks for the American “Rubber Soul” be identical to the British version.

Dexter pushed back, explaining that a 14-song album was out of the question due to costs and that the covers should be different. Capitol compromised by featuring 12 songs instead of the customary 11 but retained the same covers.

Then Dexter went to work on the U.S. track list. Instead of just dropping two songs, he replaced the raucous “Drive My Car” and cornball “What Goes On,” which opened sides 1 and 2, respectively, on the U.K. version.

In those critical lead-in slots, he inserted “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “It’s Only Love”—acoustic songs he had cut from the British version of “Help!” for its U.S. release. Next, he dropped the alienating “Nowhere Man” and mystical “If I Needed Someone” from “Rubber Soul.”

All of the changes were brilliant and resulted in a more cohesive album. But when the U.S. version was released, the Beatles voiced displeasure to EMI, which demanded that Dexter no longer work on Beatles releases. In early 1966, Dexter was replaced by Bill Miller, who programmed the next two U.S. releases—“Yesterday and Today” and “Revolver.”

Today, most Beatles fans view Dexter, who died in 1990, as a villainous rock-hating executive who resented the Beatles and whose programming approach diluted the band’s U.S. releases.

Whatever Dexter’s shortcomings, the Beatles albums he programmed for Capitol are the ones American teens heard and loved. As for “Rubber Soul,” it may have been his greatest achievement, turning an unfocused album into a taut acoustic story of self-awareness and romantic confusion. It also provided millions in the U.S. with their first gentle glimpse of adulthood.

***

Here’s the full British version of the newly mixed Rubber Soul at YouTube…

Here’s Giles Martin on SiriusXM in July talking about the Rubber Soul project…

Following Ray Charles’s success in 1962 with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and Charley Pride’s first top 10-hit by a black country star in 1966, a greater number of black R&B singers took a shot at covering the Nashville sound. Among them was O.C. Smith. [Photo above of O.C. Smith]

After country composer Bobby Russell wrote Little Green Apples in 1968 for Roger (“King of the Road”) Miller, three artists took a shot at the song that year: Miller, pop vocalist Patti Page and Smith, whose version was released by Columbia that September. His soulful version reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and R&B charts and sold a half-million copies by November 1968.

Here’s the single…

Born Ocie Lee Smith in Louisiana in 1932, Smith moved with his parents to Little Rock, Ark. After his parents’ divorce, he moved to Los Angeles with his mother. Smith graduated with a psychology degree from Southern University and then joined the Air Force, where he began entering talent contests.

After his discharge, he wound up on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a CBS radio and TV show. His appearance led to a contract with Cadence Records in 1955. But his attempts to become a star went flat after his singles for the label and MGM failed to chart.

The poor showing wasn’t due to a lack of talent. Smith not only had movie-star looks but he also had a warm, deep velvet voice perfect for jukebox singles. Much of the material he was given to record was shot-in-the-dark junk.

Count Basie saw Smith’s promise and hired him to tour with the band starting in 1961, replacing Joe Williams who had left in January of that year.

Last week, I featured three video clips of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross on Britain’s ITV in 1962 singing three Basie songs from their album Sing a Song of Basie, released in 1958 (go here).

Last week, Peter Coppock found another ITV clip featuring Lambert, Hendricks & Ross singing the Basie band arrangement of Everyday I Have the Blues, featuring O.C. Smith as lead vocalist.

Here it is (and I’ve added it to the original post)…

Smith remained with Basie until 1965, and recorded for other labels but without breakthrough hits. Just as Columbia was getting ready to release him from their contract in 1968, Smith recorded Little Green Apples as a hail-Mary attempt to land a hit. The song not only was a massive triumph for Smith, it also earned composer Bobby Russell the 1969 Grammy for Song of the Year.

Smith then recorded songs that had middling success on the Billboard adult contemporary, R&B and pop charts but nothing matched Little Green Apples.

But fame did not elude Smith. In the 1980s, a little-known regional dance movement called Carolina beach music (or the Carolina shag) was revived.

The Carolina shag is believed to have originated along the Atlantic coast in Cherry Grove Beach, S.C. during the 1940s. It then received its name at Carolina Beach. The dance was an off-shoot of the Carolina Jitterbug and its predecessor, the Little Apple—the white version of the Big Apple, which had originated in Columbia, S.C., in 1937.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Carolina beach music became popular again at coastal clubs and boardwalks as uptempo Motown and other soul records were released.

Here’s a collection of 1960s Carolina beach music…

Back then, the Carolina shag was a partner dance done to an uptempo beat and a merger of the stroll and swing. The shag became the official state dance of South Carolina in 1984 and the official popular dance of North Carolina in 2005. Shag contests began in the early 1980s.

Here’s what the Carolina shag looks like…

O.C. Smith had many Carolina beach hits. The biggest was Brenda. Here he is performing the song at the Third Annual Beach Music Awards, on Nov. 19, 1988, at Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University…

Smith’s 1986 album Whacha Gonna Do is worth a listen. It was a huge success on the charts and featured Carolina beach hits: Brenda, You’re the First, My Last, My Everything and Spark of Love. Other shag classics by Smith include The Best Out of Me, After All Is Said and Done, Doin’ the Shag, I’m in Love and Save the Last Dance for Me, which topped the local Rhythm n’ Beach Top 40 chart.

You can listen to Smith’s iconic catalog on his Beach Music Greatest Hits album on Spotify.

O.C. Smith died on Nov. 23, 2001, of a heart attack at age 69. Shortly after his death, South Carolina governor Jim Hodges proclaimed June 21, 2002, “O.C. Smith Day.” Smith was posthumously elected to the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame in November 2002.

Bonus: Here’s O.C. Smith’s complete Together (1977) album…

Here’s Smith on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971…

And here’s a collection of Smith’s beach music, one track at a time (this album is killer; to listen on Prime or buy via digital download, go here)…

For much more on O.C. Smith, go here.

Growing up in the 1960s in Manhattan, I was frightened of three things: Billy, the neighborhood bully on his red bike; something my teacher called an A-bomb; and my dad (he had a bit of a temper). Somewhere between the playful 1960s and today, pre-teens and teens stopped experiencing fright. For them, it’s now terror, which has rendered Halloween both quaint and preposterous. [Photos above and below by Marc Myers]

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It’s the last weekday of the month, which brings us to my monthly roundup of fabulous new jazz recordings. Here are 15 spectacular new albums:

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Three children’s TV shows stand out for their strong commitment to jazz: Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and the Charlie Brown holiday specials, of which there were 13 classic ones out of 53 created over the decades.

Vince Guaraldi scored or composed original music for five of the Peanuts specials during his lifetime (he died in 1976). The one that stands out, of course, is A Charlie Brown Christmas Special (1965). Often overlooked and certainly on par with the latter is It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966).

As Ted Nesi pointed out last week in an email…

“Ever since the lost soundtrack for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was released in 2022, the music is everywhere on social media this time of year. Even my wife pointed out that every other Halloween-themed Instagram post seems to use music from the album.

“Everyone associates the songs with Vince Guaraldi, but the soundtrack was orchestrated by John Scott Trotter. He was Bing Crosby’s arranger for years, including on the 1942 and 1947 Decca recordings of White Christmas, the preeminent Christmas song. [Photo above of John Scott Trotter]

“When he took on the Halloween project, Trotter probably never imagined he’d wind up the orchestrator of music that would rival White Christmas in popularity.

“By the way, that’s a great jazz sextet on the Great Pumpkin soundtrack—Guaraldi on piano with Monty Budwig on bass, Colin Bailey on drums, John Gray on guitar, Ronny Lang on woodwinds and Mannie Klein on trumpet.” [Photo above of Vince Guaraldi]

So, in celebration of Halloween two days early and the 60th anniversary of this album, here’s the entire jazz soundtrack with incidental music for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown…

A year before the Brecker Brothers launched their band in 1974, Michael and Randy made up the front line of the Horace Silver Quintet. Trumpeter Randy Brecker had been playing with Silver since 1968 and Michael Brecker since 1972.

On March 27, 1973, the quintet performed at Boston’s Jazz Workshop at 733 Boylston Street. The Jazz Workshop was a wonderful…

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By the time Frank Sinatra joined the Tommy Dorsey Band in January of 1940, Dorsey had been leading a swing orchestra since 1935 and had been performing professionally since 1919 in eastern Pennsylvania. [Photo above of Dick Jones]

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Peggy King, a jazz-pop singer who worked with the Charlie Spivak, Ralph Flanagan and Ray Anthony big bands before making an early leap to television, where her charm and fashion-model looks transformed her into a singing sensation at the dawn of the 1950s, died yesterday, on Oct. 25, at age 96.

Her name may not be familiar to most jazz fans, but in television’s infancy, most shows were hosted by name singers and comedians. The TV and movie industries were competitive rivals then, jockeying for Americans’ spare time. As a result, film actors weren’t given TV host slots. Singers and comedians were better suited for long stretches of live TV and they were far more entertaining than the actors might have been, drawing larger audiences.

In the case of male comedians, they couldn’t do the show alone. Gags and bits ran only so far. Besides, married couples at home tended to be more loyal to shows that featured couples. King was among the most popular of these female co-stars, a girl-next-door type who was enormously talented as a singer and actor, and who became known mid-decade as “pretty, perky Peggy King.”

She appeared opposite Mel Torme on his first show in 1952 and George Gobel from 1954 to ‘57. Then she was a frequent guest on virtually every other host’s show before she married in 1961. But King wasn’t just a pretty face. She often sang a solo on each show as well as a duet with the host or a famous guest, ranging from Frank Sinatra to Tony Bennett.

Here’s my complete 2015 interview with King (a special thanks to drummer Bruce Klauber for alerting me to King’s passing):

JazzWax: Where did you grow up?
Peggy King: In Greensburg, Penn. My parents told me I was “kiddie singing” the minute I could talk. I was an only child and my real name was Peggy King. Many people thought I had changed it. When I was in my teens, I found out I was adopted. I never thought of tracking down my real parents, since my adopted parents were such good people. My birth mother did try to make some contact with me, but I wasn’t interested. It was really too late by the time I found out.

JW: Who was your birth mother?
PK: My adoptive mother had three sisters. One was much younger and could sing. By the time I was in my mid-teens, I figured it out based on her voice. My Aunt Gladys was my mother. My parents—Margaret and Floyd—were married only four months when they adopted me. During the Depression, a lot of adoptions took place as families helped care for children of relatives who couldn’t play that role emotionally or financially. It was a matter of survival, and those who had the means to raise a child to keep it within the family often stepped forward.

JW: What did you tell your Aunt Gladys?
PK: In my teens, I had to sit my birth mother down and tell her that we weren’t going to be reunited. I told her, “You’ve always been my favorite aunt. You can’t be my mother.” She understood. What I got from her was her singing voice.

JW: Did you sing in school?
PK: Yes, I was in all the school plays. Singing to me came naturally, like waking up. I only had had two lessons—that was it. When I was 12 in 1942, we moved to Ravenna, Ohio. My father had been offered a good-paying job during the war at the Ravenna Arsenal. He was in charge of handling the ammunition. There wasn’t a day growing up that I didn’t worry about him. After we moved, I sang in a choir at Kent State, which was a four-mile bus ride away from our house. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up a classical singer, but we didn’t have any money for lessons.

JW: What did you do after you graduated high school?
PK: I graduated at age 16, and when I was 18, I went to Cleveland to sing on the radio during the day and at the Cleveland Hotel nightclub at night. The best part about the gig is that I was given a free room at the hotel. Without that room, I wouldn’t have had enough money to send home to help my parents. Then one night in 1950, Charlie Spivak came into the club and offered me a job.

JW: Was it tough working in that band?
PK: The work was nonstop. The only problem with Spivak was that he was getting a divorce and he hated women. Tommy Leonetti was the band’s male vocalist, and I learned phrasing from him. I always had this ability to learn lyrics and songs instantly. I had total recall when it came to lyrics, which was a great help later in live television. A year later in ‘51, I joined Ralph Flanagan’s orchestra. Someone on the Spivak band had come from Flanagan’s orchestra and told me there was an opening. Frankly I was tiring of Charlie. All of the work with Flanagan was on the road, which was relentless. Flanagan was an odd guy, though. He had his own plane—he didn’t ride with us. When we played Atlantic City, he’d go up in his plane and throw promotional leaflets out to let people know about the gigs.

JW: How long were you with Flanagan?
PK: A year. While I was with Flanagan, we were playing the Paramount Theater in New York when I heard that Mel Torme was holding auditions at a nearby studio for a TV show. He needed a girl singer. When the Flanagan band took a break during the feature movie, I went up to the studio to audition. They had already dismissed the tall girls, since they didn’t want a singer who towered over Mel. When it was my turn, I came into the studio and Mel and another guy were in the control booth. I sang The Boy Next Door backed by the group Mel had planned to use on the show—the Red Norvo Trio. When I finished, this guy came out of the booth, picked me up and kissed and hugged me. He said, “I’m Hugh Martin and I co-wrote that song. Besides Judy [Garland], I’ve never heard anyone else sing it like that.”

JW: You got the job?
PK: I did. The Mel Torme Show went on the air in 1952. All I had to do is pick up the rest of my clothes back home in Ohio. At the time, I was dating Knobby Lee, one of Flanagan’s trumpet players. When Knobby and I returned to New York, we got married. For me, I wasn’t madly in love but I needed someone around me for safety. I couldn’t be in New York alone. I was very young—19. But the marriage was a mistake. We married in ’51 and stayed together for two years.

JW: You were on TV early.
PK: It was the dawn of television, and there was no model for what we were doing. The first Mel Torme Show was on NBC. It was live, often on the fly and pretty scary. They didn’t’ know what they were doing. The cameramen were all staring at each other. But it all came together pretty fast. Mel (above) was a control freak, which helped a lot. He showed me what to do, and within a week I was comfortable.

JW: How were you able to ease into TV so quickly?
PK: Without the two previous years of steady big-band experience, I doubt I could have handled the fast-paced pace of that TV show. Red Norvo liked my singing and helped me a great deal. Mel had been my hero in the late ‘40s. He was young, but he had this sophisticated, relaxed jazz sound. We got along great. Mel and I sang a duet on each show and I sang one alone. I’d often learn which songs we were going to sing the morning of the show.

JW: How did you wind up at MGM?
PK: In 1952, I went into New York’s Blue Angel for a run. One night, Arthur Freed, the head of MGM, came backstage and offered me a contract. I knew it was a big shot for me, so I told Knobby and he came out to L.A. with me. There was a gap between the date of the offer and the start date, so I went out on the road with the Ray Anthony Orchestra. Being alone out on the road was tough.

JW: What did they teach you at MGM?
PK: I had the best vocal coach there—Bobby Tucker. My voice always had a young sound, and Bobby said, “Let’s stick with what you’ve got since others don’t have it.” Everyone was wonderful to me at Metro. Tucker was very supportive and said, “I can’t teach you anything you don’t already know,” so he focused on teaching me every major standard in the American Songbook. I also worked with speech coach Gertrude Fogler to get rid of my Pittsburgh accent.

JW: Who were your friends at MGM?
PK: I met Debbie Reynolds almost immediately. I was having a tap lesson and she was, too. But when I opened the box with my shoes, I saw that my dog had chewed up the laces. Debbie offered me a pair, since we were the same size—5½. We became good friends. She asked me where I was staying. I told her at a hotel. She invited me to stay at her house for a couple of weeks. I was there for two months until I found a small room in Beverly Hills. MGM was in Culver City, and I couldn’t drive. Fortunately, Robert Burton, an extra who lived in my building, gave me a lift each day.

JW: You were constantly being compared to Judy Garland, weren’t you?
PK: I was. Everyone thought I looked and sounded like her. I guess I did a little, but it wasn’t intentional. That was just me. I actually met Judy just after I signed my contract. I was in the MGM commissary getting lunch and sat down at the same long table where she was eating. She turned to me and said, “Are you the one who looks like me?” I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Yes, I guess so.” She said, “You don’t look like me—you’re really pretty.” I felt terrible for her. I paused, sort of taken aback, and then said, “I think you’re pretty.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. The poor woman had no self-esteem. The studio had destroyed her to control her.

JW: What did you do at MGM?
PK: I was an extra, but I was constantly the last girl cut from a film. Then in 1953, when my contract was up, I heard about a new local NBC TV show where the girl had to be able to sing and interact with the audience—sort of like a singing Vanna White. It was a two-hour live show, and I got to sing. I had my own dressing room and everyone in town was watching me on TV. I was thrilled.

JW: What was your big break?
PK: One day I got a call from someone I knew who was rehearsing The Bing Crosby Show. The girl singer had become ill, so I ran over to fill in. When I rushed into the lobby, I asked the first person I saw where the show was. I said, “I’m looking for Mr. Crosby.” The guy said, “Well, you’ve found him.” He didn’t have his hairpiece on and I thought he was the janitor. On the set, John Scott Trotter was the orchestra leader. He said, “What do you want to sing?” I said let’s do two Rodgers and Hart songs. When I was finished, Bing said, “Wow, you’re as good as Uncle John said you were.” I felt so good about that.

JW: What happened after the rehearsal?
PK: When I returned home, I received a call from John. He said he wanted me to audition for George Gobel, who was starting a Saturday night network TV show. I flipped. I said, “I’m not experienced enough to do that.” John said, “Don’t worry, I’m the orchestra leader. You’ll be fine. I want to see you at the studio.” So I went. George played guitar, sang country songs and made jokes. He was a natural for TV. The writers wrote wonderful stuff for him. He was loose and I was just the right height—5 feet, 1½ inches. I got the job. On the show, George wore lifts, so I was slightly shorter. I was always afraid he was going to fall but he never did.

JW: Were you nervous as the co-star of The George Gobel Show? Even though TV was in its infancy, it was a live network show reaching millions of people.
PK: By the time I got there in ‘54, I was at home in front of a TV camera. For the next 2½ years while the show was on the air, I performed with every major actor and singer, from Jimmy Stewart to Frank Sinatra. It was a major network show and the ratings were huge. One of the show’s writers came up with “Pretty Perky Peggy King” and it stuck. I didn’t mind. My aim was to save enough to buy my folks a house—and in 1954 I did.

JW: They must have been overjoyed.
PK: They were. My father wasn’t from a fancy family. He worked his whole life. Mother’s parents had died and she was raised in an orphanage. When I became famous, people followed them down the street. My fame scared them and I felt bad.

JW: You must have known Dinah Shore while at NBC.
PK: I did. My dressing room was right next to hers. She was so lovely and very much a lady. She could not have been kinder to me. If she passed my dressing room while I was rehearsing, she’d always pop in with a kind word. She’d say, “I love how you did this or that.” It’s kind of mind-boggling that Dinah would say that to me.

JW: In the early days of television, you must have been something of a celebrity in Los Angeles, as the suburbs and TV viewership grew.
PK: It’s funny, I actually was. Debbie Reynolds and I remained friends after I left MGM. One night, while I was still on George Gobel’s show, Debbie, Jane Powell and I went to the movies. As we walked down Hollywood Boulevard to the theater, people on the street recognized only me. Back then, people lived for TV. It was new and convenient and more intimate than the movies. The three of us laughed our heads off. Debbie and Jane were happy not to be recognized.

JW: You also recorded singles and albums for Columbia. How did that happen?
PK: After three months on the George Gobel Show, Mitch Miller called to sign me to Columbia. I recorded my first album in Hollywood with Jerry Vale—Girl Meets Boy (1955), with the Percy Faith Orchestra. At that point, I had been on TV and in plays as well as in films. I had done it all and was very comfortable in the recording studio. When we sang songs from the album on TV, Jerry was a little nervous. He had never been on TV before. We did our duets holding hands.

JW: You’ve always had a young-sounding voice.
PK: Yes, there was always a teenage quality to my voice. People told me that all the time. It’s probably because I never smoked. I like that people thought I sounded like the girl next door. That’s the way I was portrayed on George’s show. I might add, George was the dearest man in show business. He wasn’t in love with himself. The first month we were on, when people in the press were calling me and my picture was in one of those Hollywood magazines, George said, “You’re really getting famous.” He never felt angry or envious. He knew that the more popular I became, the more popular his show would become.

JW: You also worked with your share of top comedians. Was that tricky—making sure you didn’t laugh too soon?
PK: Jack Benny was my favorite. The strange thing is he was anything but tight with his money. He was a very generous guy. I did a five-week tour with him. He thought I was a good straight-man. It was hard not to laugh at Jack.

JW: How did you avoid doing that and blowing his jokes?
PK: It has to do with being an actress. You develop a sense of timing. I learned my timing from Jack and Bob Hope. The trick is to listen very carefully to what’s being said, even though you’ve rehearsed it. When Jack or Bob delivered the line, I had a way of counting to myself, “One, two—then I’d make a little face,” which would compound audience laughter. You have to put the punch line out of your mind and imagine you haven’t heard it before. Otherwise, you’d instinctively telegraph it. Working with Jack was a little harder than most because he made those great faces on his own. So I had to avoid laughing and wait until he finished completely before making my face. I also did this with TV, in general. I just thought of it as radio with everybody staring at you. I got to the point where I didn’t think about the lens much. I just thought about what I was doing.

JW: I’m curious about early television. How would a typical week on the Gobel show go?
PK: We’d come in on Tuesday afternoon and just read through the script. Then we’d take the script home and work on it at home. I’d fall into it and read my lines out loud to remember them. Once I saw a script and went through it, I knew it cold. My brain just worked that way. On Wednesday, we’d start blocking—marking off where each of us would stand, who’s going to talk when and what’s going to happen next. Everyone had a different color tape. Mine was red and George’s was blue. On Thursday we’d work with John Scott Trotter and just the band’s rhythm section. Friday was a full dress rehearsal, which left me with very little time to get a dress fitted. Eventually I had a model with my proportions stand in for the fittings. Saturday was the show, when we often had a guest.

JW: Did you ever sing a duet with a famous guest and the other person forgot a line?
PK: Plenty of times. I can remember staring into famous faces and suddenly saw nothing there. Singing a duet is like performing in a live play. You don’t have a chance to take anything back. In radio at least you have a script in hand. On TV, I’d see panic crawling across the other person’s face. That’s when I’d try to throw them a line. Or I would sing the line right in their face or I’d sing their line. I was so used to looking out for trouble and thinking on my feet.

JW: You started appearing on Steve Allen’s shows in the late 1950s. What was he like?
PK: Steve was a wonderful, generous man. My favorite clip was Steve introducing me on my birthday in 1958. Steve was more of an actor than George [Gobel]. I always felt like Steve’s little sister. He was so natural. Maybe I learned that from him. I’d try to imitate the way he behaved. I also learned timing from Steve—how long to hang onto something and how long to stare at someone before moving on. Steve was so cool and natural it was almost like he was going off to sleep. Bing was like that. It’s the look in their eyes. Zero panic, full control.

JW: You were in Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). How did you meet them?
PK: I used to open for Bud and Lou when they did their act. They had tracked me down after they saw me at MGM. They asked me to go on the road with them. Nobody was better at getting audience to commiserate with him than Lou. That wasn’t easy, and I had to watch that with George. Linger too long with that audience glance and it looks like you’re making fun of the other person. What I finally ended up doing is making myself seem younger than George. This made me George’s little sister rather than his love interest. I did it without being sexy and avoided flirting with him.

JW: Did you ever want to host your own show?
PK: No, I never gave it much thought. Dinah was unhappy doing her show. In fact, I never knew anyone who was happy headlining a TV show. They never could relax because everything was on their shoulders. On the George Gobel Show, it wasn’t my show—it was George’s. So I could be more relaxed. At one point NBC talked to me about a show. I told them I just liked being the girl on the show. When I saw what George had to go through, I realized that you didn’t have a life at all. Many ended up drinking. My father was an alcoholic and I wanted to stay away from that.

JW: Your recordings for Columbia were straight-up pop, yet you could swing.
PK: It was my big band experience. I wanted to record jazz, and you can see that I could do it when I was on Bobby Troup’s Stars of Jazz in ‘58, when I was engaged to Andre Previn. I always had that touch of jazz. The problem is Mitch Miller wanted me to stay a little girl. Mitch would give me these awful songs and tell me no one else could sing them. I learned later that they were actually the songs nobody else wanted to sing.

JW: So you were trapped.
PK: For whatever reason, Mitch didn’t think of me as a woman but as a child. Mitch wanted a commercial sound from me and that was it. He had arrangements written that confined me to the next Judy or a 14-year-old. Jo Stafford once told me that Mitch was tough to handle on a record date. You simply didn’t have any say. When I recorded for him, I’d do four songs in three hours and there were no second takes. It had nothing to do with me. There was Mitch and there was the rest of the world. Once you signed a contract, it was hard to get out of it. Not until I was able to get away from Columbia and record on my own was I able to sing jazzier material.

JW: How did you meet your husband, Sam Rudofker?
PK: One day in 1960, when I was performing at Mr. Kelly’s in Chicago, columnist Irv Kupcinet brought him in. Irv said later it was like watching someone fall off a roof. He told me Sam (above) said, “She’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” I think Irv did that deliberately, to fix us up. I knew within a week that I was going to quit the business and marry him. In 1961 we married.

JW: Were you happy to give up show business?
PK: Frankly, I had had it up to here with the business. I wanted a family. After I met Sam, I knew he was the one. He had this thing about me. I just knew I’d be safe and happy with him, that he’d give me the freedom to be me and that he’d be nice to my parents. Sam owned After Six, the Philadelphia formal-wear company. In his hands, I knew I’d be in good care. He had two boys when I met him. I knew I wanted to have children with him. I was 30. Sam was so charming. The best man I ever knew. Nothing icky about him. He had quite a vocabulary and was witty. We had two children—a son, Jonathan, and a daughter, Suzy. I lost Jonathan about 10 years ago. He was a brilliant violinist. My daughter is wonderful and beautiful.

JW: How would you prefer to be remembered?
PK: As an actress who sings. I’d like to think someone would read that.

Here’s Peggy King on the Steve Allen Show in 1958 (the sound is a little rubbery)...

Here’s Peggy King in 1955 on What’s My Line? (at 19:15)...

Here’s King on The Stars of Jazz in 1958…

Here’s a career-spanning video...

And here’s Let’s Fall in Love on the 2015 album Songs a la King (Fresh Sound), with producer, arranger and pianist Andy Kahn, bassist Bruce Kaminsky and drummer Bruce Klauber…

When I was a kid living in Manhattan’s Washington Heights in the 1960s, nothing was more important than candy. TV came in at No. 2. And then spaghetti. Adults went to bars; kids went to candy stores. Many of those neighborhood shops back then had counters with posted stools that had seats that twirled all the way around. Perched on one, you’d order a ch…

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For many listeners, jazz is seasonal. Some albums sound better in the winter than the summer or spring v. fall. It’s a mood thing. In warmer weather, we’re on the go to get outside. In cold weather, we nest, and our minds are a little more open.

One of the albums that has always been on my autumn list is The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt, a Verve recordin…

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Starting in 1952, drummer and percussionist Larry Bunker recorded on more than 1,000 sessions over the course of his career. Half of them were jazz dates, the rest were pop sessions. Yet he recorded only one album as a leader—Live at Shelly’s Manne-Hole in November and December 1963..

Three albums in all were released in all from the gig. The one recorde…

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Yesterday, I posted on Dave Lambert & Co.’s demo recording session in 1964 that was filmed by documentarian D.A. Pennebaker and two of his associates. One of the songs recorded but not captured on film was Old Folks…

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A bunch of years ago, I stumbled across a 15-minute black-and-white film called Audition at RCA directed in 1964 by D.A. “Penny” Pennebaker. Also known as Lambert & Co., the film features jazz vocalist Dave Lambert and four young singers he assembled for an audition at RCA studios in New York with hopes of recording a bunch of singles. The group—Mary Vonnie, Sarah Boatner, David Lucas and Leslie Dorsey—was formed shortly after the disbanding of Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan in late 1963.

Over the past few years, I’ve featured posts on the film as I’ve gathered more and more information from different sources. A few weeks ago, I interviewed Pennebaker for my “House Call” column in The Wall Street Journal. While I had Penny, I asked him about the making of Audition at RCA.

Rather than post his comments as a sole entry today, I’ve decided to unite all of the information from earlier posts into a single oral history so it will be a one-stop read. Interestingly, Penny filmed Audition at RCA just before embarking on Dont Look Back, his Bob Dylan documentary, in 1965.

First, let’s begin by looking at Audition at RCA so you have context…

Here’s the complete story behind the film, featuring my interviews with director D.A. Pennebaker, RCA producer George Avakian, singer Mary Vonnie and Dave Lambert’s daughter, Dee Lambert...

D.A. Pennebaker: In 1964, I already knew Dave Lambert and George Avakian. I had been a fan of Dave’s recordings for years, ever since I arrived in New York from Chicago in the 1940s. And I knew George because I had and still have a substantial collection of 78s that he knew about.

In 1959, fellow filmmaker Ricky Leacock and I joined Drew Associates, a journalistic film production company started by Robert Drew while he was at Life magazine. Ricky and I left Drew Associates in 1963, and a few months later we formed Leacock-Pennebaker Inc. We decided to build a film production studio at 56 West 45th street in the Diamond District.

Jewelers had been in the space but were robbed, so they decided to move out. After we got the 9th floor space, it was just an empty floor. As with any place you move into, you think you’ll be there forever so we had big plans.

While we worked on the rooms, Bob Van Dyke, our audio genius, introduced me to Dave. I told Dave what we were doing and Dave said he was a carpenter and would be happy to help us finish it. Dave turned out to be first-rate. We built little editing rooms and a place for a mixing studio. Another friend, Mario, who also did carpentry, helped, too. We finished the place in about a month.

At some point in ‘64, Dave told me he had assembled a new vocal group and that they were going down to RCA to see about a record deal. I know Dave was keen on recording his material as a series of 45s because singles would make him more immediate money.

Dave said his group, Lambert & Co., was going to record a demo of the songs they had rehearsed to see what RCA thought. I told Dave I’d go down and film them. He liked the idea.

George Avakian: From the film, it looks as if I had asked Dave to meet me outside the studio and that I was championing the session. In truth, I found out about the session only an hour or so before and had agreed to tag along in case I could be of help.

Pennebaker: What intrigued me about the film project was this combination of the “wild rabbits” and the “hutch rabbits.” The hutch rabbits were the studio musicians who lived in “cages,” got fed every day and were told when they’d be playing. They had steady work and were well cared for. The wild rabbits, by contrast, were the ones who came in with new ideas for a record. They faced more risk and higher stakes. I thought it would be interesting to film the two groups of “rabbits” working together.

Avakian: From the film, it looks like RCA Studios at 155 East 24th St., between Lexington and Third avenues. The guy in front of the dials is Ernie Oelrich, a superb engineer. The musicians were terrific. Bassist George Duvivier was an absolute rock in the studio—he knew exactly what to do the first time, perfectly. The same was true of pianist Moe Wechsler and drummer Gary Chester. They understood Dave’s music right away.

Pennebaker: There were three of us operating cameras that day—me, Nicholas Proferes and Jim Desmond. Several years earlier, Albert Maysles and I had created a compact 16mm camera that could be mounted on your shoulder. The portable camera eliminated the need for a bulky tripod and made the film more immediate, fluid and journalistic.

Nick was in the control room with his camera and Jim and I were in the studio shooting Dave and his singers. There was no real direction from me, which is also how I did Monterey Pop in 1967. Everyone was a free spirit to go with his gut. Then we edited the results later.

We never told anyone there to do anything for the camera nor did we say a word to them. Sarah took off her shoes on her own, and in one scene they moved around in a circle without coaching so Dave could see the musicians or so he could be front and center.

Avakian: The guy I’m standing next to in the booth is Steve Sholes, the director of RCA’s pop music department. The guy I’m talking to without a jacket is Ben Rosner, an RCA promotion man. He’s probably the one who got Dave the audition, and Steve probably set up the session. [Photo from left, Steve Sholes, George Avakian and Ben Rosner]

Pennebaker: As I was filming, I found myself most interested in Sarah, the African-American singer. There was something about her that was intriguing. My camera tended to be on Sarah. Desmond’s camera wound up on Mary Vonnie.

Mary Vonnie: Back in 1964, I had just graduated from high school in New York when a friend who knew Dave told me Dave was looking for singers to start a vocalese quintet. My friend thought of me because he had heard me fooling around singing Annie Ross’s solos in school.

I was very familiar with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. I said I’d love to do it, so my friend arranged a meeting. I auditioned at Dave’s apartment, where I was hired and met the other singers. Dave didn’t say much when we rehearsed. He taught us to sing like an instrument. I was a trumpet. He was a sax. He taught us syncopation and how to sing just before or just after the beat.

We did some gigs in and out of town to get started. Some of them were at clubs in upstate New York, near Niagara Falls. I remember we went out in a boat to see the falls.

Then came the audition at RCA. As we all drove over that day, Dave was cheerful as usual and not noticeably anxious. We recorded six songs—Individualist Waltz, Think of Me, Leaving, Old Folks, Blow the Man Down and Comfy Cozy. All except Old Folks were written by Dave.

Standing around the microphone, each of us sang our parts and kept it tight with the other singers. It’s kind of an inside-outside focus of attention. You have to be very intent on precision but at the same time blending with the others while riding the music.

I don’t know what happened with the audition and why we didn’t get a chance to make a record. Dave never explained the outcome. I guess I assumed we’d just do another demo, but we never did. I do know that the group didn’t have any official breakup. I think we were on hold for a while. I’m sure Dave would have followed up with other record companies if he could, but he might have been sick or out of commission at some point. I know he really wanted to do an album featuring his own compositions.

Avakian: I’m not sure why the audition didn’t result in an album. I think the reason was that Dave didn’t have enough new original material for a full 12-inch LP. At any rate, the decision to do the album would have been Steve’s. I was in charge of the overall A&R department at RCA, but Steve was in charge of the pop division. I wouldn’t have overruled him or stood in the way of what he thought was best.

Pennebaker: I have no idea why it didn’t happen. They may have disagreed over whether it should be a series of singles or an album. Or perhaps RCA didn’t see the commercial value. Either way, it was sad.

Vonnie: Dave was such a pleasure to work with, always funny and laid back and amazingly gifted. He was an inspiration to all of us, not only for his outstanding musicianship but the way he was able to make magic happen while teaching us his songs. It seemed like the sound he wanted was effortlessly transmitted direct from his head into our voices. To this day I remember the songs and I sing them or parts of them from time to time.

Pennebaker: Dave was killed in October ‘66 helping a guy change a flat on a Connecticut highway. It was terrible news. After Dave died, Art D’Lugoff, who owned New York’s Village Gate nightclub, held a benefit there. I couldn’t go. Someone knew we had shot the film and asked if they could show it. But we never edited the film after Dave was turned down by RCA.

Nick and I edited all the film and got it to the lab for a print the next morning. After Art showed the film, a guy came to me, a reporter from Germany, and said he’d seen the film and liked it and wanted to take it back to Europe. So we gave him a print.

Vonnie: The last time I saw Audition at RCA was at a memorial for Dave in 1966 at the Village Gate. I will never forget the great time we had together.

Pennebaker: At the end of the film, we saw them off. They all went home and we went home. The people in the studio, the “hutch rabbits,” stayed in the studio.

Vonnie: In the years that followed, I was in a theater company in Los Angeles called The Colony that staged performances at the Studio Theatre Playhouse. Then I was in a completely different field, working with people to enhance their lives. Today, when I listen to music, I like the Klazz Brothers, and I love Latin and salsa, which I learned to dance to at the Palladium in New York.

Dee Lambert: Though I lost my dad’s manuscripts for the original songs you hear in the film in a fire in 1979, I did have transcriptions made from the originals and filed copyrights for them. I have lead sheets of the songs as arranged, as well as take-downs done by a Los Angeles service (from the soundtrack of the film).

Pennebaker: Our cameras loved Dave’s group because they so obviously loved what they were doing. Each of the singers was so different. Sarah and Mary loved Dave, and each of the singers had their own spirit. They were the wild rabbits and they didn’t give a shit about anything.

JazzWax note: Mary Vonnie and David Lucas are still with us. Dave Lambert died in 1966. Leslie Dorsey became a cab driver in Boston and was killed in a robbery in 1988 (go here). I couldn’t find much on Sarah Boatner, the daughter of composer Edward Boatner and half-sister to Sonny Stitt.

JazzWax clips: Here are five of the six songs recorded that day, including Old Folks which was cut from the final film...

Here’s Individualist Waltz...

Here’s Think of Me...

Here’s Leaving...

Here’s Old Folks...

And here’s Comfy Cozy...

To read more about Dave Lambert, his daughter, Dee, remembers her dad here.

Thank goodness for Europe. Without the intellectual-minded TV producers and movie directors there in the late 1950s and 1960s. we would never have as much film as we do of the artists we love most. [Photo above, from left, Dave Lambert, Annie Ross and Jon Hendricks of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, courtesy of Getty Images]

And thank goodness for YouTube for providing a home for that footage so the world can view them and be better educated on the genius of jazz artists’ exceptional talents.

In June 1962, the Count Basie Band was on tour in England with singers O.C. Smith, Irene Reed, and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Each member of LH&R had pioneered vocalese—substituting vocals with nifty lyrics for jazz instrumental solos.

Collectively, through their commercial success and visibility, LH&R also helped change perceptions of integrated groups during the Civil Rights era.

By June 1962, Ross had left the group and was living in her native London—where she would open the club Annie’s Room in 1964. While Basie was touring in England, she agreed to jump in.

Ross had faced problems with U.S. officials over her heroin habit and failure to finalize her green card for naturalization. She was replaced in the U.S. in May 1962 by Yolande Bavan.

On June 6, the band and its special guests taped an hour-long set on ITV Granada in London. The program was broadcast on June 8 in northwest England and the Isle of Man, between Great Britain and Ireland.

LH&R’s recording relationship with Basie began in 1957, when they recorded Sing a Song of Basie. Produced by Creed Taylor for the ABC Paramount label, the record featured LH&R taking well-known Basie recordings and, through multi-tracking, vocalese lyrics—with Ross handling the trumpets, Hendricks the saxes and Lambert the trombones. In effect, LH&R became a vocal version of the Count Basie Band.

The album was released in 1958 and nominated for a Grammy in 1959. In 1998, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In a moment, three videos featuring LH&R at their peak, with Count Basie on piano off-camera and Charles “Ike” Isaacs on bass and Sonny Payne on drums.

To read my interview with Jon Hendricks, go here.

To read my interview with Dee Lambert on her father, Dave, go here.

And to read my interview with Yolande Bavan, go here.

Now the YouTube videos…

Here’s LH&R singing Frank Foster’s 1961 updating of Buck Clayton’s arrangement of his 1945 composition Avenue C…

Here’s Bob Mersey’s arrangement of J. Mayo Williams’s composition Rusty, Dusty Blues, made famous by Basie in 1943…

Here’s Buck Clayton’s arrangement of Basie trumpeter Ed Lewis’s composition It’s Sand Man, first recorded in 1942…

Bonus: Here’s O.C. Smith with Lambert Hendricks & Ross and Count Basie and his rhythm section off-camera…

Here they are in July 1961 at the Antibes International Jazz Festival in France singing Everyday I Have the Blues…

And here’s Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan on Jazz Casual, aired in February 1963, with Gildo Mahones (p), George Tucker (b), Jimmie Smith (d) and Pony Poindexter (ss), singing This Could Be the Start of Something Big…

Walking through Central Park yesterday afternoon, I noticed two things: The trees were still about 80% green but the smell of autumn was in the air. Typically, New York’s trees aren’t in full color until the very end of October, sometimes lingering into the first week of November. If there’s a heavy wind accompanying a storm, we’re out of luck. [Photo above in Central Park on Friday and images below by Marc Myers]

The other event that stood out was the musty smell of fallen leaves. The scent triggered a craving for Brach’s classic candy corn—those triangular three-color kernels of pure sugar and flavoring. For some reason, candy corn takes me back to childhood faster than any other treat.

Soon, the smell of leaves will be joined on the Upper West Side by crisp air, low-50s temperatures, the lingering scent of onion bagels baking at bagel shops and, as the air cools off further, the smell of fireplaces ablaze in historic landmarked brownstones.

For now, it’s early autumn in New York, with lemony sunlight, cool shade, early sunsets and the anticipation of explosive color in Central Park. Next week, I’ll have photos of the city’s best-kept Halloween secret, and it’s not the parade in Greenwich Village, now a tourist trap.

Here’s guitarist Al Caiola in 1955, with Ronnie Ball (p), Clyde Lombardi (b) and Kenny Clarke (d) playing Early Autumn…

Here’s the Double Six of Paris in 1962…

And here’s Woody Herman live on TV’s Jazz Casual in 1963 (move the time bar to 12:44). The saxophone section: Woody Herman (as); Sal Nistico, Bobby Jones and Jack Stevens (ts); and Frank Hittner (bar). The tenor solo is by Jackie Stevens, with Nat Pierce on piano and Jake Hanna on drums…

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Movies streamed this week and loved: The Ninth Gate (1999/free at Tubi); Modi: Three Days on the Wings of Madness (2025/Amazon Prime); and Frank Sinatra: All or Nothing at All (2015/Netflix).

A beautiful new ballad from Portugal. Last week, I heard from songwriter Gonçalo Serras in Portugal. He alerted me to Maria, a new song about his mother recorded by Fritz Kahn and The Miracles. It’s now available on streaming platforms and is the first single from an upcoming EP called 50th, due Dec. 30, on Gonçalo’s 50th birthday (ah, youth).

As Gonçalo told me, “I began wondering about the young woman my mother had been before I arrived—about her ambitions, the dreams she might have pursued and the different life she might have lived if she had made other choices.”

Here’s Maria…

Snaps: Towers (in Manhattan’s Tribeca and Midtown neighborhoods)…

On Nov. 17, 1965, WGN-TV in Chicago televised Julie: Something Special, an hour-long musical-variety show starring jazz vocalist Julie London. Produced by WGN, the show was re-broadcast later on stations such as WOR-TV in New York and KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. [Photo above of Julie London]

That year, London had released four albums on the Liberty label—Our…

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Ernie Wilkins was a grand-slam arranger who wrote for all of the major bands in the 1950s, from Count Basie to Harry James. These orchestras were in their prime then, still playing swing but delivering it with a massive kick. They could handle Wilkins’s charts because their musicians were seasoned and top-notch. [Photo above of Ernie Wilkins]

Among Wilk…

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A few months ago, two clips went up on YouTube that have been licensed by the U.K.’s ITV. They feature Count Basie and His Band, with appearances by blues shouter Jimmy Rushing and vocalist Sarah Vaughan, backed by her trio. [Photo above of Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie, courtesy of Getty Images]

Both artists were at their peak, and their sterling perfor…

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