Inc Crosby:Vallee:Astaire:Hall
Release Date: 30 June 2006
Label: Naxos - Nostalgia / Naxos Nostalgic
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943284223
Genres: Jazz
Description
Hits of the 1930s Vol. 2: 1931-1933 Original Recordings After the boisterous high times that were the Roaring Twenties, the Thirties were an indescribable shock. The Great Depression gripped America. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco made the headlines. Breadlines, soup kitchens, hobo jungles and Hoovervilles. Busby Berkeley, King Kong, Fireside chats, Radio City and radio ... 1931 - Banks may have been failing in the United States (more than two thousand did), but skyscrapers were rising: work began on Rockefeller Centre, and the Empire State Building opened on 1 May. The tallest building in the world with 102 floors, it cost fifty-four million dollars. The price of bootleg liquor finally began to drop, and Massachussets presented the first resolution to end Prohibition. Bridge was the latest pastime, along with listening to free entertainment on the radio. The daily misadventures of Amos'n'Andy were so popular that movie theatres had to pipe the programme into the auditorium or risk losing their audience every evening at 7. And while the audience flocked to NBC, CBS would try out new talent such as Kate Smith and Bing Crosby opposite them. Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth was a bestseller in 1931 and a Pulitzer Prize winner the following year. On Broadway, the hits included Noel Coward's Private Lives, The Band Wagon with Fred and Adele Astaire, and George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing, the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. At the movies, the favourites included Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, The Front Page, Min and Bill, Street Scene and Delicious. 1931's musical favourites included a rhumba (The Peanut Vendor), a jazz classic full of drug culture references and nonsense lyrics (Minnie The Moocher), oblique references to economic conditions (I Found A Million Dollar Baby and Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries) and a couple of enduring standards (Out Of Nowhere, Dream A Little Dream Of Me). 1932 - Aviation was again in the news, directly and indirectly. Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic, 20-21 May. James G. Haislip set a new transcontinental record on 29 August flying from Los Angeles to Brooklyn in just over ten hours. And the 19-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped and found dead. Jack Sharkey fought Max Schmeling on 21 June and won the championship on a decision. Radio City Music Hall opened its doors on 27 December, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President. The name of his predecessor in the White House, Herbert Hoover, was already being attached to shanty towns (Hoovervilles) and newspapers used for covering (Hoover blankets). Popular books in 1932 included Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. On Broadway the hits were Dinner at Eight, Face the Music, Gay Divorce and a revival of Show Boat. Double features became an attraction to lure movie-goers; the hits included Bill of Divorcement, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Grand Hotel and The Big Broadcast. P
Tracklisting
Various
Wisdom:Grenfell:Murray
Whiteman
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
