Listen To A Love Song - Georgia Gibbs and Tony Martin
'Romance Is In The Air' Listen To A Love Song - 1946 Georgia Gibbs & Tony Martin Listen To A Love Song was a pleasant, innocuous CBS music program from the summer of 1946, starring Tony Martin and Georgia Gibbs, and featuring The Lyttle Sisters & Chorus and Albert Sack's orchestra. The announcing duties went to Jimmy Wallington, who assumes the persona of quite the wolf in promos for sponsor Bourjois, makers of Evening In Paris face powder. The shows that remain with us today, however, are mostly sans Tony Martin, due to his July 19th appendectomy. In his absence, Georgia Gibbs hosted the program alone, with a variety of guest stars, in shows that may have been slightly more raucous than the episodes with the ultra-smooth Martin. Guesting on the program, in Tony Martin's absence, are Phil Harris, Victor Borge, and Woody Herman, replacing Martin's dreamy, romantic vocal styling with their own brand of music and, at least in the cases of Harris and Borge, musical mayhem. The one show in this collection that does feature Tony Martin has no guest star, and is more of a straight program of exotic and romantic music. This episode may have been more in line with what the makers of Evening In Paris, "the fragrance of romance", had in mind when they signed on to have the debonair Mr. Martin represent their product. Listen To A Love Song first appears in the New York Times radio listings on April 20, 1946, replacing 'First Nighter' in the 7:30pm slot on Saturday nights. Its last appearance is October 5 of that year, being replaced by 'The Vaughn Monroe Show' the following week. The Sponsor: Listen To A Love Song was sponsored by Bourjois, makers of Evening in Paris cosmetics. The Bourjois brand was created in Paris in 1862, and exists to this day as part of the Coty group. Evening in Paris perfume was launched in France in 1928 with the name Soir de Paris, then translated to English and expanded to a complete line of cosmetics for the American market. In a 1972 interview, Patti Pickens (of the singing trio The Pickens Sisters) spoke about appearing with Odette Myrtil and Morton Downey on "The Evening in Paris Program" sponsored by Bourjois, whose product Ms. Pickens described as "awful, and they used to send us cases of it". The Guest Stars: The New York Times didn't always list the guest; these are the ones that they did mention, in episodes that may or may not be lost to history: April 20: Lena Horne (replacing Dinah Shore)* April 27: Bob Hope May 4: Jeri Sullivan May 11: Kay Starr May 18: Dinah Shore May 25: Dorothy Claire June 1: Jean McKeon June 6: Trudy Edwan (mis-spelled Trudy Erwin?) June 15: No guest listed; NYT's first mention of Georgia Gibbs June 22: Joan Barton and Harold Arlen June 29: George Jessel July 6: Patsy Boulton July 20: No guest listed, Phil Harris (available) August 3: Victor Borge (available) August 10: No guest listed, Woody Herman (available) * From the April 20, 1946 Chicago Tribune: "Dinah Shore's attack of laryngitis, which kept her off her own show Thursday, is affecting a new program tonight. She was to have been a guest of Tony Martin, who will open his new show, Listen To A Love Song, at 6:30 tonight over WBBM-CBS. Lena Horne will substitute." The Dates: For the Phil Harris and Victor Borge episodes, I have used the dates that are widely accepted by the internet. The Tony Martin episode is harder to pin down. Near the beginning, he states "This is Tony Martin and company, ready to bring you another summer evening of romance", so we can assume that it's late June to mid-September (summer in 1946 being June 21 to September 23). Radio listings for shows prior to Martin's appendectomy mention guest stars for every show except June 15 and July 13. If a scheduled guest was unable to appear, this likely would have been mentioned at the beginning of the show. If the episode was from after his return, we can assume that the August 17 episode would have had some mention of "Welcome back, Tony", so it may be an episode from August 24 to the end of summer. Of course, their last show, October 5, would have made mention of the end of the series. This is all conjecture, not conclusive, but the possible dates would seem to be July 13, August 24 or 31, or September 7, 14, or 21. At the close of the episode, there is a plug for the MGM film 'Holiday In Mexico', which premiered in New York City on August 15th and went into general release in September, so we can likely eliminate the July 13th date. Could the fact that Tony Martin sings Kurt Weill's 'September Song' also be a clue? If only we could tell if he sounds like a man with an appendix! When found on the internet, the date of the Woody Herman episode was '1946.10.08'. I believe that the month and date were transposed from the OTR norm of year-month-day, and this show is from August 10, 1946 rather than Tuesday October 8 (this was a Saturday show whose last appearance in the New York Times radio listings was October 5, 1946). Also, at the start of the July 20 episode Georgia Gibbs explains that Tony Martin's absence is due to having his appendix out the previous day, and in the Woody Herman episode she says that he will be back next week. This would have made four episodes that he missed, more in line with recovering from an appendectomy than if he was away nearly three months, until October 8. Still, some of the dates are in question, so if anyone can confirm or deny, leave a comment (Nightkey, I'm peering in your direction). The Extra Files: As a treat for Phil Harris fans, included are two of his best-loved songs, extracted from his appearance on Listen To A Love Song: a somewhat rowdy version of The Darktown Poker Club, and a particularly kick-ass version of That's What I Like About The South. Also included are six Georgia Gibbs tunes, and one Lyttle Sisters and Albert Sack medley, taken from the Phil Harris and Victor Borge shows. To keep these files in their proper sequence in the Internet Archive player, three letters and a dash are added to the beginning of the filename. If you add these mp3s to your music folder, don't forget to delete the 'ZZG-' or 'ZZL-'. For ease of listening, two audio files that originally comprised the Woody Herman episode have been combined into a single mp3. For archival completeness, and to deflect any complaints about audio tinkering, also included are the original 'Part 1' and 'Part 2' mp3s that were found on the internet. Take your pick. Links: If you need more Tony Martin, and wish to watch a fifteen-minute episode of his 1954 television show, click here . To listen to the above-mentioned interview with Patti Pickens of The Pickens Sisters, click here . To view the entire ITOTR collection, click here . Text © 2016 W.H.Wilson
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.