Snapshot in Prose: censorship

10/28/2010 cladriteLeave a comment

For those who think outrage over lyrics and rhythms in popular music began with those decrying gangsta rap, with Tipper Gore‘s penchant for warning stickers, or even those fuddy-duddies who were outraged by the onstage antics of Elvis Presley and other rockers in the 1950s, what follows may come be an eye-opener For, while Snapshot in Prose usually profiles a popular Cladrite Radio performer at a particular point in his or her career, this week, we’re sharing a 1934 essay from Popular Songs magazine bemoaning the intrusion into the popular music and radio broadcasts of the day by would-be moral arbiters armed with newly sharpened censor’s scissors.

It’s interesting to note that the article mentions the “purification” of movies, too, given that 1934 was the year that Breen Production Code began to be strictly enforced by Will Hayes and his associates.

CENSORSHIP—that eugenic offspring (with full benefit of clergy) of ambitious political campaigners, zealous church organizations and dozens of clamoring societies for the prevention of this and that—is becoming quite a bouncing boy.

In fact, if some real restraint isn’t soon put upon his boisterous activities, he bids fair, like the well-known boomerang, to bounce back with such force one of these days as to bop his fond parents a swell sock on the noggin.

Authors of books and plays have long suffered the mailed fist of censorship, whenever their stories became a bit too spicy or made the fatal error of adhering too closely to the facts of life. But the real Roman Holiday of censorship didn’t really begin until the advent of, first, the movies and later, the radio.

The screen is rapidly becoming as pure as the driven snow (before it drifted!) and, for the most part, babies are permitted to arrive only after a full nine-months of legal marriage. Even then, either the stork or the family doctor’s little black bag must be given the full credit for this blessed event.

Censorship has always exercised strong control over the radio. Ten years ago, for instance, you could sing heigh-de-ho on six days of the week, but a singer had to own a hymn book to get any ether time on Sunday.

But the censors weren’t satisfied. Nay, nay, neighbor. They decided to clean up the songs on the other six days of the week as well. You couldn’t tell the world at large that “Nobody Knows What a Red-Headed Mamma Can Do,” even on a Saturday night.

Oh no! That would never do. Someone might begin to wonder just what she could do, and where would that lead us mentally? It simply wasn’t good for us to hear about a little lady who left her conscience and her mind behind when she stepped out.

And so it has gone, from year to year, with various songs justly or unjustly getting the axe from self-appointed censors.

Recently, just when radio censorship was quieting down—and movies were getting the brunt of it from the Decency Leagues—five of the most famous orchestra leaders banded together for the announced purpose of protecting the public’s delicate ears from offensive lyrics.

Some leaders called this treachery within the ranks. Others said it was just a publicity gag and would soon be forgotten. But the committee, headed by Richard Himber and including Paul Whiteman, Rudy Vallee, Abe Lyman and Guy Lombardo, is still with us.

After all of the censoring boards finish, one after the other, with their cutting and rehashing of our songs, here is little wonder that present-day vocalists have to resort to such lyrics as poo-poo-pah-doo, heigh-di-hi, boo-ba-ba-boo and la-de-da-da-da.

While censorship itself is no joke, some of the results attained by it are amusing, if not amazing. A current popular song is entitled, “I Can’t Dance, I’ve Got Ants in My Pants.” Can’t you just imagine the censor’s look of horror when that one was played and sung for the first time? After wracking their brains for some way in which this wordage could be purified for public consumption, they decided it would be okay, believe it or not, for the song to be sung: “I Can’t Dance, I’m Afraid to Take a Chance.” Maybe that’s an improvement, we don’t know.

Snapshot in Prose: Richard Himber

10/08/2010 cladriteLeave a comment

Richard Himber‘s not as well remembered today as other band leades of the 1930s, but he was plenty big in his day. His music certainly stands up, and we regularly feature his recordings on Cladrite Radio. When this Snapshot in Prose first saw the light of day, in 1935, his orchestra was holding forth from New York’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, and his popular radio program was flying high.

As the story reveals, though, Himber’s origins were more modest than that. A precocious youth, he got his first professional gig playing violin for a Coney Island dance orchestra at the dewy age of 13. Not a bad jump, from Coney Island to the Ritz-Carlton.

P.S. Read all the way to the end of the story, and you’ll find a couple of our favorite Himber recordings awaiting you.

In the best Horatio Alger tradition, the young hero always trudged along a dusty road armed with a knapsack and the grim determination to (a) make his own way in the world; (b) pay off the mortgage on the old homestead; and, (c) always be valorous in his endeavors.

The only difference between the Alger character and Richard Himber, young composer-conductor of the Studebaker Champions program, is that there was no dusty road and Himber carried a violin in place of a knapsack.

Leaving his home in Newark, New Jersey, at an age when most youths are deciding whether to take algebra or commercial arithmetic in the first year at high school, Himber decided that music needed him and that he could get along very well without an academic education.

Apparently he was correct, for at the age of 13 he strolled down to Coney Island, played his fiddle for a cafe manager and, presto, was hired to play with the orchestra. The summer of 1920 over, Dick Himber came to New York with three months of orchestra playing under his belt and very little else.

He was broke, 13 years old, and in a strange town. His pride prevented him his returning to his home in New Jersey. By nocturnal visits to small restaurants where he played for the diners, he managed to pick up enough money to exist. It was while playing at a small restaurant for whatever change the patrons cared to give him that he was heard by Sophie Tucker.

Shortly afterward the famous Sophie went on a vaudeville tour, taking with her the original “Five Kings of Rhythm,” destined to set a new style of music making. Richard Himber, 14 years of age, was the conductor and violinist!