Jay Wilbur, Solo Recordings

“When That Man Is Dead and Gone” (1941)

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“When That Man Is Dead and Gone.” Words and music by Irving Berlin (1941). Recorded in London on April 9, 1941 by Elsie Carlisle with orchestral accompaniment directed by Jay Wilbur. Rex 9960 mx. R-5566-1.

Personnel: Jay Wilbur dir. ?Alfie Noakes-?Chick Smith-t / tb / 3 cl-as-bar / Charles Trimby + 1-vn / p / g / sb / d / Elsie Carlisle-v

Elsie Carlisle – “When That Man Is Dead and Gone” (1941)

“When That Man Is Dead and Gone” is a song as edgy as it is catchy, insofar as it expresses a wish that a specific human being will cease to be. We are generally discouraged from making bold predictions that a bright future will definitely result from anyone’s demise, so Irving Berlin’s lyrics seem ethically transgressive and therefore artistically daring. The song’s message is made infinitely more powerful by the fact that its audience is expected to easily identify who “that man” is and thereby to realize that they have had the same dark fantasy themselves. “That man” is never named, although the reference to a “small moustache” makes it clear that he is Adolf Hitler.

“When That Man Is Dead and Gone” was published and released early in 1941, well before the United States entered World War II, but presumably the strong anti-Hitler sentiments of Elsie Carlisle and her countrymen (already engaged in war against the Axis Powers) were shared by most of the Americans who heard the song when it was first recorded and broadcast. Irving Berlin’s only memory of his native Russia consisted of seeing his family home burn down during a pogrom, so his aversion to violent expressions of intolerance may have been intensely personal.

Elsie Carlisle’s version of the song—augmented with a fine arrangement and the adept accompaniment of Jay Wilbur’s band—is a particularly fine example of how the underlying concept can sound rather sinister and conspiratorial. It is as if she is vacillating between slow, methodical plotting and swingy jubilation. Interestingly, some parts of the session were broadcast on the radio in a documentary about the record industry1, but the program has been lost, as far as I know.

Noteworthy American recordings of “When That Man Is Dead and Gone” include those of Glenn Miller and His Orchestra (v. Tex Beneke and The Modernaires), Mildred Bailey (with The Delta Rhythm Boys), and Buddy Clark.

British recordings of the song include versions by Ambrose and His Orchestra (v. Anne Shelton), Geraldo and His Orchestra (v. George Evans and chorus), Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans (v. Anne Lenner), Jay Wilbur and His Band (v. Sam Browne), Joe Loss and His Band (v. Bette Roberts), and Al Bowlly and Jimmy Mesene. Of the latter recording, it is worth noting that it was Al Bowlly’s last; he was killed two weeks later by one of That Man’s parachute mines.

Notes:

  1. “Wax Secrets on Air,” Melody Maker, April 26, 1941, 1, ProQuest. ↩
Eddie Morris

“Babyin’ You” (1926)

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“Babyin’ You.” Music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby; included in the London show Princess Charming (1926). Recorded by Eddie Morris and Elsie Carlisle (as Lena Barton) in London on November 24, 1926. Regal G-20196 (an Australian issue derived from the British Regal G-8762).


“Babyin’ You” – Eddie Morris and Lena Barton (Regal G-20196)

The business of writing discographies really needs no defense, as these reference works are indispensable tools for understanding the history of music, theater, film, and television. Why someone would personally want to compile a discography is another question. Brian Rust, the twentieth century’s best known discographer, described having heard his favorite activity labelled by detractors as “analytical bookkeeping” or even “mere musical philately,” i.e., stamp collecting.1 Today, on the eve of Elsie Carlisle’s 129th birthday, I have the opportunity to describe a breakthrough that I hope will convey how thrilling assembling lists of records can really be.

In an addendum to his discography of female popular singers from 1920–1933, Ross Laird records

LENA BARTON: It has been reported that this is a pseudonym for Elsie Carlisle (but this is unconfirmed).2

If we look back at his entry for “Lena Barton,” we find the following:

EDDIE MORRIS & LENA BARTON        London, Nov 24, 1926

WA4513-1 Cross your heart Re G8762
WA4514-1 Babying you Re G8762

So a record exists, attributed to Eddie Morris and Lena Barton; we know the date it was recorded; and we know the two songs that are on it.3 Eddie Morris is the name of a real singer, but Lena Barton is an otherwise unknown artist.

I first noticed Laird’s addendum reporting the rumor that “Lena Barton” was really Elsie Carlisle a few years ago, but I was not able to find anyone who actually owned the record, and I decided to wait for more information. That information came to me last week, in the form of pages of addenda that discographer Richard J. Johnson had made but never issued for his own Elsie Carlisle discography.4 Johnson listed much the same information as Laird, but added in pen:

Lena Barton is Elsie Carlisle.

I took it that he had heard the record himself and felt comfortable identifying the voices. Clearly, it was time for me to update my discography (I was planning to release a new edition in the next few months anyway).

But it so happened that since the last time I looked into the matter, a transfer had surfaced on the Internet Archive, not of Regal G-8762 (the record mentioned by Laird and Johnson), but of the Australian Regal G-20196, which has one of its sides: “Babyin’ You.” One play was enough to convince me that the rumors had been correct: this was an Elsie Carlisle record, made during her first year of recording.

Why “Lena Barton”? Up to this point, Carlisle had been working exclusively for the Gramophone Company’s Zonophone label. It was not until February 1927 that she would do work under her own name for Columbia, which also owned Regal. I can only guess that some contractual requirement prevented her from appearing as herself on Regal in November 1926.

Eddie Morris, though, was the very real name of an American actor, billed as “The Kid from Kentucky,” who appeared regularly on the London stage and also on BBC radio. In fact, he had performed during Elsie Carlisle’s first radio broadcast, as is attested by several newspapers.5

“Babyin’ You,” a catchy song about the relationship between infantilization and affection, is a Kalmar and Ruby ditty. It was apparently added to an originally Hungarian operetta with an Albert Sirmay score, Princess Charming, which was playing in London at the time. Some noteworthy recordings of “Babyin’ You” were made by:

Notes:

  1. Brian Rust, Brian Rust’s Guide to Discography, Greenwood Press, 1980, 4. ↩
  2. Ross Laird, Moanin’ Low: A Discography of Female Popular Vocal Recordings, 1920–1933, UCSB Historical Discography Series, 1996, 606. ↩
  3. Laird, Moanin’ Low, 19. ↩
  4. Richard J. Johnson, Elsie Carlisle: A Discography, published by the author. My thanks to Peter Johnson for supplying me with his father’s papers on Elsie Carlisle, and to Steve Paget for having put me in touch with him. ↩
  5. E.g., “Broadcasting: Programmes for To-Day,” Northern Whig, March 1, 1926, 10, British Newspaper Archive. ↩
Biography & Career

“Back Again” (1919)

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It is easy enough to find Elsie Carlisle autographs. Usually they take the form of photographs or postcards that she signed, often hastily and even sloppily. Occasionally one finds a little more than just her name; for example, I have a small photograph of Carlisle on which she has written “Home, James” (referring to her then popular comedy song “Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses”).

Carlisle would have enjoyed her greatest fame between 1926, when she began to appear regularly on the radio and started to make records, and the mid-1940s, when she quietly retired. But she would have been a familiar face to theater-goers for a few years preceding that period, and presumably they would have wanted autographs as well — but until recently I had only ever seen a single autograph dating from 1923, which referenced the Fred Karno revue 1923. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I came across the following scrap of paper:

Songs lyrics handwritten by Elsie Carlisle on November 29, 1919.
Song lyrics from the 1919 show “Back Again” written in Elsie Carlisle’s handwriting

This page, apparently torn from a small notebook and dated November 29, 1919, contains what I think are song lyrics from the 1919 London show Back Again, which featured American actress and singer Lee White, along with some British actors (including a thirteen-year-old Betty Bolton). I feel confident in identifying that show, because the passage from the lyrics ends with the words “BACK AGAIN” (written in small caps), and the date at the top of the page indicates that it was written while the revue was still on stage (September 2, 1919-December 6, 1919). Carlisle has signed her name and the name of the venue (the Ambassadors Theatre); all of the writing is in impeccably beautiful cursive — it is definitely her handwriting, but so much less hastily executed than her scrawl in later years.

The page’s status as a remarkable collectible stems largely from the fact that Back Again is thought to be Carlisle’s very first London show.1 A successor revue to Lee White’s successful U.S. (1918),2 the show contained original music by Clay Smith, R. P. Weston, and Bert Lee, as well as the Creamer-Layton composition “After You’ve Gone.” Recordings survive of Lee White singing numbers from Back Again, such as “The Wedding in Dollyland,” and pianist Adam Ramet has more recently recorded a “Musical Comedy Revue Selection” and a “Foxtrot on Themes from the Revue” that give a sense of the sort of music included in the original show.

According to the back of some sheet music for a Back Again medley, Elsie Carlisle would have sung “Crinoline Days” and “Happy and Crazy.” Her role was likely a noteworthy one. An item in the October 1, 1919 edition of The Bystander announces “Back Again!” above photographs of Elsie Carlisle and Lee White, in that order, comically showing their backs to the camera.3 No other actors from the show are mentioned.

Lee White would take Back Again to Australia in 1926-1927, although it is likely that the revue evolved considerably over the years, and Elsie Carlisle was not part of its revival.

Notes:

  1. Richard J. Johnson, “Elsie Carlisle (with a different style), Part One,” Memory Lane 174 (2012): 25. ↩
  2. Vivyan Ellacott, “London Revues 1915-1919,” overthefootlights.co.uk. ↩
  3. “Back Again!” The Bystander, October 1, 1919, 31, British Newspaper Archive. ↩
Solo Recordings

“Driftin’ Tide” (1934)

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“Driftin’ Tide.” Words and music by Pat Castleton and Spencer Williams. Recorded in London on July 18, 1934 by Elsie Carlisle. Decca F-5122 mx. TB-1401-2.

Elsie Carlisle – “Driftin’ Tide” (1934)

Both bluesy and sophisticated, “Driftin’ Tide” is an unusually attractive tune by American Spencer Williams (composer of “Basin Street Blues” and “I’ve Found a New Baby,” among many other well-known successes) and Pat Castleton (the stage name of British actress Agnes Muir Bage). Williams spent a lot of time working in England in the 1930s, and he and Castleton would go on to marry in 1936. The melody is one of those complex ones that defies the listener’s first attempts to hum it, and the lyrics are metrically unusual. On top of all of this, the title of the song appears a number of times in the lyrics, but in a grammatically jarring way — it would appear that the sea, the “driftin’ tide,” is being addressed by the singer in a moving expression of unrequited love — a “torch song.”

It seems appropriate that “Driftin’ Tide” should have been assigned to Elsie Carlisle, a veteran torch singer. She successfully applies her famous talent for sounding intermittently teared-up to the song’s melancholy themes. I was surprised at how difficult it was to locate a copy of Carlisle’s record — it took me nine years — and it might seem that it did not sell very well. Perhaps it was overshadowed by the Ray Noble version of the song recorded the same day with Al Bowlly? The latter recording has a more interesting dance band arrangement, it must be admitted, but all the same, I admire what the anonymous Decca studio band was able to do for Carlisle’s “solo” recording — it is an excellent example of the remarkable elegance one so often finds in her output from that time.

In Britain, in addition to the Elsie Carlisle and Ray Noble/Al Bowlly versions of “Driftin’ Tide,” there was a recording of the song by Pat Hyde made two days later.

In America, an obscure trio named The Aces of the Air recorded “Driftin’ Tide” for radio broadcast in 1934. In 1935, versions were made by Alberta Hunter and Clark Randall (v. Clark Randall).

Biography & Career

Elsie Carlisle’s 128th Birthday

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Elizabeth Carlisle was born on January 28, 18961 in Manchester, England to James Carlisle and Mary Ellen Carlisle (née Cottingham). Elsie was not the only member of her family to show a knack for show business; her brothers James (“Jim”) and Albert (“Tim”) were both singers who worked with the great composer, publisher, and impresario Lawrence Wright. By her own account, Elsie was encouraged to learn singing by her mother, who paid for her to have lessons when she was only a small girl.2 It was her brother Jim who got her her first theatrical role at the age of 12,3 and by the time of her marriage in 1914 she could be described as a “musical hall artiste” on the wedding certificate. By 1919 she was appearing in the West End in a show whose cast included Betty Bolton, and the next year she merited her own show, entitled Elsie Carlisle – With a Different Style, in which she performed as a solo vocalist.

How “different” her style was would quickly be made known to larger and larger audiences. Her stage career grew, only to be eclipsed, starting in 1926, by her broadcasting and recording efforts. Elsie’s recordings made with Ambrose and His Orchestra between 1932 and 1935 are among the best remembered, but one should remember that she recorded at least 332 record sides between 1926 and 1942 — a prolific output. The British public would have known her better still from her broadcasts on the BBC and Radio Luxembourg. She was often billed as the “Idol of the Radio,” a well-earned epithet. By the mid-1930s she was ranked amongst the top vocalists who could be heard on the British airwaves, and she had film and television credits to her name as well. Her dulcet delivery of themes both comic and plaintive continues to attract listeners well over a century after her first performance in a Manchester music hall, and the world is much richer for her having lived in it.

Notes:

  1. January 28, 1896 is the date that Elsie Carlisle’s mother provided when she registered her daughter’s birth on March 3, 1896. The same birthday appears on Elsie’s baptismal certificate, which is dated April 15, 1896, so the date “21 January 1897” found on Elsie’s death certificate must be erroneous. People are not generally baptized before they are born, and one would assume that Elsie’s mother was a better source of information regarding her own daughter’s birth than Elsie’s son Wilfred, the informant for the death certificate. ↩
  2. Ralph Graves. “Radio Sweetheart No. 1.” Radio Pictorial 251 (November 4, 1938): 8. ↩
  3. According to Richard J. Johnson in “Elsie Carlisle (with a different style).” Memory Lane 174 (2012): 25. ↩