User:Cullen328/Sandbox/Moonlight Cocktail
The song was later covered by Mel Tormé[1], Stanley Black[2],
Author John Flower
[3]
"Moonlight Cocktail" is a big band song popular during World War II. It was composed by Luckey Roberts with lyrics by Kim Gannon. The song was originally recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and released in January, 1942 on KABC radio in New York City.[4] The 78 rpm disc was released on Bluebird Records as #11401. Vocals were by Ray Eberle and The Modernaires. "Happy in Love" was on the B-side. It was the best-selling record in the United States for ten weeks, from February 28, 1942 to May 2, 1942, and was the number two record for that year after Bing Crosby's White Christmas.
Music
[edit]The music originated three decades earlier in a 1912 ragtime composition by Charles Luckeyeth Roberts called "Ripples of the Nile", described as "a syncopated tune that baffled the arrangers of the day".[4] Roberts, known by his nickname of "Luckey" or "Lucky", was a serious African-American composer with a career that lasted many decades. "Ripples of the Nile" was a musical challenge: "a fast number with right hand figuration of the greatest technical difficulty, and none of Luckey's pupils, including the famous James P. Johnson, could execute it perfectly. Subsequently, he found it necessary to score it as a slow number, and publish it as 'Moonlight Cocktail'".[5]
Lyrics
[edit]The lyrics were written by New York attorney James Kimball Gannon, who had dabbled with songwriting and poetry for years, before becoming a full-time songwriter when about 40 years old.[6] Gannon, who wrote under the nickname "Kim", compared the development of a romantic relationship to the mixing of an alcoholic beverage in "Moonlight Cocktail". The following year, he wrote the lyrics to an even more enduring hit song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas".
Critical reception
[edit]Billboard called the song a "smash hit" and wrote "It's one of the smoothest, danceable discs we've reviewed in many a moon. A rippling piano and tenor sax feature the orchestral arrangement and Ray Eberle and the Modernaires take care of the vocal". [7] In a later issue, Billboard wrote that the song was "imaginative and colorful" and featured a "sweet harmony with a dish of romance".[8]
During World War II, the BBC initiated a program called "Victory Through Harmony" that sought to use musical radio broadcasts to maintain wartime morale and increase weapons production.[9] Some types of music were seen as a hindrance to such goals. Along with many other popular songs of the era, "Moonlight Cocktail" was banned by the BBC as "sentimental slush" in August, 1942[10]
Cover versions
[edit]Mary Martin sang the song on the radio for the troops.[4] Within six months, cover versions were recorded by Bing Crosby[4], Horace Heidt[4], Tommy Tucker[4], Dolly Dawn and her Dawn Patrol[4], Glen Gray[11], and Joe Reichman and his Orchestra.[12].
Chico Marx performed the music on piano in the Marx Brothers 1946 film, A Night in Casablanca.[13]
Nearly sixty years later, Andrea Marcovicci performed the song in her cabaret show "Double Old Fashioned", described as "piercing nostalgia leavened with humor".[14]
References
[edit]- ^ "Moonlight Cocktail by Mel Tormé". Yahoo! Music. Retrieved May 7, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Moonlight Cocktail/Sophisticat in Cuba by Stanley Black". Yahoo! Music. Retrieved May 7, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Flower, John (1972). Moonlight serenade: a bio-discography of the Glenn Miller civilian band. Arlington House.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b c d e f g Schuyler, George S. (June, 1942). "America Caught Up With Him". The Crisis. 49 (6). NAACP. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Wheeldin, Herbert L. (January, 1963). "Jazz Elder Statesman". Negro Digest. Chicago: 33–35.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Hinckley, David (December 19, 2005). "In Dreams. Wartime Christmas Weeper, 1943". New York Daily News. New York City.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "ON THE RECORDS: Reviewing the New Discs". St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Florida. February 22, 1942. Retrieved May 4, 2011.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Orodenker, M. H. (January 10, 2942). "On The Records". Billboard. 54 (2): 14. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Baade, Christina L. (2011). Victory Through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195372014.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Popular Songs Banned As 'Sentimental Slush'". Ottawa Citizen. Ottawa. August 8, 1942. p. 27. Retrieved May 6, 2011.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Orodenker, M. H. (January 24, 1942). "On The Records". Billboard. 54 (4): 12. Retrieved May 6,2011.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Orodenker, M. H. (March 28, 1942). "On The Records". Billboard. 54 (13): 112. Retrieved May 6,2011.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Grudens, Richard (2004). Chattanooga Choo Choo: The Life and Times of the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra. Celebrity Profiles Publishing. ISBN 9781575792774.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Holden, Stephen (June 1, 2001). "CABARET GUIDE: ANDREA MARCOVICCI". New York Times. New York City. Retrieved May 6, 2011.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help)