Going Hollywood

A couple of days ago, we introduced you to the music director at MGM between 1940 and 1953, a man named Lennie Hayton.  We have just finished watching a number of songs and dances from his Academy Award-winning movie, Singin’ in the Rain (1952). However, now we want to go back in time to when Bing Crosby and Lennie Hayton first started to work together in New York.  As you may recall, Lennie was arranging music for Charles Previn and his radio orchestra in 1930, where Bing Crosby was the featured singer.  Lennie continued to work with Bing and conducted the orchestra for one of Bing’s biggest recordings, “Brother, Can You Spare Me a Dime?”  When Bing went to Hollywood to star in the movie, Going Hollywood (1933), Lenny followed.  Once again, this movie from 1933 featured the music of Nacio Herb Brown and the lyrics of Arthur Freed.  Lennie was the music director for this movie and later was the orchestra leader when he and Bing recorded the song, “Temptation.”  It reached no. 3 on the charts and stayed on the charts for 12 weeks, according to Wikipedia.

Once again, we want to emphasize the need for a music director to know his song, his singer and his setting.  To illustrate the point, we are going to provide two songs from that movie–the title song and “Temptation.”  In the title song, Bing is surrounded by well-wishers on the set; however, in reality, he is surrounded by a big band that was able to swing.  Because the band carried most of the load, Bing was able to slide in on top of the music without much effort.  The music does not last long; in reality, it is just a snippet of music.  The clip we are providing has a loop; so it just keeps repeating.  You can cut it off whenever you like.  In the midst of the depression, this song was carefree and full of life and vitality.  It was filled with joy, even though it ran for only about 30 seconds or so.

In the second video clip, Bing’s talents are on full display.  He had a wonderful way of bringing beauty to a song.  Each line of the lyric seemed to be important, based on how he treated the words and music. He was careful; you heard each note and word; it was important; you listened.  What Lennie did was to carefully construct the orchestration so that it kept building to a crescendo of sound, before Bing got there.  This allowed Bing to conserve voice and energy and let the band do most of the work.  Bing was telling a story; he was explaining how dangerous this woman was to him.  She was sin; he was being tempted; he was falling.  When he got to the big finish, he had sold you that he was finished too but going out in a great big way.