Read Online That Old Black Magic: Louis Prima, Keely Smith, and the Golden Age of Las Vegas by Tom Clavin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tom Clavin
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, music, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Genres & Styles, Composers & Musicians, Individual Composer & Musician, Pop Vocal
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though asleep, she was standing on her bed doing the Ink Spots’ “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.”
At age eleven, Dot Smith agreed to accompany a friend, Rae Robinson, to a local radio studio, where Rae planned to audition for “Joe Brown’s Radio Gang,” a popular regional program and act. Brown asked Dot if she also sang, and she replied, “Yes, but just for my family.” Brown persuaded her to warble something, and she sang “White Lies and Red Roses.” When she was done, Dot, not her friend, got the job. Instead of being paid, however, she paid a dollar a week after that to learn new songs.
“Joe Brown’s Radio Gang” performed on Friday and Saturday nights at venues in and around Norfolk. The emerging Dot Smith learned to please an audience as well as how to sing a wide range of songs. At fourteen, during World War II, she sang at a bond rally at her high school, and in the audience was Saxie Dowell, who led a band at the Norfolk Naval Aid Station. He had played saxophone for Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and other big-band leaders in the 1930s, but his main claim to fame was composing “Three Little Fishes,” a hit song for Kay Kyser.
This bond rally stint performance resulted in Dowell hiring Dot. Her mother was glad for the few dollars this gig brought in but was not pleased at how her teenaged daughter was openly ogled by the sailors while onstage and when she sang off the back of a truck driven around Norfolk. Offstage, and when not in school, Dot listened to the radio, and her favorite singers were June Christy and Ella Fitzgerald.
It was a step up when bandleader Earl Bennett hired Dot, paying her five dollars a night for performances. This enabled Dot to buy clothes and books for school. Because Dot was underage, her mother accompanied her to the nightclubs where the band played.
During the summer of 1947, Dot and her family went on a vacation to New York, but because of the heat they took a detour to Atlantic City in New Jersey. Two of her brothers liked to jitterbug and wanted to go to the Steel Pier, where many big bands performed. They saw a large banner advertising “Louis Prima and His Orchestra,” and a big crowd surrounded the bandstand. She picked up her youngest brother (born to Fanny and Jesse) to help get through the crowd. Prima was in the middle of his show, and Dot was enthralled.
According to Smith, she was not familiar with Prima at that time. “The band was so good and so funny. I edged my way up to the stage and placed my little brother on it, and I stood there absolutely mesmerized watching this man. I just stood there dumbfounded. I had never seen anything like it before. Besides being one of the best bands to dance to, they were funny. The comedy was unbelievable.”
One brother pointed at Prima and told her that the bandleader kept staring at her. “I must have had a look he liked,” Smith said. “He never said a word to me, though, the whole day.”
She went home and listened to Louis’s music nonstop, learning his arrangements. If the Prima band ever came to the Norfolk area, she would be ready to imagine that she was part of it.
12
Despite the success of his New Orleans Five in New York and the embarrassment of his Chicago orchestra outing—and perhaps goaded by Goodman’s success with the song he had composed—Prima wanted to try the big band format again. This made sense in that the big bands dominated the dance halls and record charts in the years immediately before World War II. There was ego involved, too—he wanted to be as famous as Goodman, Ellington, and the Dorsey Brothers. He was certainly more of a showman than they were, so it was a matter of blending his personal jump, jive, and wail style with a crisp orchestra that would supply the balance and the basic dance grooves. But to do so he would have to set aside the kind of music that had brought him to where he now stood.
“The big band era of the
At age eleven, Dot Smith agreed to accompany a friend, Rae Robinson, to a local radio studio, where Rae planned to audition for “Joe Brown’s Radio Gang,” a popular regional program and act. Brown asked Dot if she also sang, and she replied, “Yes, but just for my family.” Brown persuaded her to warble something, and she sang “White Lies and Red Roses.” When she was done, Dot, not her friend, got the job. Instead of being paid, however, she paid a dollar a week after that to learn new songs.
“Joe Brown’s Radio Gang” performed on Friday and Saturday nights at venues in and around Norfolk. The emerging Dot Smith learned to please an audience as well as how to sing a wide range of songs. At fourteen, during World War II, she sang at a bond rally at her high school, and in the audience was Saxie Dowell, who led a band at the Norfolk Naval Aid Station. He had played saxophone for Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and other big-band leaders in the 1930s, but his main claim to fame was composing “Three Little Fishes,” a hit song for Kay Kyser.
This bond rally stint performance resulted in Dowell hiring Dot. Her mother was glad for the few dollars this gig brought in but was not pleased at how her teenaged daughter was openly ogled by the sailors while onstage and when she sang off the back of a truck driven around Norfolk. Offstage, and when not in school, Dot listened to the radio, and her favorite singers were June Christy and Ella Fitzgerald.
It was a step up when bandleader Earl Bennett hired Dot, paying her five dollars a night for performances. This enabled Dot to buy clothes and books for school. Because Dot was underage, her mother accompanied her to the nightclubs where the band played.
During the summer of 1947, Dot and her family went on a vacation to New York, but because of the heat they took a detour to Atlantic City in New Jersey. Two of her brothers liked to jitterbug and wanted to go to the Steel Pier, where many big bands performed. They saw a large banner advertising “Louis Prima and His Orchestra,” and a big crowd surrounded the bandstand. She picked up her youngest brother (born to Fanny and Jesse) to help get through the crowd. Prima was in the middle of his show, and Dot was enthralled.
According to Smith, she was not familiar with Prima at that time. “The band was so good and so funny. I edged my way up to the stage and placed my little brother on it, and I stood there absolutely mesmerized watching this man. I just stood there dumbfounded. I had never seen anything like it before. Besides being one of the best bands to dance to, they were funny. The comedy was unbelievable.”
One brother pointed at Prima and told her that the bandleader kept staring at her. “I must have had a look he liked,” Smith said. “He never said a word to me, though, the whole day.”
She went home and listened to Louis’s music nonstop, learning his arrangements. If the Prima band ever came to the Norfolk area, she would be ready to imagine that she was part of it.
12
Despite the success of his New Orleans Five in New York and the embarrassment of his Chicago orchestra outing—and perhaps goaded by Goodman’s success with the song he had composed—Prima wanted to try the big band format again. This made sense in that the big bands dominated the dance halls and record charts in the years immediately before World War II. There was ego involved, too—he wanted to be as famous as Goodman, Ellington, and the Dorsey Brothers. He was certainly more of a showman than they were, so it was a matter of blending his personal jump, jive, and wail style with a crisp orchestra that would supply the balance and the basic dance grooves. But to do so he would have to set aside the kind of music that had brought him to where he now stood.
“The big band era of the
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