I've shared it before, but not the story behind it.
(Although, some of you might remember it from my last blog.)
That chest up there just happens to have been where they stored their money.
You see, my great grandfather didn't trust the banks, because they weren't insured. Back then, if you put money in them it didn't necessarily mean that you'd be able to get your money back out. This didn't change until the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp) was created by the banking act in 1933. You can read more about that 'here'.
Because of his mistrust, the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression didn't affect them as much and he was able to keep his business alive, and eventually sell it to their two sons, one of them being my grandfather.
Also, during the Great Depression, my great grandmother, using some of that money, helped out her friends and neighbors by buying up some of the wares they were selling in order to survive. Now I'm the keeper of quite a few of those items and that seemingly plain old chest, that my great grandfather used to steer the course of history for my family.
I'm extremely grateful to him, for having the foresight not to trust the banks back then, but sadly, as we all know, a lot of people weren't as fortunate.
The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear.
For this music break I'm sharing two songs that embody that time period.
"Brother, Can you spare a dime?"
Music by Jay Gorney and lyrics by Yip Harburg.
Sung by Bing Crosby in 1932
You can read more about the history of this song 'here'.
And
"Happy Day are Here Again"
Music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen.
Sung by Annette Hanshaw
The song eventually became the 1932 presidential campaign song for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and it's also associated with the repeal of prohibition in 1933.
Thank you so much to all of you that left comments on my last post. Whether you left one for the first time, or have once in awhile, or have every time... I so enjoyed reading each and every single one. And I'm still reading them as they come in and will be answering more of them as soon as I can :)
I normally don't answer ALL the comments on my blog, unless they're from readers that don't have one, but I thought that this time I would make the effort to do so, because I asked a favor of all of you and I wanted you to know that I care.
I care that you took the time to introduce yourselves and I loved hearing about your lives and/or why you visit me or even if you just said "Hello".
All of you warmed my heart.
So, thank you.
Sincerely.
Now, let's go back in time to 1938...
I have two songs this time and both were sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross.
First is "Thanks for the Memory".
Written by Ralph Rainger with lyrics by Leo Robin for the film "The Big Broadcast of 1938".
It eventually became Mr. Hope's signature song.
Do any of you remember the Bob Hope specials?
I used to love them :)
Next is "Two Sleepy People".
Written by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics written by Frank Loesser.
A lot of people have recorded this song, but to me this one is the sweetest.
Here they are singing it in the movie "Thanks for the Memory"
Music hasn't escaped my passion for vintage either.
If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I've recently started doing a series called Music break.
You can read those posts 'here', 'here', 'here' and 'here', along with me waxing poetic about music on blogs 'here'
I have no idea where my love of old music initially came from, but I have loved Big Band from the beginning of my life and even during my"rock phase" in the 80s and 90s, I still turned to it. In fact, I was the oddball in my group of friends. The only thing I can think of is that my grandparents listened to it and it must have entered my brain at a young age.
I can still picture my grandmother, Bonnie, wagging her finger along to music as it played and my grandfather, Ox, singing along to music that didn't have words on some AM station that I can't recall, or on k-earth101, which was an oldies station in L.A., back when they actually played "oldies".
Some of them were:
Tommy Dorsey
Jimmy Dorsey
(yes, they were brothers)
Artie Shaw
Benny Goodman
Gene Krupa
and my personal favorite, Glenn Miller
Then there was the 50s and 60s that had me listening to...
(I've since fallen in love with his older material)
The Beach Boys
And of course The Beatles
Quite eclectic huh?
Most of the latter music is because of my mom :)
Much later I discovered music from the 20s and 30s. I'm officially hooked and it's what I'm planning on sharing more of in upcoming posts, because I consider it forgotten music that needs to be brought into the light.
Be careful though, some of that music back then was quite racy and although it doesn't bother me, I know quite a few of you would blush.
'Shave me dry' Lucille Bogan is a good example, but there's much, much worse.
Rap music has nothing on the music from that era, trust me!
Nothing new under the sun, as the saying goes ;)
I seriously could go on and on with this post, but I don't want to bore you, so next I'll be going to another old love of mine.
Their music comes on all the time, but I didn't really know much about them until I went to write this post today, so we're learning together :)
Their father, Clyde (a vaudevillian) and their mother, Meldania had them learn classic piano, cello, violin and classic music in general, but when their mother took them to jazz performances in New Orleans, it won them over and eventually changed they're tune.
The sisters did very well for themselves traveling all over doing performances, but it wasn't until 1930 when they ended up in New York that they gained national stardom.
They ended up with they're own radio program on CBS from 1931 to 1933 and eventually appeared in films as well.
Fun fact:
The Andrew Sister's started out at as Boswell Sister imitators.
They have quite a few wonderful songs, but I just love the sound of Down on the Delta from 1932.
I had a different song picked out for today, but when I went to write the post, this is the only one that called to my heart, after the news this morning.
It's a song of hope, a song of dreams, and it's a song beautifully sung by the one and onlyJudyGarland.
Many people have covered this, but her version is timeless and it eventually became her signature song.
The music is by Harold Arien and the lyrics were written by Yip Harburg(who ironically wrote the other song I was going to post today).
God Bless the families of the Marines that died today.
xo
rue
PS
I'll be visiting and answering questions tomorrow.
Since I love music so much from the 20s through the 40s, and because it's what I mostly listen to, I thought I'd share artists and songs of that time once a week.
Sometimes it will be songs from the same artists I've already shared and sometimes it'll be a different artist that I'll tell you a little bit about.
Maybe you've heard of them and maybe you haven't, but if I post about them, I think they're wonderful.
Mildred Bailey was a singer in the 1930s. She was known as the Queen of Swing and she performed with the biggest names of the era. She never reached superstardom, although she's one of my all time favorite artists and had such a wonderful voice.
All that said, here she is singing "Please Be Kind"
When I came back to Blogland, I noticed quite a few changes, but one of them in particular was music.
Or the lack thereof.
Some of you newbies will probably be shocked by this, but just about everyone had music playing when you opened up their blog. Most of the time, it was pleasant and you got a real feeling of who the person was behind the writing.
I think the music on my last blog did that. Especially since readers would often tell me that they would click on it just to hear the music play, because it made them happy. It was combination of oldies and country, which worked for that particular blog.
When I left, there was a huge controversy going on about whether or not you should have it on there. People were arguing and telling people to turn it off and others were adamant that it stayed. It was kinda ugly.
Anyway, I guess the non-music people won.
Of course, there's still a few holdouts, some of which happen to be on my list of favorites ;)
But, except for those few, there's just pictures, words and silence now.
One of my dear friends asked if I was going to put music on this blog and I went back and forth on it and pretty much decided that I probably won't or at least not constantly streaming.
Today though, I thought I'd share some of the music I listen to and that I would have put on here, just in case you're curious :)
I mostly listen to music between 1920 and 1950. Not that I don't ever listen to newer music than that, but it's what I like to listen to most of the time. In fact, I have a station on my Pandora that is called Annette Hanshaw Radio.
Who is that? Well, this lovely lady right here:
She's my favorite female singer from the 20s and early 30s. Unfortunately for us, she retired after only 10 years. You can learn more about her here.
My favorite male singer from the 30s is Mr. Al Bowlly:
Sadly, we lost him to an air-raid bomb, in England during WWII. You can read more about his life here.
Then there's the music of Cole Porter.......
He wrote such lovely songs, didn't he?
Of course, no music list of mine would be complete without Bing.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop with my all-time favorite song and the first one you heard when you opened up my last blog.
Moonlight Serenade by the legendary Glenn Miller:
So, that should give you a good idea of what you would hear if you walked into my house.
Are you shocked?
You shouldn't be.
After all, it's not like I'd be living in this house and playing something like Metallica ;)
Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to a few of my favorites from the past.
