On Saturday, June 28, 2003 at 1:46:40 PM UTC-5, Matthew B. Tepper (posts from uswest.net are forged) wrote:
> "Keith Edgerley" <edger...@bluewin.ch> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in news:3efdc97f$1...@news.bluewin.ch:
> > Somewhere on an LP in the cellar I have a version of Schubert's
> > "Serenade" arranged as a "jerk" (remember that, just before disco) and -
> > to make it even more surreal - played by a traditional French bal musette
> > type band (typically accordion-led, with bass, guitar, and drums).
> Wasn't there a Spike Jones recording entitled "Serenade to a Jerk"?
> I've been listening on commutes to episodes of "The Great Gildersleeve," a
> 1940s-50s radio sitcom. The series' original star, Harold Peary, had a
> very pleasant singing voice, so music (old standards, contemporary ballads
> and classical works) often plays an important role in the stories. Nearly
> every character on the show sings and/or plays the piano, which must have
> made things very convenient for Peary!
> Anyway, an episode I heard yesterday had the local men's club, the "Jolly
> Boys," forming a band at Gildersleeve's behest, and reading their way
> through Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers," arranged for flute, violin,
> trombone, piano, and bass drum!
> --
> Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
> My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
> My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
> To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
> Mark Coy tossed off eBay? http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2B734C02
> RMCR's most pointless, dumb and laughable chowderhead: Mark Coy.
Now you've got me wondering if Willard Waterman had a singing voice to be pressed into service after he took over from Harold Peary in 1950. As I recall Harold Peary also got to sing in his replacement show Honest Harold, which lasted all of one season. I will listen to Waterman as Gildy, but far prefer " the original". Dick Powell also got to break out into song to gal pal Helen at the end of each Richard Diamond episode, for which I am happily grateful. Although how Diamond could sing so well after always getting pistol whipped or otherwise clunked on the head by the weekly villains remains a mystery to me!