A record hokier than Fred Waring's "Trees"

Is there one? Probably, but my brain doesn't want to go there. As if Alfred Joyce Kilmer's poem weren't maudlin enough, Fred and his arrangers (Roy Ringwald and Hawley Ades, in this case) decided to turn the camp meter up to 11 for this 1947 recording--and I think I know why. If my guess is correct, this is the very Trees recording that Waring provided for the 1948 Disney cartoon short, Melody Time. That would explain the over-the-topness (even by Waring choral standards) of the presentation, as well as the compressed, flat sound that isn't at all typical of Decca in the late 1940s. First-rate musicianship combined with first-rank camp--Trees, from 1947.

http://box.net/public/lee/files/447707.html Trees (Rasbach-Kilmer), Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians, soloist: Gordon Goodman, 1947.












Alfred Joyce Kilmer (above), who wrote Trees in 1913. Kilmer was killed in France during WWI.

When something's too campy for me, you know it's time to worry. But Waring's Decca sides weren't quite so far out, as a rule. And his earlier attempts at a glee club/choral sound were much more restrained. Here are two of them, starting with 1928's Who's Blue Now? a side graced by a remarkable vocal arrangement and brief but fine moments of Waring-style jazz:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/447250.html Who's Blue Now? (Caesar-Meyer), Waring's Pennsylvanians, 1928.

Three years later, Waring's choral-sound-to-be nearly was. Here is 1931's Dancing in the Dark, featuring the Three Waring Girls and various band members:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/447002.html Dancing in the Dark (Dietz-Schwartz), Waring's Pennsyvlanians, featuring the Three Waring Girls, 1928.

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Lee