Ruth Etting on Columbia 995-D

[operabass78s]

Columbia 995-D
Ruth Etting, vocalist
Both selections recorded March 1, 1927

My Man (Mon homme)
http://www.box.net/shared/8p4ltutyxs
After You've Gone
http://www.box.net/shared/6eft7ln0g8
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Ruth Etting: Chicago's Sweetheart and L.A.'s Little Lady
Laura Damuth and Anita Breckbill

http://www.nebraskalibraries.org/nlaqua ... kbill.html

Ruth Etting was one of the most popular singing stars of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Florenz Ziegfeld who glorified Ruth in the Follies, rated her as "the greatest singer of songs" that he had managed in a forty-year career. On radio she established herself as America's pre-eminent popular singer, repeatedly voted as the top female singer on the air in national listener polls. While the radio and the recording industry were still in their early developing years, Ruth Etting recorded over 200 songs by such composers as Irving Berlin, Johnny Green, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. She was a regular on at least eight network radio programs, was featured in six Broadway shows, was highlighted in three major full-length movies, and starred in 35 movied short subjects between 1928 and 1936.

Ruth Etting was a consumate artist of tremendous creative abilities. Her innovative stylings made an enormous inpact on music of the day. Her recordings featured a pleasing, straightforward delivery that was noted for its simplicity, precise diction, and on-target intonation. Ruth said this about her singing:

I had a big voice. I mean, you could hear me for blocks. But when I recorded or and on the radio, they didn't have to fool with the dials... To me Sinatra was king, but he'd be singing so softly you could hardly hear him, and then he'd bellow out. In my day we couldn't do that. I learned to hold my volume steady ... The boys liked to work with me. I was a quick recorder. (Eels, George. Ginger, Loretta and Irene Who? New York: Putnam's, 1976. p. 145)

Ruth sometimes would include subtle vocal improvisations, but was generally faithful to the sheet music; she never "recomposed" the songs that were given to her. Some of the songs that she recorded and made famous were: "Shine on Harvest Moon," "Love Me or Leave Me", "Ten Cents a dance", and "Mean to me."

Ruth was born to Alfred and Winifred Kleinhan Etting in David City, Nebraska on November 23, 1897 - although later she convinved her employers that she was born in 1904, or even 1907! When Ruth was 5, her mother, Winifred, fell ill, and suddenly died. Alfred took Ruth to live with his parents, George and Hannah Etting. The happy-go-lucky Alfred then remarried and moved away from David City, having little more contact with his small daughter.

Ruth idolized her grandfather, George Etting, who was owner and manager of the Etting Roller Mills. As the mill prospered, he became quite a prominent citizen in David City. George Etting stimulated Ruth's interest in show business by building the David City Opera House and by allowing traveling tent shows and circuses to pitch their tents on the lot behind his mills. In her youth, however Ruth never sang outside of the congregational church choir. As she says

I sang in a high, squeaky soprano. It sounded terrible, but I didn't know I could sing in any other range. (Eels, p. 132)

Ruth had a talent for clothing design and after graduating from David City High School in 1916 she traveled to Chicago and attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Her work as a costume designer helped her to get a job as a chorus girl at the Marigold Gardens, a fashionable "Windy City" night club.

It was in Chicago that she discovered a new lower pitched singing voice that she was unaware of while growing up in David City. In time, she was given solo opportunities which developed into her being billed as "Chicago's Sweetheart" and as a headliner in the Marigold Gardens, the Rainbo Gardens and the Terrace room of the Hotel Morrison.

Ruth was naive and innocent in the big city of chicago, as she says: "I was just a farm girl. So green the cows could eat me." (Eels, p. 134) Her innocence led her to turn to and rely upon a somewhat shady character, Martin Snyder, nicknamed "Moe the Gimp" because of a lame left leg.

Moe adored Ruth, called her "da little lady," and helped Ruth in the early part of her career, perhaps using some strong-arm tactics learned from a life on the streets in Chicago's underworld. To the surprise of her friends, Ruth decided to marry him. She claims that she married him "nine-tenths out of fear and one-tenth out of pity."

Ruth's career took off. In 1924 she was featured on the Herals-Ameican's radio station, KYW. This resulted in bookings on a vaudeville circuit taking her to Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis and Minneapolis. Late in 1925 she attracted teh attention of Columbia records executives which led to a test recording. Her first record was "Let's talk About My Sweetie" paired with "Nothing Else to Do," and was released in March of 1926.

In 1927 Moe and Ruth moved to New York City and Ruth got her big break: she auditioned for Florenz Ziegfeld at the recommendation of Irving Berlin. As she waited nervously to sing, Ziegfeld asked her to stand up and walk around the room.

I walked. He looked at my ankles, and that was it. That was my audition. He wouldn't hire anyone, no matter how talented, with big ankles. (Eels, p. 141)

Ruth was hired and went on to star on Broadway in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. In rapid succession Ruth appeared in Whoopee, singing "Love Me or Leave Me", in the 9:15 Revue, singing "Get Happy", and in Simple Simon, singing "Ten Cents a Dance."

As Ruth puts it:

I liked Ziggy, and he always treated me fair and square... I'd go out in front of the curtain dressed in one of those luscious creations that Ziegfeld always had for his girls. I was no actress, and I knew it. But I could sell a song. When I sang it was one of those opportunities for them to change the set and for the girls to get dressed ... or undressed. (Moshier, W. Franklyn, "Ruth Etting Today," Film Fan Monthly (Sept. 1974), p. 20)

Ruth made frequent appearances in the thriving new medium, radio and established herself in New York on the CBS Chesterfield hour, Music that Satisfies. In February 1933 a poll of radio reviewers named Ruth as the leading singer of popular songs.

Ruth also started making movie short subjects at the Vitaphone Studios in Brooklyn, New York. Ruth describes her experience:

Shorts were made to fill out the program along with a feature, a cartoon and a newsreel. Sometimes there was a simple plot, sometimes I just sang. The plot had to be simple to make room for at least two songs.. (Eels, p. 148)

Ruth moved to Hollywood in the early 30s. She had been on the west coast several years earlier to great reviews. Listen to this Sand Diego reviewer.

Has she got IT? Well dearie, she positively exudes IT. She makes you think of orchards in the moonlight and other things that leave you absolutely breathless. I read that Ziegfeld called her exotic when she was in the Follies. She was better than that. She's gorgeous. She's the kind of girl who could make a $15-a-week clerk buy orchids...(Eels, p. 145)

In Hollywood she signed to do Roman Scandals in 1933 with Eddie Cantor at MGM. Ruth's name was included in the film for its marquee value; she played Olga, the slave girl, but she had only one song and two lines in the whole picture.

She made two other features film, Hips, Hips, Hooray in 1934 and Gift of Gab also in 1934, again with few lines and only a brief appearance. As Ruth says about her acting:

I always thought I might have made it, but they could only see me as a voice. If they had given me some quick training, ... I wasn't stupid; I might have made it. There were lots of pretty young things in movies who weren't actresses and who made it big. (Moshier, p. 21)

After her short movie career, Ruth stayed on in California and had a weekly radio show there, the Chase and Sanborn Hour with Jimmy Durante. Her husband, Moe Snyder, returned east. Ruth had finally had it with her marriage to Moe. His gangster techniques may have helped Ruth at the beginning of her career but now they were a hindrance. He "suspected everyone of trying to take advantage of the. He snarled, slapped, punched or otherwise threw his weight around." (Eels, p. 154) In 1937, they were divorced. As Ruth said:

Yeah I was married to him for eighteen years. Why I must have been crazy! Should have had my head examined... (Moshier, p. 21)

In 1938, Moe returned to California and in a jealous rage shot and wounded Ruth's pianist and boyfriend Myrl Alderman. The subsequent sensationalized trial brought her career to a halt. Snyder was tried for kidnapping and attempted murder. The trial was a sordid scandal and an ordeal for Ruth, lasting from October through December of 1938. Snyder was found guilty and sentanced to prison. When he appealed the decision, Ruth and Myrl Alderman declined to appear in court, and he was released after a year in prison.

One of the more interesting items in our collection is a scrapbook of newspaper clippings dedicated solely to newspaper coverage of the trial. The Los Angeles Examiner had an especially talented writer, James Lee, whose writings on this trial gave an interesting snapshot into journalistic ethics adn trial coverage of the mid-30s. Lee makes a drama of the proceedings, complete with characters: Ruth Etting is "The Little Lady", her ex-husband, Moe Snyder is "The Gimp", Myrl Alderman is "The Piano Player," and that all important scene prop, the gun, is called "The Equalizer." Here, for example, is a description of "The Little Lady" on the stand.

She was dressed sedately, but expensively. She wore a knee-length gray jacket of very wooly lamb, a severe, dark blue tailored dress, and a blue felt hat that looked like the campaign headgear worn by the Union officers in the War Between the States, only with a good deal more chic, of course. (Los Angeles Examiner, 12/13/38)

This kind of writing, plus word-for-word transcription of some of the courtroom scenes, make for entertaining and sometimes painful reading on this portion of Ruth's life.

After the trail and Ruth's marriage to Myrl Alderman, the two lived in seclusion on a small ranch in Colorado Springs. As Ruth says

The whole affair drained me. I figured Myrl was right. It was better for us to get out, get away, and start again someplace else. (Moshier, p. 23)

Ruth did make an attempt to renew her career in 1947 when she was 50 years old. She was booked on Rudy Vallee's radio show and then performed at the prestigious Copacabana in New York City. This new career effort was short-lived, and Ruth, who wanted to be remembered when her voice was at its best, retired permanently to Colorado Springs with Myrl Alderman and lived there until her death in 1978.

She said:

I felt my voice wasn't as good then. I figured I'd much rather they remembered me when the voice was at its best So I just got out of it all. (Moshier, p. 24)

Ruth Etting will be remembered as the small-town Nebraska girl whose simple and straightforward focal stylings made an enourmous impact on music of her era. During her 10 years at the top, she was characterized as" "Chicago's Sweetheart," "Ziegfeld Star," "The Queen of all Touch Singers," the "Sweetheart of Columbia Records," and the "Glorifier of Popular Songs."

[WDC]

Thanks for posting these plus the reminiscences, nice filtering too!