The Many Faces of "Moonglow" - Part 2 of 2
“On a Picnic morning”
Dave Weiner pointed out a major mistake in yesterday’s story: the Cab Calloway version of “Moonglow,” is, of course, an instrumental - my bad. Thus the first recordings of the lyric weren’t made until the summer of 1934: the Casa Loma Orchestra, with Kenny Sargent singing (July 19), and, more importantly, the classic version by the great Ethel Waters for Decca (August 20) with the Dorsey Brothers.
Continued from part 1, yesterday
By 1934, “Moonglow” had already evolved out of two other songs, and it would continue to attach itself to other pieces of music. Between 1935 and 1955 it had already become a major jazz standard with hundreds of recordings. Benny Goodman, in particular, was a fan, and the song was featured in The Benny Goodman Story, 1956. (The first time it was heard in a film was probably the 1937 Paramount Pictures short subject, titled, From The Minuet To The Big Apple, featuring the two composers, Will Hudson and Eddie DeLange and their Orchestra, as part of a medley.)
In 1955, “Moonglow” became part of a movie soundtrack and from there, was reborn as one of the most popular pieces of music in all of the 1950s. Even a few months before The Benny Goodman Story, the song became the musical backdrop for a key scene in Josh Logan’s classic film of William Inge’s Pulitzer-winning play Picnic.
In the Decca single that resulted, “Moonglow” was combined with the theme from the movie Picnic itself. Coincidentally, this second song was also the work of two other songwriters with strong jazz associations: composer George Duning had arranged for Kay Kyser and other big bands before joining the music department at Columbia Pictures. Steve Allen, who wrote the lyrics, was a tireless advocate of all things jazz in his day job as a popular television host and producer.
“Picnic” was recorded on its own by the McGuire Sisters, a chart hit, and also by the fine vocalist Dorothy Collins. (Collins is well known to cultural history as the principal singer in the TV series Lucky Strike Presents Your Hit Parade, and later for creating the role of “Sally” in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies; she was also the wife of composer - conductor Raymond Scott.) She recorded “Picnic” on Picnic: Dorothy Collins Sings Steve Allen (1958), as did the young Andy Williams, years before he became a TV star, on his own Andy Williams Sings Steve Allen (1956).
Picnic - McGuire Sisters
Picnic (album) - Dorothy Collins
Dorothy Collins - Picnic (live on Your Hit Parade)
And here’s another mini-mystery: did Duning deliberately compose the Picnic theme so that it fit into a mashup with “Moonglow?” If not, whose idea was it to combine the two? In any case, the combination of the two songs took on a life of its own: the single, conducted by Columbia Pictures’ main maestro, Morris Stoloff, was a blockbuster hit (#1), in an age when instrumentals were already rare on the charts.
The Stoloff single is itself remarkably jazzy: it starts with the “Moonglow” melody played by George Greeley with guitar (probably George Van Eps), bass, and drums. (Greeley is not credited on the single, but his obituary in Variety, as David Arizmendi discovered, cites him as the “Moonglow” pianist.) First we hear a brief chorus of “Moonglow” played on piano - it almost sounds like Count Basie in a minimalist cocktail mood - the strings come in, and play the “Picnic theme” as a countermelody, on top of the “Moonglow.” The two are intermingled - it’s an amazingly sophisticated slice of pop music at a time when things like "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)" (1956) were dominating the Hit Parade.
“Moonglow and theme from Picnic” (Morris Stoloff / George Greeley Original)
For many years thereafter, the two songs were inextricably linked, as Sheridan Whiteside might say, “by an umbilical cord made of piano wire.” It was hard to hear “Moonglow without thinking of “Picnic.” George Cates, the arranger and conductor closely associated with The Lawrence Welk Show, also had a major chart hit (#5) with what can be considered a true “cover” record, which is virtually identical to the Stoloff single.
Bing Crosby recorded a version of the song as “Moonglow and Theme from Picnic,” accompanied by pianist Buddy Cole and his rhythm section. This started as a transcription for his 1956 CBS radio series (later collected and issued by Mosaic Records), then was commercially released by Decca, and, after Crosby’s death, had an orchestral arrangement overdubbed around it, courtesy of producer Ken Barnes and conductor Pete Moore. (These 1978 overdub jobs are not widely beloved, but this one is very well done - and it may have been the first time I personally ever heard “Moonglow.”)
Here’s the Bing transcription without the overdubs but with intro patter with Rosemary Clooney:
By the time of the Crosby version, it seems like “Picnic” had attached itself to “Moonglow” even when “Picnic” wasn’t heard. There’s no “Picnic” I can hear in the original Crosby transcription, although Moore interjected a few bars of the “Picnic” theme into the orchestral overdub version, played by the strings behind the guitar solo. (At about 2:00)
Bing Crosby - 1956 transcription with 1978 orchestral overdub:
The two songs are heard together on Perry Como’s 1962 album By Request, although their roles are reversed: the arrangement starts with The Ray Charles Singers singing the Picnic theme, which frames and serves as an intro to Como singing the “Moonglow” music and words.
Perry Como (from By Request, 1962)
More recently, jazz musicians have gone back to playing “Moonglow” by itself, and the “Picnic” theme has been largely forgotten - I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone play it or sing it live. Stll, there are a couple of more relatively recent recordings that follow the Stoloff trajectory: In 1982, country-jazz crossover team of Boots Randolph and Richie Cole played it on the album Yakety Madness! They start with Randolph playing “Moonglow” on tenor, then Cole playing “Picnic” on alto.
There’s also a very original version by vocalist Dominique Eade and pianist Ran Blake, from their 2017 album Town & Country. It’s rather far out, in that both Ms. Eade and Mr. Blake seemed to be determined to take the tune apart, note-by-note, but at the same time, they stay true to the rough outline of starting with Ms. Eade doing a semblance of “Moonglow” followed by Mr. Blake doing “Picnic” as a piano solo.
Dominique Eade & Ran Blake (2017)
Will Hudson was still active when the medley was originally released in 1955; although he had written a few other songs that achieved some traction during the swing era (including “Organ Grinder’s Swing” and “You’re Not the Kind”) this was his only true standard. DeLange was long gone, and while he had about four other standards to his credit, this was probably his biggest. (The others were “Solitude,” “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” and two dreamy songs with Jimmy Van Heusen, “Deep in a Dream” and “Darn That Dream”) As Warren DeLange remembers, in the mid-’50s, the renewed success of “Moonglow” did a lot to keep Eddie’s afloat and put his kids through college. Between the two of them, they couldn’t ask for a better song to serve as their legacy.
Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
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