Our Sunday Songbirds of Old

 Ruth Etting,

"America's Sweetheart of Song"

with over 60 hit recordings, 

stage, radio, and film appearances.

She had a wild personal life, too,

complete with gangsters...sorta like rappers today, I guess.

We'll hear her "Dancing In The Moonlight."

 

 The Incomparable Hildegarde,

an American cabaret singer who worked 

the Vaudeville Circuit, supper clubs

(she was nicknamed The First Lady of The Supper Clubs,

by Eleanor Roosevelt),

appeared on Life Magazine, 

even had a shade of Revlon Lipstick named after her.

 Here she is at the piano...

Liberace was inspired by her:

"Hildegarde was perhaps the most famous supper-club entertainer

 who ever lived. 

I used to absorb all the things she was doing, 

all the showmanship she created. 

It was marvelous to watch her, wearing elegant gowns, surrounded with roses and playing with white gloves on."

She lived to be 99!

We'll hear her rendition of 

R&H's "Ev'rything I've Got".

 Elsie Carlisle (above)

and with Burt Ambrose and his Mayfair Orchestra (below).

Elsie was a popular English singer in the dance band era 

of the 20s and 30s.

Two of her most popular tunes were

"Home, James, And Don't Spare The Horses" and 

"A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square."

We won't hear those...we're stuck with 

"The Clouds Will Soon Roll By."

 The Revelers,

first called the Shannon Four,

added a tenor and voila, a close harmony quintet.

They starred, along with Fanny Brice and Paul Whiteman

on the Palmolive Hour radio show.

We'll hear them perform Rodgers and Hart's 

"The Blue Room". 

What's with the dude in the glasses?

 Vivienne Segal who did Pal Joey with Gene Kelly (above)

in the original 1940 production,

in which she played Vera Simpson,

and introduced the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"

all 17 over-sexed verses.

Just LOOK at that backdrop! 

Vivienne as a guest on the CBS radio show,

Accordiana, in 1934.

She retired from acting in 1966

and lived to be 95 years old.