Original air date - Phantom Dancer :: 12:00pm 19th Nov 2019

INDIGENOUS

This week's Phantom Dancer feature artist with Greg Poppleton, is indigenous US jazz singer, Kay Starr. She began singing on radio as a child and we hear her this week aged 22 singing with Benny Goodman and Charlie Barnet's orchestras.

ONLINE

This week's Phantom Dancer will be online after the 5 November 107.3 2SER Sydney live mix at 2ser.com. Hear the show live every Tuesday 12:04-2pm on 107.3 2SER Sydney.

KAY

Katherine Laverne Starks, known professionally as Kay Starr, was a name jazz, pop, and country singer in the 1940s-50s. (She was the original singer of the Roy Acuff song, 'Bonaparte's Retreat. Her roots were in jazz and Billie Holiday called her 'the only white woman who could sing the blues.'

CHICKENS

Her aunt Nora was impressed by her 7-year-old niece's singing and arranged for her to sing on a Dallas radio station, WRR, vocal competition. Starr finishing 3rd one week in a talent contest and placed first every week thereafter. She was given a 15-minute radio show. She sang pop and country songs with a piano accompaniment. By age 10 she was making $3 a night, which was quite a salary during the Great Depression.

WESTERN

When Starr's father changed jobs, the family moved to Memphis, where she continued performing on the radio. She sang Western swing music, still mostly a mix of country and pop. While working for Memphis radio station WMPS, misspellings in her fan mail inspired her and her parents to change her name to Kay Starr.

VENUTI

At 15, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis which called for his band to feature a girl singer, a performer he did not have at the time. Venuti's road manager heard Starr on the radio and recommended her although she was young and her parents insisted on a midnight curfew.

BIG BANDS

At 17, in 1939, she worked with Bob Crosby and Glenn Miller, who hired her to replace the ill Marion Hutton. With Miller she recorded 'Baby Me' and 'Love with a Capital You'. They were not a great success, in part because the band played in a key that, while appropriate for Hutton, did not suit Kay's vocal range. After finishing high school, she moved to Los Angeles and signed with Wingy Manone's band. From 1943 to 1945 she sang with Charlie Barnet's ensemble, which we'll hear on this week's show, retiring for a year after contracting pneumonia and later developing nodes on her vocal cords as a result of fatigue and overwork.

VIDEO

This week's Phantom Dancer video of the week is the 1952 hit song 'Wheel of Fortune' sung on the Your Hit Parade TV show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL1KvS0shEI

19 NOVEMBER PLAY LIST

Play List - The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #414
107.3 2SER Tuesday 19 November 2019 After the 2SER 12 noon news, 12:04 - 2:00pm (+11 hours GMT) National Program: ArtsoundFM Canberra Sunday 10 - 11pm Edge FM Bega Monday 3 - 4pm 7MID Oatlands Tuesday 8 - 9pm 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 - 1pm 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 - 6am and early morning on 23 other stations.
Set 1	Stan Kenton Transcriptions
Artistry in Rhythm + Memphis Lament	Stan Kenton Orchestra (voc) Red Dorris	Radio Transcription Hollywood Oct 1941
Underneath the Stars	Stan Kenton Orchestra	Radio Transcription Hollywood Nov 1941
I Haven't Got the Heart + Artistry in Rhythm (theme)	Stan Kenton Orchestra	Radio Transcription Hollywood Oct 1941
Set 2	Women Singers on 1940s-50s Radio
I Enjoy Being a Girl	Vincent Lopez Orchestra (voc) Barbara Barry	'One Night Stand' Grill Room Hotel Taft NYC AFRTS Re-broadcast 1959
Open + The Trolley Song	Johnny Long Orchestra (voc) Jill Corey	'Let's Go With Music' Radio Transcription Hollywood 1955
Cirribirribin (theme) + In Times Like These	Harry James Orchestra (voc) Kitty Kallen	Hotel Astor Roof WOR Mutual NY 6 Jun 1944
Set 3	Dixieland Radio
Bugle Call Rag	Red Nichols	Radio Transcription 1953
Kansas City Man	Sidney Bechet and Bob Wilbur	'This is Jazz' WOR Mutual NY 19 Apr 1947
Silver Threads Among the Gold + Close	Henry Levine Octet	'Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street' WJZ NBC Blue 6 Jan 1941
Set 4	Kay Starr
Share Croppin' Blues	Kay Starr (voc) Charlie Barnet Orchestra	V-Disc 13 Jul 1944
Honeysuckle Rose	Kay Starr (voc) Benny Goodman Quintet	'Jubilee' AFRS Hollywood 1948
I Can't Get Started	Kay Starr (voc) Charlie Barnet Orchestra	'For The Record' WEAF NBC NY 11 Sep 1944
Them There Eyes	Kay Starr (voc) Benny Goodman Quintet	'Jubilee' AFRS Hollywood 1948
Set 5	One Night Stand
Embraceable You	Bob Crosby Orchestra (voc) Jewel Hopkins	'One Night Stand' Palladium Ballroom KNX CBS LA AFRS Re-broadcast 21 Feb 1946
Come And Be My Honey	Sammy Kaye Orchestra (voc) Nancye Norman and Band	'One Night Stand' Hotel Astor Roof NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 14 Aug 1944
Unannounced + Take the A Train (close)	Duke Ellington Orchestra	'One Night Stand' Club Zanzibar NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 7 Oct 1945
Set 6	Radio Transcriptions
Quaker City Jazz + And The Angels Sing	Jan Savitt Top Hatters (voc) Bon Bon	Radio Transcription 1939
Slow and Easy	Charlie Spivak Orchestra	Radio Transcription 1939
Masquerade Is Over	Jan Savitt Top Hatters (voc) Bon Bon	Radio Transcription 1939/div>
Charlie Horse	Charlie Spivak Orchestra	Radio Transcription 1939
Set 7	Swing Bands on 1940s Radio
Paradiddle Joe	Tony Pastor Orchestra	Aircheck 1944
Saturday Night	Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra (voc) Patti Thomas	'Spotlight Bands' AFRS Re-broadcast 11 Feb 1945
Let's Blow	Buddy Rich Orchestra	Palladium Ballroom KNX CBS LA 27 Mar 1946
Sentimental Over You (theme) + You're Driving Me Crazy	Tommy Dorsey Orchestra (voc) The Sentimentalists	'Spotlight Bands' AFRS Re-broadcast 29 Jan 1945
Set 8	1940s-50s Moderne
Shoo Be Doo Be		Rex Theatre RFI Paris Feb 1953
B's Flat	Shelly Manne Quintet	Basin Street WCBS CBS NY Mar 1956
Confess		'One Night Stand' The Click Philadelphia AFRS Re-broadcast 3 Jun 1948
Little Girl Blue	Stan Getz Quartet	Basin Street WCBS CBS NY Mar 1956