When you hear a woman pop singer in any genre singing ‘naturally’ today, blame 1930s big band singer, Helen Ward. She blazed the trail.

You’ll hear a Helen Ward set of live 1930s-40s broadcasts on this week’s Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton.

The Phantom Dancer is your non-stop mixtape of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio, recorded live-to-air at 107.3 2SER Sydney, Tuesdays 12:04 – 2pm, and presented by Greg Poppleton since 1985.

It is heard on 22 radio stations of the Community Radio Network and online.

If you can’t catch this week’s Phantom Dancer mix live on 107.3 2SER, you can hear it immediately after 2ser.com online.

That’s the place where you’ll also find lots of past Phantom Dancer swing jazz mix tapes.

THIS WEEK’S PHANTOM DANCER MIX

– visits the Cocoanut Grove 1932-34, dives in Hank Williams on 1952 Hillbilly radio, listens to some of Duke Ellington’s extended works on his ‘Date with the Duke’ 1945 radio series and then there’s the Helen Ward feature. See the play list below….

HELEN WARD

Helen Ward was one of the first swing band ‘girl singers’, as they were known whatever their age, to become a ‘name’.

She was crucial in establishing the natural, untrained voice style of female pop singing that continues to this day with Gaga, Beyoncemore.

Ward came to commercial prominence in 1934 as the singer with Benny Goodman’s Orchestra when it made its breakthough broadcasts on the NBC ‘Let’s Dance’ radio show.

She stayed with the Benny Goodman Orchestra until 1936, just before it became hugely popular.

The ‘girl singer’ who took Helen Ward’s place in the Goodman Orchestra, Martha Tilton, borrowed heavily from the Ward style.

Despite the fact that the Goodman Orchestra had a long and distinguished career into the 1970s, and had female singers like Martha Tilton, Patti Page, Peggy Lee and even Ella Fitzgerald, Ward remained the singer synonymous with the Benny Goodman Band.

THE MOTHER OF MODERN POP SINGING

This is important to note because the Ward style also became the basis of female pop singing that continues to this day.

Her style, which was significant in the Goodman band’s 1934 success is unaffected and untrained. It’s technical waeknesses were overcome by an assured style, creating the illusion of a ‘natural’ voice.

And like so many ‘natural’ singers today, who play ‘natural’ guitar accompanying themselves on ‘natural’ songs about their ‘natural’ lives, Ward, too, learnt an instrument as a child. In her case it was the piano, taught to her by her father, naturally.

She took up singing as a teenager as half of a duo with songwriter and pianist, Burton Lane. That exposure with such a high-profile pop writer brought her to the notice of a number of New York band leaders, with whom she sang over the radio.

Between 1934 and 1936, Ward waxed several records with Goodman. Her version of ‘These Foolish Things’ sold over a million copies and cemented her professional reputation.

She left Goodman in 1936 for both personal and professional reasons. She was engaged to marry Goodman, but after a few months he back out. She also had had enough of the gruelling band road trips.

After singing with Goodman and touring, she stuck to the studios. She recorded for Goodman alumni Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson (standing in for Billie Holiday), Joe Sullivan and Harry James.

On this week’s Phantom Dancer you’ll also hear her on the radio with Bob Crosby in 1939 and Peanuts Hucko.

For a short while in 1943, she returned to performing with a band led by Hal McIntyre.

Ward went into semi-retirement from singing to be a radio producer in 1946-7 for station WMGM, New York.

From then on, she swapped long periods away from bands with recording and touring including returns to Benny Goodman in 1953, 57 and 58.

Around 1960 she retired from the public eye, but returned in 1979 following the hoopla surrounding the 40th anniversary of the 1938 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall concert, which she was instrumental in having recorded.

She launched into a string of club gigs in New York City and in 1981 released the album, ‘The Helen Ward Song Book’. Now hear her on The Phantom Dancer.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Helen Ward sings ‘Oh, Sweet Susannah!’ with the Benny Goodman in a 1936 broadcast from the Congress Hotel, Chicago, over NBC. Happy Listening!

7 AUGUST  PLAY LIST