VICTORY BELLES

This week I’m thrilled to find for you on The Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton, a 1942 all-woman jazz show I played on the Phantom Dancer over ten years ago. The tape has re-surfaced. This week, enjoy the Victory Belles as your Phantom Dancer featured artists with the Bea Turpin Orchestra and singer Martha Mears (who sang White Christmas with Bing Crosby in the movie, Holiday Inn). See the full play list below.

PHANTOM DANCER

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

BACKGROUND

Billboard, 13 Feb 1943 page 7 wrote,

“KNX-CBS is the only net here having an all-girl show. ‘Victory Belles’ uses an all girl ork and comedienne, with Mabel Todd filling the latter spot. Show is produced by Ona Munson. Billy Gould, sound effects, the only man on the program is forced to don Mother Hubbard wig – and cigar – to hold his job on this show.”

Ona Munson

STORY

Jeannie Gayle Pool in her book, ‘Peggy Gilbert and Her All-Girl Band’ quotes Peggy Gilbert talking about the Victory Belle broadcasts,

“Ona Munson, who was a movie star, she was in Gone With The Wind, you remember? And she had quite a little reputation at that time as a star and she had her own show on CBS. She wanted an all-girl jazz orchestra on it and so we got together…There was actually no leader. A bunch of us just got together and said, “Here we are and this is it.” I was one of them and we were on that for a year. We had a weekly program. 1942, I think, right after the war started. We were at CBS in Hollywood. And what terrific audiences…they would bring fellows in from all over the place around here, in uniform, And it was just a terrific show. I loved it. The girls were such fine musicians. they would cut the stuff. They’d put the arrangements in front of us just before we went on. We’d be lucky if we had time to go through it before the show started. we’d talk through it, usually, and maybe go through a couple of parts of it. And then, away we’d go. Accompanying acts and doing our own thing.”

Side note: Munson introduced the song ‘You’re the Cream in My Coffee’ in the 1927 Broadway musical ‘Hold Everything’.

Martha Mears singing ‘White Christmas’ with Bing Crosby in the movie ‘Holiday Inn’.

EIGHT JILLS OF JIVE

“We had some fine musicians. we had Jane Sager on trumpet; and we had Pee Wee [Naomi Preble] on trombone;…Katherine Cruise on first alto: I was on first tenor, clarinet and vibes; Dody Jeshke on drums and Bea Turpin on piano.”

There would have been a double bass player and singer.

VIDEO

This week’s Phantom Dancer video of the week is not the Victory Belles, but a breathtaking climb up the radio 2UW tower in Sydney, 1944. Happy clambering!

19 MARCH PLAY LIST