Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

Some of Siy Best Friends are Crooners may be. order to please or help, directly a or indirectly, the rising generation in some way? I'm afraid it is quite useless to exercise a petty tyranny which might harrass but could not silence the crooners of songs considered ••dangerous" by those who have not moved with the times. And here's a point: Do you honestly think Jessica Dragonette could sing "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain"' and make you like it. as Welcome Lewis does? Or that Alexander Gray could tear the heart out of you with " As Time Goes By" as Rudy \allee most certainly does? If you do — then all I can say is, you haven't been listenin". I'm a radio fan and I like to be taken out of myself — to get away from everything I am or do. w hen I listen to music. And I want the job done thoroughly: I don't want Rudy Vallee to sing "The Song of the Vagabonds" ; I want Alexander Gray to do it. I don't want Alice Joy to sing "Frasquita's Serenade": I prefer Dragonette in that kind of song. I want my home songs, my simple melodies, to be sung by Hazel Warner, w ith her uncanny sincerity. I want to be pepped up by the songs of Tommy Harris. That's the general idea, anyway, an dit seems to me that there is room for all kinds of voices in radio. All art has two great functions. First, it provides an emotional experience, and second, if we have the courage of our own feelings, it becomes a mine of practical truth. We don't will to have the original emotion any more than a stone wills it should fall to the ground. But it takes courage to dig the actual fact out of what we are feeling: the truth that concerns us now. whether it concerned our grandparents or not. If a composer or singer is an artist, his music will tell the truth of his day, and that is all that matters. As Anatole France expressed it: "Song, if it is very simple, passionate or gav. is really the only language for the people." The crooner has a very real service to perform for folk other than those who are twenty years old. He cries for many persons who are denied the gift of tears. The girl with the deep baritone voice who sings blues until her queer voice becomes almost an art-form in itself: the men with the high, unnatural, super-sweet and haunting sopranos, are ideally fitted to sing the popular laments of the day. And if you've a very unhappy person, you may laugh at them — but vou'll listen, and when thev have finished, feel [Continued from Page 19] release in your own soul. I am very sure of this, not only because 1 have detected a thoroughly sophisticated friend or two listening to crooners while pretending to scorn them, but secretly finding a safety valve in them. But from the star of my own radio work I have noted the letters which come from sanitariums and hospitals. Every radio singer gets many letters from such institutions: the sick and the sorrowful are a whole microphone audience in themselves, and it would he a hard-hearted artist who didn't try to remember the wants of this audience sometimes. I'm not a crooner, and my early theory about singing to these hearers was to cheer them up. I chose such songs as "Happv Days Are Here Again ": gay, humorous uplifting songs — and there was no response. Then, because other listeners were asking for it, I sang several programs made up almost altogether of love songs — tender, even a [Turn to Page 46] Convert Old Sets Into Dollars! Replace worn-out condensers at little cost and put those old sets back into service. It's profitable business if you use the Special Dubilier Service Kit — a useful package containing 25 assorted sections for by-pass and filter block repairs, ranging from .1 to 2 mfd., 200 to 400 volts. List Price. 810.50. Remember Dubilier Forget Condenser Trouble There's a Dubilier condenser of even type, capacity and working \oltage for every radio, electrical, laboratory and industrial purpose Each Dubilier condenser is backed by 22 years of pioneering. It is the product of the largest plant devoted exclusively to condenser manufacturing. Dubilier condensers are always lower in price but better in quality. ORDER NO\^" Carry the kit in your service bag and start cashing in on the profitable business of repairing old radio sets. Write for free copy of New General Catalog No. 121. mm Reg. U.S.Pat.Off. DUBILIER Condenser Corporation 4377 Bronx Boulevard » « New York City RADIO DOINGS Page Fort y -one