Alice Blue Gown

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Alice Blue Gown is a song written by Harry Tierney (music) and Joseph McCarthy (lyrics) and published by Leo Feist in 1919 .

First recordings and background

Was presented to Alice Blue Gown , a waltz in 3 / 4 - stroke , 1919 in the Broadway - Musical Irene with Edith Day in the lead role. This was a sentimental piece about an Irish working-class girl marrying a self-made millionaire; it provided the template for the Cinderella musicals of the 1920s. On February 2, 1920, Edith Day took on Alice Blue Gown for the Columbia Light Opera Company , which published it on the B-side of the title track "Irene".

McCarthy and Tierney had dedicated Alice Blue Gown to President Teddy Roosevelt's young daughter Alice (1884–1980), whose trademark was azure evening gowns. "The lyrics suggest a demure, reserved young woman, but Alice was the exact opposite of that, in fact the complete horror." During rehearsals, Edith Day had told the composer Tierney that she needed a song that would establish her stage character; she became known through the sentimental song "Little Gray Home in the West", and she now wanted to have written a similar title. Tierney then changed the opening sequence of this song until it became Alice Blue Gown . “When the song was released after the First World War, the waltz tempo and the somewhat archaic language ( Then in the manner of fashion I'd frown ) gave it the impression of a sentimental ballad that recalls the pre-war calm that preceded the crazy freedom of the twenties . "The first verse of the song read:

The myth of the song Alice Blue Gown was also conjured up in an inscription on a US Army Air Forces Boeing B-17 bomber during World War II .
I once had a gown, it was almost new,
Oh, the daintiest thing, it was sweet Alice blue,
With little forget-me-nots placed here and there,
When I had it on, oh, I walked on the air!
And it wore, and it wore, and it wore,
'Til it went, and it wasn't no more.

Cover versions

As early as 1920 Alice Blue Gown was also recorded by jazz musicians . On May 14, 1920 he was covered by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in London (Columbia 829), in June in New York Isham Jones for Brunswick and in October the Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra (Victor 18700). The opera singer Irene Williams also interpreted it in 1920 (Brunswick 5003). Alice Blue Gown became one of the biggest hits of the time; from the late 1920s onwards, Red Nichols , Spike Hughes , Louis Prima , Nat Shilkret , Nat Gonella , Ben Pollack , Benny Goodman , Teddy Wilson , Glenn Miller , Harry James , Bob Crosby , Tommy Dorsey took it in both America and Europe , Jerry Wald , Muggsy Spanier and Eddie Condon .

In 1940 the song was also used in the feature film Irene (directed by Herbert Wilcox ) with Ann Neagle and Ray Milland in the leading roles. As a result, the song also came into the US charts; Frankie Masters and His Orchestra (vocals Marion Francis; Vocalion 5455) in May 1940 (# 7), Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra (vocals Rose Ann Stevens; Bluebird 10659) at # 16 and the Glenn Miller Orchestra at # 18.

In the post-war period he was also recorded by Jo Stafford , Judy Garland , June Christy / Johnny Guarnieri , Harry Shields , Dorothy Donegan , George Brunies , Les Elgart , Bob Scobey , Carl Kress , Bobby Byrne and the Duke Ellington Orchestra ( At the Bal Masque ) ; in later years the song was in the repertoire of revival bands such as Chris Barber , Lars Edegran , Ed Polcer or Trevor Richards . Country singer Milton Brown , ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox (Dot 15062) and rock-n-roll singer Ray B Anthony from Memphis ( Sun 333) also covered him. In the field of jazz, the discographer Tom Lord lists 122 cover versions of the song.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information from Mudcat
  2. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series, 1975.
  3. ↑ Other actors were Walter Regan, Bobbie Watson, Eva Puck, Dorothy Walters and Gladys Miller. Edith Day left the ensemble in April 1920 to appear in the London version.
  4. ↑ See Maya Cantu: American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from Irene to Gypsy . 2015
  5. ↑ Alice Blue Gown. The Georgetowner, June 13, 2013, accessed January 1, 2018 .
  6. ↑ by D. Eardley-Wilmot and Hermann Lohr; published 1911. See Music of the First World War , by Don Tyler (2006), p. 96
  7. ↑ Philip Furia, Michael L. Lasser: America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley London, New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 23.
  8. ^ Dan Dietz: The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2015, p. 157
  9. ↑ Alice Blue Gown in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  10. ↑ Charts at Melo List
  11. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed January 1, 2018)