BING AND FRED ASTAIRE: TOP BILLING

Here's a great article from Steve Lewis' "Bing Crosby Internet Museum"...

Virtually all the polls at the end of the 20th century placed Fred Astaire at the top or near the top of professional dancers.

Astaire made some 30 memorable movie musicals, including 10 highly-acclaimed films with co-star Ginger Rogers. The Astaire-Rogers collaboration included "The Gay Divorce," "Roberta," "Top Hat," "Follow the Fleet," "Swing Time," "Shall We Dance?," "Carefree," "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" and "The Barkleys of Broadway."

Astaire's success in the movies seemed as improbable as Bing Crosby's. He had a face the shape of a bartlett pear, a beanpole figure and a weak voice. In his first attempt at a movie career a Paramount executive wrote that Astaire "Can't act. Can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little." Astaire succeeded nonetheless. He sweated his way to the top. "He was a dictator who made me work harder and longer than anyone," said Nanette Fabray, one of his female costars.

Astaire introduced 36 hit songs in his movies from 1929 through 1951. According to Joel Whitburn, author of Pop Memories, eight Astaire recordings topped the pop charts: "Night and Day," "Cheek to Cheek," "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket," "The Way You Look Tonight," "A Fine Romance," "They Can't Take that Away from Me," "Nice Work If You Can Get It" and "Change Partners."

In 1942 Astaire and Crosby were paired in the Irving Berlin musical Holiday Inn. In the movie Bing wins the girl (Marjorie Reynolds) to whom he sings what turned out to be the most successful movie song of the century, White Christmas. Bing also dances with Astaire, who later said that "Bing's the kind of dancer that I am a singer." Nevertheless, for many years Fred would answer "Bing Crosby" when asked to name his favorite dance partner -- to avoid alienating any of his female co-stars.

Astaire's best dance scene in Holiday Inn was not with Crosby but when he hot-footed alone on stage to the accompaniment of a 4th of July firecracker display. The famous scene took 38 takes during which Fred lost 14 pounds. The large number of takes were at Fred's insistance. According to Crosby: "Fred's a perfectionist .... Every step, every movement there was a firecracker let off. Some he'd throw down like torpedoes and some he'd kick-off. He had to be in certain positions all the time to hit the right firecrackers so he'd be on camera.... It was pretty elaborately contrivied and had to be done perfectly. I thought the first take he did was great. They all looked alike to me, but there was a little something he didn't like in each one. He about wore out the director and wore out the crew and the sequence took two or three days." (Thompson, pages 93-94)

The success of Holiday Inn led to another Astaire-Berlin-Crosby musical called Blue Skies in 1946. A third collaboration of the ABC boys was supposed to be White Christmas. But when Astaire read the script he found other work. Instead, Danny Kaye was hired to fill Astaire's dancing shoes. "White Christmas" became the leading box office attraction of 1954 and a perennial Christmas holiday tradition.

Astaire appeared several times on Bing's radio and TV shows through the years and they shared mutual interests in golf and horse racing. During World War II their paths crossed while entertaining the troops in Europe. At one point they feared for their safety when trapped for 45 minutes in a Glasgow railway baggage room while surrounded by 35,000 fans demanding a performance. (Crosby, 197-99)

Ken Barnes, Bing's last album producer, persuaded Bing and Fred to record an album of duets in London in 1975. Barnes later recalled the contrasting styles of the two stars:

"Once the material had been decided upon, we paid only one visit to Bing's house which consisted of one hour and a half around the piano during which time Bing would sing each song through no more than twice -- once for the key and then once again for the tempo.... That solitary visit to Crosby's house was in no way comparable to the nine visits we made to Fred's house, each lasting a minimum of three hours. Whereas Crosby would approach each song in a casual, seemingly off-hand manner, Astaire went to the other extreme. He would plan each song routine as though it were an intricate piece of choreography."

When Bing and Fred arrived in London in July, their contrasting styles posed a problem. According to Barnes:

I rang the Connaught and got through to Fred. His first question could not have been more direct. "What time do we meet with Bing tomorrow?" There was no beating around the bush with Astaire either and I plunged straight in. "Bing can't make it tomorrow. He's tied up all day." I waited for Fred's comment but there was only silence from the telephone. "But he'll meet you a half hour before the session," I went on, "and run down each of the songs individually."

For a moment I thought we had been disconnected but after a few seconds Fred spoke and his comments about Crosby were anything but complimentary. He accused Bing of being totally irresponsible and unprofessional, but eventually, after he had got the initial anger out of his system, Fred conceded that this was Bing's way of working and it was too late to expect him to change. "But," added Fred, "it's not my way of working. It may be OK for the great Crosby to stroll into a studio and turn on the magic, but I can't work that way. I've got to rehearse with somebody." (Barnes, pages 47-53)

The Crosby-Astaire duet album turned out to be a hit. Apparently, Astaire held no grudge against Bing, for he agreed to be Bing's guest on his 1975 Christmas TV special, recorded in November. The TV special would be the last time the two worked together. Fred died of pneumonia at age 88 in the wee hours of June 12, 1987, in a Los Angeles hospital, where he had been admitted 10 days earlier for a bad cold...

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MEMORIES OF KEN BARNES

It took the mainstream media a lot of time to report on the death of the great Ken Barnes, but finally here is a great article...

One of Britain's most accomplished record producers, film historians and writers, Ken Barnes worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. As a record producer he went between London, Los Angeles, Nashville and New York, recording such stars as Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Slim Whitman, Frankie Laine, Connie Francis and Jack Jones, selling more than five million records and earning a string of silver, gold and platinum discs.

He enjoyed an enduring working relationship during Bing Crosby's final years, which came about because Crosby had liked the work he had done on two albums with the lyricist and singer Johnny Mercer. Barnes flew to California to meet Crosby at his sprawling Hillsborough residence. He was kept waiting before being shown into a room where Crosby apologised for the delay, explaining that he had been writing a foreword for a book on the songwriter, Harry Warren.

He asked Barnes, "Do you know of Warren's work?", which unleashed a torrent of song titles and knowledgeable facts about the composer, immediately cementing the relationship. Barnes produced Crosby's final six albums, one of which included the reflective song, "That's What Life Is All About" which he co-wrote with a contribution from Crosby.

Particularly adept at working with big stars, with their egos and peccadillos, he was able to bring out the best in them by subtly, but firmly, navigating potential pitfalls. When he was working with Fred Astaire, the record company wanted to include a few seconds of him tap dancing. Barnes said, "We'll clear a space and you can tap for a few seconds." Astaire politely but firmly replied, "No way am I dancing." Barnes tried with a shoe shuffle but it didn't sound convincing. So he told Astaire, "It's no use. But somebody's feet have got to be there. But if I get someone like Lionel Blair to do it, they'll have an after-dinner story of 'How I did Fred Astaire's dancing for him'." Astaire stared at him for a second and said, "You son of a gun. OK, I'll do it right now!"

During the same London sessions, Astaire was about to record the George and Ira Gershwin standard, "They Can't Take That Away from Me" and said to Barnes, "Let's do the alternate lyrics on the way out." Barnes told him that there weren't any so Astaire told him to come up with something. Barnes thought about it and suggested the couplet, 'The way you drove the car, when we were on a spree; No matter where you are – no, no, they can't take that away from me.' Astaire was delighted, exclaiming, "That's it! Wonderful! I'll record it."

Returning to the US, Astaire took an acetate of the recording to Ira Gershwin's home and, after playing the track, asked Ira what he thought of the new lyric. "What new lyric? Isn't that what I wrote?" Gershwin replied.

When Barnes had the idea of recording Astaire and Crosby together, there was a considerable mismatch of approaches to the sessions. Astaire arrived in London a week in advance expecting to be rehearsing with his singing partner. Crosby, meanwhile, was typically relaxed. Barnes eventually tracked him down to a Scottish golf course club house. "How many songs will we be doing?" he asked Barnes, who told him the usual dozen. Crosby replied, "That's a breeze; we'll just need 10 minutes round the piano". This made Astaire nervous, so with the singer Teddy Johnson Barnes recorded demos for Astaire to learn in advance.

Barnes' writing skills resulted in books like Sinatra and the Great Song Stylists, 20 Years of Pop and The Crosby Years, in addition to a recent novel, The Sea Dogs, inspired by the early swashbuckling movies, especially those of Errol Flynn.

He was also an accomplished scriptwriter, delivering nearly 100 scripts for the BBC, as well as material for Michael Parkinson's chat show and British comedians including Roy Hudd and Les Dawson. He also worked with Peter Sellers, producing an album of classic sketches, Sellers' Market.

A great admirer of Frank Sinatra, he went on to become European president of the Sinatra Music Society, and along with his close friend and colleague, Charles Pignone who runs Sinatra Enterprises in Hollywood, he worked on several Sinatra re-issue projects. This led to Pignone recommending Barnes to write the script for the Emmy-nominated TV biopic of Johnny Mercer, The Dream's On Me, produced by Clint Eastwood.

As a film historian, Barnes gave lectures at the National Film Theatre and UCLA in California, and it was his encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema, from silents to the present day, that provided another string to his bow. In 1995 he set up a film restoration company, Laureate DVD, predicting the massive interest in the format, especially restoring and preserving movies that were recorded on film with all its associated fragility. Laureate released the first special editions of Citizen Kane and Holiday Inn as well as box sets of the Marx Brothers, Cary Grant, and the classic collaborations of Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Bob Hope and Crosby.

Born in Middlesborough in 1933, he was educated in Redcar before doing National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals. He trained as a draughtsman, but his early passion for music in the jazz/swing and Great American Songbook genres led him to London in the 1960s to work as a marketing executive for Polydor and Decca.

His last studio recording was an album in aid of the charity Help for Heroes, recorded in the studio on the RAF Northolt air base with the Royal Air Force Squadronaires and myself. Another recent project was writing liner notes for the 60-page booklet included with the recent four-disc box set, Sinatra In London. And for the Smithsonian Institute he wrote liner notes for a forthcoming album of Sinatra's work which will now be dedicated to Barnes' memory. At the time of his death he had just finished working with Peggy Lee's granddaughter, Holly Foster-Wells, on a CD/DVD box set, Peggy Lee In London, a collection of the recordings Barnes produced in 1997, which will be released later this year.

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A TRIBUTE TO KEN BARNES

KEN BARNES: A MUSIC LEGEND

FEBRUARY 14, 1933 - AUGUST 4, 2015

REMEMBERING: KEN BARNES (1933-2015)

Record producer and musical genius Ken Barnes has died today. No words can express what he meant to Bing's career in the 1970s - so here are a few pictures of the greats he worked with - Bing, Fred Astaire, and Johnny Mercer.

He will be missed...

PETE MOORE: BING ARRANGER AND CONDUCTOR DIES

In a career spanning six decades, composer-arranger-conductor,Pete Moore’s music was and is known to millions the world over, but his name is less familiar to the average person. As a composer, he wrote themes for many TV commercials including such famous brands as Coca Cola and Lux Toilet Soap, numerous songs recorded by such artists as Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine and Fred Astaire. But it is his composition “Asteroid” – the famous theme for Pearl and Dean’s cinema advertisements – that remains his most familiar and most successful composition. Apart from being heard every day (for the last 45 years) on cinema screens in the U.K., it is constantly featured around the world in commercials and documentaries. For many people, the very sound of its “pa-papa-pa” fanfare spells “cinema.” It has also been “sampled” by modern-day pop artists and enjoyed chart success on more than one occasion.

But that is only a small portion of a career that saw him providing orchestrations and accompaniments for such artists as Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Julie Andrews, Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Slim Whitman and Randy Crawford – to name but a few. His orchestrations can be found in the repertoires of such world famous musical units as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops and the Rochester Symphony Orchestra – in addition to writing scores for such luminaries as Burt Bacharach, Marvin Hamlisch and Liberace.

A quiet, soft-spoken and unassuming man, cockney-raised and academy-trained, Pete Moore usually declined to do interviews because he was always “too busy.” In fact, it would seem that he never actively sought work, it just came to him. Which is why he was often referred to as “The Invisible Genius.” As a person and as a musician, he was liked and admired by everyone who knew him. While he may not be a household name, Pete Moore’s music remains alive and well. As it has for the past half-century.

His funeral takes place at 1.20 pm next Friday December 13th at Mortlake Crematorium, Kew Meadow Path, Townmead Road, London TW9 4EN

Pete Moore with Johnny Mercer and Ken Barnes

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