[Dixielandjazz] FW:"Star Dust"

[Bill Haesler]

Dear friends,
This interesting article courtesy of our Australian Dance Bands list.
Kind regards,
Bill. 
______________________________________________________
Maybe If It Had Some Lyrics: A Century of 'Star Dust'

by David Hinckley
New York Daily News, April 22, 2005

Like all smart music publishers who honed their chops in Tin Pan
Alley, Irving Mills knew no song would be a hit if you didn't work
it. 

In 1931, then, he decided to dust off a composition that had already
done pretty well for Mills Music, an instrumental called "Star Dust"
by a kid from Indiana.

Maybe if it had some lyrics, Mills figured, he could promote it into
a new round of recordings. The composer, one Hoagy Carmichael, had
recently moved to New York. Carmichael wasn't a lyricist, though, so
his arrival didn't bring the song any closer to a set of words.

Mills first tried to write "Star Dust" lyrics himself. When they all
turned out lousy, he assigned the project to one of his staff
writers, Mitchell Parish.

Parish later remembered that he took on this job only reluctantly --
but in fact, writing lyrics "cold" like this was more or less his
specialty. Over the years he added lyrics to hundreds of melodies,
from "Sophisticated Lady" to "Deep Purple" and "Sleigh Ride."

As an instrumental, "Star Dust" had been performed two ways. The
Chocolate Dandies and Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra had done it as
a "hot" tune, while Isham Jones slowed it down to waltz tempo.

For his part, Parish heard it as a sad song.

An unbearably sad song.

And he wrote lyrics to match:

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song.
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new, and each kiss an inspiration.
But that was long ago, and now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song...

Critics thought the whole thing was brilliant, 26 seamless lines
rich 
in metaphor and yet beautifully direct in their sense of aching
loss -
- crushing sorrow expressed so exquisitely it almost makes you want
to go on living: 

Though I dream in vain, in my heart you will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain.

There is some evidence Mills didn't share that initial enthusiasm.
He 
waited two years, until 1933, to send the lyrics to the Library of
Congress for copyright.

He did, however, immediately put them into circulation.

Within days the song, with its new words, was being performed on a
remote broadcast from the Cotton Club by Mills' Blue Rhythm Band,
fronted by Irving's brother Sidney Mills. The Blue Rhythm Band was
also the first to record it, in May 1931, with Chick Bullock on
vocals. 

By August, Bing Crosby had chimed in, and soon it had become a
favorite with sweet bands. Eddy Duchin played it as a theme during
his long run at the Central Park Casino. In November, three "hot"
versions recorded by Louis Armstrong gave "Star Dust" a new
dimension: hip glamour.

Daily Mirror columnist Walter Winchell, whose prestige and reach
made 
him one of the most influential music critics of the day,
declared "Star Dust" a song against which all other popular songs
would be measured. 

And indeed, far from fading away in the manner of most popular
music, "Star Dust" just kept twinkling.

In 1936, RCA had two of its most popular artists, Benny Goodman and
Tommy Dorsey, record versions it put back-to-back on a 78 rpm
single. 
Goodman's was instrumental, Dorsey's vocal, and RCA reported it was
the company's best-selling record of both 1936 and 1938.

Interestingly, the most popular version, recorded in the late '30s,
was an instrumental, by Artie Shaw. To this day, many
traditionalists 
consider Shaw's to be the definitive "Star Dust."

In fact, many traditionalists respect anyone who can do a good "Star
Dust," for the song was never easy for anyone to record. Carmichael
himself had tried to record it at a 1930 session where his musicians
included Bix Beiderbecke, and he finally gave it up, saying he and
the band could never find a comfortable enough groove.

But that didn't stop the flow, and by the late '30s "Star Dust" had
itself a reputation. Orson Welles' famous "War of the World" radio
broadcast on Halloween night 1938, a fiction written as if a series
of real news bulletins were interrupting real programming, included
a 
musical segment with a hotel remote of "Star Dust" by "Ramon
Raquello's Orchestra."

Soldiers landing in the Philippines during World War II were greeted
by a native combo playing "Star Dust." The song became Glenn
Miller's 
first V-Disc. Soon it had been translated into 36 languages.

And Mitchell Parish grew to be a very old man, and still the world
was playing his song.

By the early 1990s, more than 1,200 versions of "Star Dust" had been
recorded -- not counting Ramon Raquello's, but including Frank
Sinatra's, Elke Sommer's, Lionel Hampton's, Wynton Marsalis' and
Liberace's. Parish always said there was only one version he never
liked much, Ringo Starr's.

And by now an evening sky full of Broadway luminaries had mounted a
Parish tribute show, brimming with the most famous of the hundreds
of 
standards he had put words to over the many years. "Star Dust," of
course, was the standout -- and that, of course, was what the show
was titled, six decades after Parish put the words on paper.
_____________________________________________________________