Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, director and singer, known for his wit and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic and poise". Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven; as a teenager he was introduced into the high society. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire, he composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works. At the outbreak of the Second World War Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris.
He worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama, In Which We Serve, was knighted in 1969. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", "London Pride" and "I Went to a Marvellous Party". Coward's plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, his work and style continue to influence popular culture, he did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn, his long-time partner, in Coward's diaries and letters, published posthumously. The former Albery Theatre in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006. Coward was born in 1899 in a south-western suburb of London, his parents were Arthur Sabin Coward, a piano salesman, Violet Agnes Coward, daughter of Henry Gordon Veitch, a captain and surveyor in the Royal Navy.
Violet's cousin, Rachel Veitch, was mother of Field-Marshal Douglas Haig. Noël Coward was the second of their three sons, the eldest of whom had died in 1898 at the age of six. Coward's father lacked ambition and industry, family finances were poor. Coward appeared in amateur concerts by the age of seven, he attended the Chapel Royal Choir School as a young child. He was a voracious reader. Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to a dance academy in London, Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish. In Present Indicative, his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote: One day... a little advertisement appeared in the Daily Mirror.... It stated that a talented boy of attractive appearance was required by a Miss Lila Field to appear in her production of an all-children fairy play: The Goldfish; this seemed to dispose of all argument. I was a talented boy, God knows, when washed and smarmed down a bit, passably attractive.
There appeared to be no earthly reason why Miss Lila Field shouldn't jump at me, we both believed that she would be a fool indeed to miss such a magnificent opportunity. The leading actor-manager Charles Hawtrey, whom the young Coward idolised and from whom he learned a great deal about the theatre, cast him in the children's play Where the Rainbow Ends. Coward played in the piece in 1912 at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End. In 1912 Coward appeared at the Savoy Theatre in An Autumn Idyll and at the London Coliseum in A Little Fowl Play, by Harold Owen, in which Hawtrey starred. Italia Conti engaged Coward to appear at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre in 1913, in the same year he was cast as the Lost Boy Slightly in Peter Pan, he reappeared in Peter Pan the following year, in 1915 he was again in Where the Rainbow Ends. He worked with other child actors including Hermione Gingold. In 1914, when Coward was fourteen, he became the protégé and the lover of Philip Streatfeild, a society painter.
Streatfeild introduced him to her high society friends. Streatfeild died from tuberculosis in 1915, but Mrs Astley Cooper continued to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained a frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Hall. Coward continued to perform during most of the First World War, appearing at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in 1916 in The Happy Family and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas's company in Charley's Aunt. In 1917, he appeared in a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I was quite good in it, owing to the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction, he took endless trouble with me... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day."In 1918, Coward was conscripted into the Artists Rifles but was assessed as unfit for active service because of a tubercular tendency, he was discharged on health grounds after nine months. That year he appeared in the D W Griffith film Heart
Day Dreams (Doris Day album)
Day Dreams is the title of a Doris Day album released by Columbia Records on June 13, 1955. The catalog number was CL-624. Eight of the twelve tracks had been issued as a 10" LP under the title You're My Thrill. "You're My Thrill" "Bewitched and Bewildered" "Imagination" "I've Only Myself to Blame" "I'm Confessin'" "Sometimes I'm Happy" "You Go to My Head" "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" "If I Could Be with You" "Darn That Dream" "When Your Lover Has Gone" "That Old Feeling"
Love Me or Leave Me (Doris Day album)
Love Me or Leave Me is a Doris Day album based on the soundtrack of the film of the same name. It was released monaurally by Columbia Records as catalog number CL-710 on May 2, 1955, in both LP as well as 45-EP formats and became her best-selling album to date, spending 28 weeks on the Billboard magazine album chart and reaching the #1 position; the best-selling album of Day's career, it ranks #16 of all albums produced between 1955 and 1996. For the 1963 re-release of the picture and subsequent re-release of the record, instead of going back to the actual soundtrack recordings recorded in Hollywood for the film and remixing for Stereo, producers took the original monaural New York session tapes and electronically synthesized a stereo signal. Thirty years producers went back to the original pre-recorded and post-recorded music stems and remixed for true stereo from sources that will lock to picture. For the 1993 CD, in the opening track, the vocal starts out in one channel and rapidly pans to the center where it remains throughout the rest of the stereo material on the album, which includes as a bonus, several of the original monaural New York session masters featuring different arrangements.
Like most so-called "soundtrack" albums of the period, the tracks featured hereon are in most cases not the exact performances recorded for the film, which lock to picture. In this type of scenario arrangements will differ from the slight to the great compared to the film performance, the key and/or tempo may be adjusted up or down accordingly as well for a greater impact on records. Though the audio portion of a great many film performances would have been recorded at Hollywood-based sessions as the technical requirements were many, the companion performances intended for release on records is recorded in New York, where the best studios for records are found and for which the technical requirements are fewer than for film. Recording dates listed in this section refer to the performances recorded stereophonically in Hollywood in mid-to-late 1954 and included in remixed stereo versions on the 40th anniversary CD listed below. With three exceptions indicated with *, these performances are not included on this release.
The performances included here were recorded monaurally in New York in the late Winter and early Spring of 1955 from which an electronic stereo LP was engineered seven years later. "It All Depends on You" - 2:02 "You Made Me Love You" - 2:29 "Stay on the Right Side, Sister" - 1:00 "Mean to Me" - 2:12 "Everybody Loves My Baby" - 1:11 "Sam, The Old Accordion Man" - 2:06 "Shaking the Blues Away" - 3:30 "Ten Cents a Dance" - 1:57 "I'll Never Stop Loving You" - 1:55 "Never Look Back" - 2:26 "At Sundown" - 1:31 "Love Me or Leave Me" - 2:14 Unlike in the LP and cassette editions, all tracks hereon save those marked with * are original soundtrack performances recorded in Hollywood in mid-to-late 1954. Songs marked with an * are performances recorded in New York in early 1955 and taken from the original monaural LP master; the 2009 download-only album adds the original Exit Music to the mix. Overture It All Depends On You You Made Me Love You Stay On The Right Side, Sister Everybody Loves My Baby Mean To Me Sam, The Old Accordion Man Shaking The Blues Away MEDLEY:What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry - I Cried For You - My Blue Heaven - Ten Cents A Dance I'll Never Stop Loving You Never Look Back At Sundown Love Me Or Leave Me Finale I'll Never Stop Loving You* Ten Cents A Dance * Love Me Or Leave Me *
I'll See You in My Dreams (album)
I'll See You in My Dreams was a 10" LP album issued by Columbia Records as catalog # CL-6198 on December 14, 1951, featuring Doris Day and Paul Weston's orchestra, containing songs from the soundtrack of the movie of the same name. The album was combined with Day's 1953 album, Calamity Jane, on a compact disc, issued on June 12, 2001 by Collectables Records. "Ain't We Got Fun?" "The One I Love" "I Wish I Had a Girl" "It Had to Be You" "Nobody's Sweetheart" "My Buddy" "Makin' Whoopee!" "I'll See You in My Dreams" I'll See You in My Dreams
Bright and Shiny (album)
Bright and Shiny is an album released by Columbia Records, featuring Doris Day backed by Neal Hefti's orchestra, on March 20, 1961. It was released in two forms. A song of the same name was composed for this album. Neal Hefti directed the orchestra; the album was combined with Day's 1959 album, Cuttin' Capers, on a compact disc, issued on November 13, 2001 by Collectables Records
Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have focused on CD and MP3 formats; the audio cassette was a format used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s. An album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places; the time frame for recording an album varies between a few hours to several years. This process requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live" when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes. Recordings, including live, may contain sound effects, voice adjustments, etc..
With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, lyrics or librettos; the term "album" was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums; when long-playing records were introduced, a collection of pieces on a single record was called an album. An album, in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees and other public notices were inscribed in black, it was from this that in medieval and modern times album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, sketches and the like are collected. Which in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.
In the early nineteenth century "album" was used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Schumann's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces. When 78rpm records came out, the popular 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items were released on the longer 12-inch 78s, about 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of the seventeen-minute Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, it ran for 8m 59s. Deutsche Grammophon had produced an album for its complete recording of the opera Carmen in 1908. German record company Odeon released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky in 1909 on 4 double-sided discs in a specially designed package; this practice of issuing albums does not seem to have been taken up by other record companies for many years. By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records.
These albums came in both 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album; the 12-inch LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, it was adopted by the record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from minor refinements and the important addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.
The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as Compact audio cassette, compact disc, MiniDisc, digital albums, as they were introduced. As part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. While an album may contain as many or as few tracks as required, in the United States, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In the United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" i
On Moonlight Bay (album)
On Moonlight Bay is a Doris Day album featuring songs from the movie of the same name. It was issued by Columbia Records as a 10" LP album, catalog number CL-6186 and as a 78rpm 4 disc set, catalog number C-267; the album was combined with Day's 1953 album, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, on a compact disc, issued on January 30, 2001 by Collectables Records. Gordon McRae is not featured on the album, as he was a property of Capitol records and wasn't allowed to sing on this Columbia recording. James Emmons, a contract singer handled by Doris Day's husband, was used in his place on two songs... "Cuddle up a Little Closer" and "Till We Meet Again". "On Moonlight Bay" "Till We Meet Again" "Love Ya" "Christmas Story" "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" (John Kellette/Jaan Kenbrovin† "Cuddle up a Little Closer" "Every Little Movement" "Tell Me" †Joint pseudonym for James Kendis, James Brockman, Nat Vincent
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