“Tangerine” by Jimmy Dorsey

At #1: May 9, 1942-June 13, 1942 (six weeks)
Still alive? No. Jimmy Dorsey died of cancer on June 12, 1957

“Tangerine” is another song from a movie soundtrack. This time, the movie was The Fleet’s In, which better known as the film where Betty Hutton made her screen debut than in being Jimmy Dorsey’s best appearance on screen.

(Note: I’ve finished watching The Fabulous Dorseys and there will be a review in the future.)

The movie version is slightly different than the album version. In the movie Bob Eberly sings the line "And I've seen times when Tangerine/Had the bourgeoisie believing she was queen” but on the record he sings "And I've seen toasts to Tangerine/Raised in every bar across the Argentine”.

While trying to find out as much as I can about the Big Band Era, I lucked onto the Donald Clarke Music Box website. Clarke wrote a biography of Frank Sinatra and his website includes an encyclopedia of music, essays and a blog. Clarke writes about Dorsey:

Jimmy Dorsey led a band similar to that of Harry James in that it was a good mainstream dance band. He had been a superb alto player on many fine jazz records; when Tommy walked out in 1935, most of the members of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra stayed with Jimmy, who became one of Jack Kapp's greatest successes on Decca. The band's very good and extremely popular vocalists were Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell; Kitty Kallen sang with it in the early 1940s before she joined Harry James. Sidemen included Ray McKinley on drums, 'Tootie' Camarata on trumpet, Freddie Slack on piano and Herbie Haymer on tenor saxophone. But, as with James, his biggest hits almost all featured the singers: 'The Breeze and I' (from the Spanish song 'Andalucia' by Ernesto Lecuona), 'Maria Elena' (a Mexican song), 'Blue Champagne', 'High on a Windy Hill', 'I Hear a Rhapsody' and many others were sung by Eberly; 'Green Eyes' (from Cuba), 'Amapola' (a Spanish song) and 'Tangerine' (from the film The Fleet's In) were all duets by Eberly and O'Connell. The band's last big hit was 'Besame Mucho' (from Mexico), a duet by Eberly and Kallen. Like most leaders on Decca, Dorsey also recorded with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. He is rated as the seventeenth best-selling recording artist up to 1954, but brother Tommy was number four.

Regarding Bob Eberle and Helen O’Connell, the vocalists for “Tangerine”:

Eberly was extremely popular, beaten in '39 poll only by Crosby, while O'Connell was one of the most highly rated white female vocalists of the era. Jimmy's band was sweeter than Tommy's, but could swing.

We might not remember “Tangerine” in the 21st century, but the tune is popular enough for people to keep coming back to it. It’s been used in two different commercials – oddly enough, both diet commercials. One was for “Sego”, a diet drink and the other one was for Pillsbury Figurines, a diet bar. (I’ve been unable to find the Pillsbury Figurines commercial, but my wife remembers it. “Figurines, da da da da da da da, da da da da da, da da da diet bar….) It was also reworked as a disco hit by Salsoul Orchestra and made the Billboard Top 20 in 1976.

Extra #1: The Sego commercial, which you can find at 3:58 in the clip below:

Extra #2: The Salsoul Orchestra pop version.