“A String of Pearls” by Glenn Miller

At #1: February 7, 1942; February 21, 1942 (two non-consecutive weeks)
Still alive? Missing in action on December 15, 1944

“A String of Pearls” picked up right where Glenn Miller left off with “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”. The song was composed by Jerry Gray and Eddie DeLang wrote lyrics for it, but I can’t determine whether or not “A String of Pearls” was released with lyrics. The versions that I’ve found on YouTube are instrumental versions and my goal is to link to the YouTube clip of the original version. It appears to be common practice in the swing band era to compose or perform an instrumental version and to add lyrics for later performances – so you never know when listening to a song which version was the one initially released.

If you read the Glenn Miller site maintained by the University of Colorado – Miller was a student there, briefly – you can almost play a game of “Seven Degrees of Glenn Miller” with every other major swing band leader or performer. The era appeared to be dominated by a handful of big band composer; it shouldn’t be surprising to conclude that they had connections with each other.

Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey: Miller was a performer and a music director in the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra.

Bing Crosby: Bing released some music with the Dorsey Brothers and had the opportunity to meet Miller there – they were apparently good friends.

Bix Beiderbecke: Miller was in the same band with Bix early on, when Miller was playing with the Ben Pollack band. Miller wasn’t far away from his high school graduation.

Benny Goodman: Miller and Goodman were both in the Pollack band and were roommates.

The Ink Spots: Miller’s band and The Ink Spots shared a bill at New York’s Paramount Theatre. Miller was given a diamond-studded wristwatch by The Ink Spots at the end of the engagement.

Artie Shaw: While Shaw had fled to Mexico to recuperate after “Begin the Beguine”, this left Shaw’s musical arranger Jerry Gray without a job. Miller snapped him up. Shaw undoubtedly had hard feelings about it. After Miller was presumed dead, Shaw said to the effect that Miller should have survived and “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” should have died.

The Andrews Sisters: Miller and The Andrews Sisters performed on the same radio show; soon, it was just Miller.

Harry James: As Miller was headed off to the Army, he turned the stewardship of his radio program over to James, for which James was quite grateful.

Frank Sinatra: From the website link, which explains how Glenn Miller was able to get great musicians for his Army band:

The procedure was simple. A draftee would send a letter to Glenn, giving him all the details about his induction, whereupon Glenn would request, through channels, his assignment to his command. These men would eventually report to Atlantic City for their basic training. Frank Sinatra, who would be classified 4-F, was among the musicians and singers who were in contact with Glenn. If Francis Albert had been drafted, he would have been assigned to Miller.

Ten years after Miller disappeared/died, Jimmy Stewart would star in The Glenn Miller Story. The movie was a big hit at the box office, and was nominated for three Oscars, winning for Best Musical Score. It looks like I’m going to have to add another movie to my list of must-see films for the Number One Hits Blog.

“Frenesi” by Artie Shaw

At #1: December 21, 1940 – March 8, 1941 (12 weeks)
Still alive? No. Arthur Jacob Arshawsky died December 30, 2004



According to Dave’s Music Database, Artie Shaw recorded this song after returning from Mexico. The song is written by Alberto Dominguez, and was adapted by others before Shaw recorded his version which was arranged by William Grant Still.

More interesting to me is how Shaw ended up in Mexico in the first place. This wasn’t Shaw’s first hit, and definitely not his biggest. Shaw was just 25 or 26 when he broke through in 1936 with an arrangement called “Interlude in B-Flat”. And two years later, Shaw would arrange Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” which would lead many to conclude that his band was better than Benny Goodman’s. (The comparison was natural, as both Shaw and Goodman played the clarinet.)

Shaw’s relationship with his own fame was – troubled. He saw himself as a composer, a writer, undoubtedly as a thinker and intellectual at some level. He appeared to have a lot of contempt for the music business of the time and the prevailing groupthink of music fans. I suspect that he was very hard to get along with – he was certainly unlucky in love, having been married eight times.

By 1939, he had had it. He took a sabbatical, one of many during his career. But Shaw was at the top of his game when he walked away. He decided to go to Acapulco in Mexico and it was there where “Frenesi” came to fruition. My understanding is that he stayed in Acapulco for three months until he saved a woman from drowning, leading the press to find him again and chase him back home.

(I find Shaw’s life more fascinating that his music. I don’t “get” “Begin the Beguine”. It’s a good song – I suppose – but it doesn’t send me into fits of rapture and if I never heard it again I probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone. The same with “Frenesi”. I suspect the music of the 1940s and 1950s is going to be a long slog. Then again, a lot of instrumental music is very hard for me to take.)
So after he came back with “Frenesi”, Shaw put together another band. He formed the Gramercy Five, volunteered for service in World War II and led a military band, the fate of famous bandleaders who volunteered.

John Andrews over at wsws.orghas this about Shaw’s take on politics:

Shaw was on the executive committee of the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP), which included Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles and Katharine Hepburn from the entertainment world as well as Albert Einstein and Max Weber. The organization was accused of being a front for the Communist Party, and at the July 2, 1946 meeting, a minority introduced a resolution condemning communism as tantamount to fascism. In response to a statement by Ronald Reagan in support, Shaw declared that the Soviet Union was more democratic than the United States and offered to recite the Soviet constitution to prove it. After the resolution’s defeat, Reagan resigned from the organization and became a spokesperson for red-baiters within Hollywood.

Shaw would be blacklisted, but he probably didn’t mind being out of the public eye. He finally gave up performing in 1954. If he ever performed music or played the clarinet it was in the privacy of his own home. According to Smithsonian Magazine:

He went on to become a nationally ranked marksman and expert fly fisherman. When asked recently if he still practiced on his clarinets, he said, "I haven't played them for 50 years.”

He continued to read voraciously, and worked on an autobiography and short stories. While the name of Benny Goodman might still ring a bell (didn’t they make a movie about him?), Artie Shaw seems to have escaped from the 21st century’s popular memory. I suspect he wouldn’t have minded.