Porgy & Bess - Gullah Negroes

In the summer of 1933 Gershwin went to Folly Island in So. Carolina to live with the very primitive Gullah Negroes. This was the setting for DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy. Gershwin wanted to get a hands on experience of their existence, most especially their form of 'rhythmic shouting' during church services.
He attended their services religiously and became a first class shouter himself. There was no running water on Folly Island, no electricity - a far cry from his Manhattan mansion. Later he was asked why he did not use existing Negro spirtuals in Porgy & Bess. He commented that he wished the entire body of work to be of one fabric, therefore he wrote the spirtuals himself. He called the music an American 'folk opera'.

Judy Garland - From Babe Gumm to Judy Garland

When Babe (Judy) was 11, Ethel Gumm packed the three sisters and moved lock stock and barrel to LA - without the blessing of Frank Gumm. That began an even more relentless succession of auditions and one night gigs in vaudeville houses.

An opportunity for a weeklong contract was signed for a top vaudeville house in Chicago. Ethel Gumm thought nothing driving half way across the country. Comedian George Jessel was the headliner and emcee and saw their act. “There’s only one thing wrong with the Gumm Sisters,” he commented. “It’s their name”, he grumbled. When I introduce them, the audience snickers because the name rhymes with bum, crumb, dumb…or worse yet, Glum….deadly for a singing group…?
Jessel suggested to Ethel Gumm that they change their performing name to Garland, after a friend of his.
The singing Gumm sisters went to the singing Garland sisters overnight. I liked the name Judy, so we changed that too.
Jessel went on to say that, as singers, the older sisters, were fine. But Babe, well, “she sang like a woman carrying a torch for Valentino.”

George Gershwin - Tin Pan Alley

George was a song plugger at Remick's Publishing House on 28th St. in Manhattan at the age of 14. He played on a series of piano rolls that is available on CD today.
An excerpt from GERSHWIN, by GEORGE: The 1936 Radio Show w/ Fred and Adele Astaire:

FRED
Well anyway, one day a newspaper columnist came to Remick’s to interview a song plugger. The musician played a new tune on a worn out piano. The raspy, steely tones sounded more like reverberations from raspy, clanging…

ADELE

…tin pans, Freddie. Tin pans!

FRED

Tin pans! Right! The columnist wrote that this was “tin pan” music and he coined the term where it was played as “Tin Pan Alley”.

ADELE

Tin Pan Alley and the new American music became (thinks real hard)…monogamous.

Alexei Romanov

ALEXEI & ME - historical novel for 9-14 year olds. 14 year old Alexei had two impossible burdens; heir to the 300 yr. Romanov dynasty AND hemophilia. The "Royal Disease" in the early 1900's had no cure (before the invention of hemoglobin) and was a death sentence by the early twenties.
The Tsar was in power by Divine Right and therefore the public could not be informed of this 'human' frailty. Only the Siberian peasant monk, Rasputin, had the mesmerizing power to staunch the flow of blood during Alexei's hemophilia attacks. The assassination of the entire family was the executed by Lenin, months after the Russian Revolution. Books are available at www.BestofBroadwayProductions. Author Greer Firestone firestone@delaware.net

Judy Garland

There WAS Al Jolson, regarded as the world's greatest entertainer. Then, in the early '60's, Judy staged yet another of her comebacks and took the world by storm in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall in '63 and the London Palladium. She was a performing prodigy - like George Gershwin as a composer - beginning her career on stage as Frances "Baby" Gumm, of the three singing Gumm Sisters. Ethel Gumm, Judy's mother, is known in theatrical history as the quintessential hard-driving, overbearing and obsessed stage mother. She began giving Babe amphetamines at age 9 declaring "I've got to keep my girls going". The woman who should have been her defender, her bulwark against those wishing to 'use' Judy's talent, became her pusher.
At the age of 12 Judy landed an audition with the legendary Louis B. Mayer of MGM. Judy sang a Jewish traditional song in Hebrew, bringing tears to Mayer's eyes. Normally, singing auditions are allied with screen tests. After this one song, Mayer said not to bother with the test. "Prepare the contracts", he said to an aid. Two weeks later Babe Gumm inked a contract for $100.00 per week and the rest is musical history.

George Gershwin - fusing jazz into symphony

George Gershwin, nee Jacob Gershovitz, fused the jazz of the Negro Harlem musicians into symphony, thereby creating a NEW American music. Before his time, all 'serious' musicians had to be European trained to be considered masters. George's passport was stamped AMERICAN. Added to that, consider the segregationist times of the early '30's. Gershwin, along with DuBose Heyward and brother Ira, wrote the first American folk opera, Porgy & Bess, with an ALL Negro cast. He was the Abraham Lincoln of American music.