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Charleston! The Definitive Album

£7.74

Currently out of stock at the UK suppliers. Available to order, but is likely to take longer than usual to despatch

Label: Retrospective

Cat No: RTR4150

Barcode: 0710357415029

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 7th September 2009

About

The 25 finest original recordings.

The period now broadly referred to as the Charleston era was, outwardly at least, one of extrovert gaiety which masked the poverty and uncertainty of the Depression. An unrestrained time of pre-Wall Street Crash self-indulgence, of excess, of showbiz ballyhoo and the “eternal flutter of circulars” from Harry Reichenbach aeroplanes, the new age in America spawned endless varieties of “It Girl” clones, flappers, short skirts, smoking jackets and cigarette-holders, Prohibition (nice when it ended!), the Talkies, Art Deco, Josephine Baker and Fred Astaire, Binnie Hale and Noel Coward, the crazy rhythms of Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Vincent Youmans – and a physical jerk which was all the rage on records and radio called the Charleston.

Suddenly, everybody was doing it!

Contents:
- The Charleston [Paul Whiteman & his Orchestra]
- Pasadena [Al Jolson]
- I Love My Chili Bom Bom [Reg Batten & The Savoy Havana Band]
- Sweet Georgia Brown [Ben Bernie & his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra]
- I'm Gonna Charleston Back To Charleston [The Coon-Sanders Nighthawks]
- Don’t Bring Lulu [Nathan Glantz & his Orchestra]
- Yes, Sir, That's My Baby! [Gene Austin]
- Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue [Art Landry & his Orchestra]
- I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight? [Jack Hylton & his Orchestra]
- Everything Is Hotsy-Totsy Now [The Coon-Sanders Nighthawks]
- I Love My Baby, My Baby Loves Me [Fred Waring & his Pennsylvanians]
- That Certain Party [The Goofus Five]
- Charleston Charley [The Arcadians Dance Orchestra]
- I'd Rather Charleston [Fred & Adele Astaire; George Gershwin – Piano]
- The Girl Friend [George Olsen & his Music]
- The Black Bottom [Johnny Hamp & his Kentucky Serenaders]
- Crazy Words, Crazy Tune [Johnny Marvin]
- Miss Annabelle Lee [Whispering Jack Smith]
- Ain’t She Sweet? [Gene Austin]
- The Varsity Drag [George Olsen & his Music]
- That’s My Weakness Now [Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards]
- I Wanna Be Loved By You [Helen Kane]
- Crazy Rhythm [Whispering Jack Smith]
- Happy Feet [Paul Whiteman & his Orchestra]
- You're Driving Me Crazy [Nick Lucas & his Crooning Troubadours]
- Runnin’ Wild [Duke Ellington & his Jungle Band]

“America [made] Wall Street the world's money mart . . . Hollywood the factory of the world's day-dreams, and Tin Pan Alley the maker of the music it danced to . . . the America of the 1920s that passed into the file of the world's memory is not an America of throbbing steel production . . . but a kind of mass idiocy and frivolity. Europe, drained of life and invention after the war, first jeered and then eagerly copied these hectic fads – cocktails, bobbed hair, the Charleston . . .” - Alastair Cooke (America, 1973)

“It was just a regulation cotillion step” - James P. Johnson (composer of The Charleston)