May Will Bloom has a new single available on Friday on all the streaming, video and download sites. Use our version of “I’ll Tell My Ma” with your videos
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#irishsongs
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Cover of sheet music, with a drawing showing a perplexed Irishman taking a lesson from a beautiful Hawaiian woman. Two other women look on in amusement. They are sitting in a tropical scene with palm trees, a bay, and a smoldering volcano in the background.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention another 1916 song, also capitalizing on the vogue for the exotic people of Hawai'i:
"O'Brien Is Tryin' to Learn to Talk Hawaiian" had words by Al Dubin, music by Rennie Cormack.
#IrishSongs
As St Patrick's Day recedes (but it hasn't reached the International Date Line yet!) I'll mention another of the #IrishSongs.
Songwriters sometimes collide one ethnic stereotype against another to create humor.
From 1916's Hawai'i craze, here's
"Since Maggie Dooley Learned the Hooley-Hooley:"
☘️🌴
Photo of a man and a woman, both elegantly dressed, seated on a bench. Behind them is a giant version of the sheet music for the song "My Wild Irish Rose." They are actors Dennis Morgan and Andrea King, playing the parts of Chauncey Olcott and Lillian Russell, who were 19th century stage performers. Still from the movie with the same name as the song.
Today I learned of a biopic about the great Irish, though American, performer and composer Chauncey Olcott.
It's the 1947 musical MY WILD IRISH ROSE, starring Dennis Morgan & Arlene Dahl.
Justwatch says it's not streaming anywhere. Worldcat says various libraries hold a DVD. Hmm.
#IrishSongs
Here's a thread from 2024, reflecting on my Synthetic Irish heritage.
Follow it, and you will encounter a spreadsheet I made to analyze
"Bing Crosby's More Or Less Irish Songs."
Did Bing sing recently-composed Synthetic #IrishSongs, or old ones?
The answer may surprise you.
☘️🧵
#BingCrosby
So I cannot think of "Christmas in Killarney"* without hearing my mother sing it.
And yeah, when "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral"** says Me Mither Sang A Song To Me, well, MY mother really did sing that song to ME.
☘️
#IrishSongs
*Composed, I think, in New York in 1950.
**Composed in Detroit in 1913.
I understand his motto, and Marty Burke was a helluva singer.
But it took me many years to grasp that this denies my true musical heritage.
Because my relatives, including those born upon the Auld Sod, unreservedly loved the #IrishSongs Bing Crosby sang, whether composed in Dublin or Detroit.
☘️
Let's celebrate with a performance of #MacNamarasBand (or maybe "McNamara's Band") by another legendary group of performers, #SpikeJones and His City Slickers!
Uncharacteristically, they are playing the song relatively straight.
☘️
Thank you, Music Lovers.
#IrishSongs
35/35
And also top o' the morning to @ingrid-rocket.bsky.social, who got me interested in investigating #IrishSongs. And her mom. Who, long ago, sang these songs to her, as all good Irish, Irish-descended, and pseudo-Irish mothers should.
☘️
34/n
So I wish a Happy St Patrick's Day to Guy, Red, and Wamp, and to Bing, Barry Fitzgerald, Leo McCarey, Chauncey Olcott, J R Shannon, MacNamara, McCarthy, Hennessey Tennessey, General Grant, and especially Uncle Yulius!
You're all a credit to Ould Ireland!
#IrishSongs
33/n
I imagine versions of this record sold way, way more copies than anything else the Jesters ever recorded. I hope they enjoyed their royalties.
(There's another singing group called the Jesters, active in the 1950s & 60s, but not connected AFAIK.)
#IrishSongs
32/n
Record label from "McNamara's Band", Decca record 23495 A, with Bing Crosby and the Jesters with Bob Haggart and His Orchestra.
So, as I said, I don't know how they got connected, but when it came time for #BingCrosby to record #MacNamarasBand, who got the call to be Bing's backup singers?
You guessed it. The lyricists for the "American Version."
The Jesters.
☘️☘️☘️
#IrishSongs
30/n
From scrutinizing #BingCrosby's discography, I can tell that after GOING MY WAY, he began to record more #IrishSongs.
A LOT more.
Some were newly written, but many were decades old.
They drew on the Ireland of the imagination American audiences loved.
☘️
29/n
GOING MY WAY was a smash hit! It was awarded seven Oscars—one might say it was the EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE of 1944—and its songs sold pretty well.
In particular, "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral," released on record in 1945, peaked at #4 on charts.
#IrishSongs
28/n
Actors Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, dressed as Catholic priests, in a frame from GOING MY WAY (1944). Crosby stands in front of a fireplace; the older Fitzgerald is seated in an easy chair. Copyright 1944 by Paramount Pictures.
Director Leo McCarey loved the lullaby "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral," so in the movie he was directing, GOING MY WAY, Bing Crosby sang it to (actually Dublin-born) actor Barry Fitzgerald, and the rest is #IrishSongs history.
☘️
27/n
This is one of a large body of #IrishSongs about Ireland, or Irish people, that weren't actually written in Ireland.
"Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral" had been a hit in 1913, but by 1944 that was 31 years in the past, and it wasn't much performed any more.
26/n
Cover for sheet music to "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That's an Irish Lullaby), featuring photos of GOING MY WAY stars Bing Crosby and Rise Stevens against a bright green background. Words and music by J. R. Shannon. Published circa 1944, though Shannon composed the song in 1913.
In one scene, Father O'Malley, a youngish American priest of Irish descent, nurses the ailing old Irish pastor (Barry Fitzgerald).
Leo McCarey, director & screenwriter, remembered an "Irish" lullaby his father sang. He had Bing sing "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral."
#IrishSongs
24/n
As far as I can tell, the moment that really launched Bing Crosby's sideline as a beloved singer of #IrishSongs was his movie role as Father Chuck O'Malley in GOING MY WAY, in 1944.
23/n
Bing Crosby, mega-star of records, radio, & films, had some Irish ancestry. But despite making hundreds of recordings, he didn't record #IrishSongs until 1940.
And those were minor: "Did Your Mother Come from Ireland?" /"Where the River Shannon Flows."
22/n
Publicity photo of the trio as the Tastyeast Jesters, dressed in white suits and gathered around a microphone stand. Red Latham is playing mandolin and Guy Bonham is playing an upright bass.
I don't know how it happened, but it appears that, in 1945,
the Three Jesters got very, very lucky.
☘️☘️☘️
They crossed paths with a star.
🌟
#IrishSongs
21/n
Eight years later, the Jesters recorded "McNamara's Band" again, this time as Decca 3268.
One may find this record on Youtube. Or buy it on Ebay.
#IrishSongs
16/n
On 24 May 1932, near the beginning of their career, the Jesters cut a record, Victor 24052, of #MacNamarasBand.
But they spelled it "McNamara's Band."
#IrishSongs
15/n
Wikipedia can show you both the original Belfast verses and the Jesters' "American Version."
General Grant is substituted for the Prince of Wales, Uncle Yulius shows up ("But by Yimminy, I'm the only Swede in #MacNamarasBand"), and so forth.
#IrishSongs
14/n
However, Wamp Carlson's bio lists him as "Baritone, Swedish comedian," so maybe that's where the #MacNamarasBand verses about Uncle Yulius come from: "But by Yimminy, I'm the only Swede in McNamara's Band."
☘️
Or maybe Red was just adding lyrics to showcase his pal's talents.
#IrishSongs
13/n
Portrait of the trio from cover of sheet music. Text reads, "Featured by the Tastyeast Jesters: Dwight Latham, Wamp Carlson, Guy Bonham." Dwight usually went by the name "Red."
Did it really require three guys to rewrite the lyrics of #MacNamarasBand?
I suspect Red Latham did the heavy lifting; later he would co-author "I'm My Own Grandpaw."
However…
#IrishSongs
12/n
Portrait of the three men of the Jesters, wearing tuxedos and bow ties, from cover of sheet music of one of their songs. Text says "Featured by the Tastyeast Jesters." At bottom of the photo, they are labeled Pep, Vim, and Vigor.
The Three Jesters, a trio of singers, were quick to rename themselves "The Tastyeast Jesters" when they landed a sweet radio gig for 7 years. Tastyeast was a weird candy.
"Pep" is Red; "Vim" is Wamp; "Vigor" is Guy.
#IrishSongs
11/n
I like a song that, unlike some, was actually written in Ireland. In Belfast.
☘️
"MacNamara's Band," or sometimes "McNamara's Band," dates from 1889, but I have not found sheet music published until much later.
Archives of #IrishSongs show a date of 1917—but this is wrong. Blame the Jesters.
8/n
I got hold of 'TWAS ONLY AN IRISHMAN'S DREAM, I read it, and I learned a lot.
About #IrishSongs, about the people who have written them, about the people who have performed them, and about us, those who listen to them.
6/n
TWAS ONLY AN IRISHMAN'S DREAM: THE IMAGE OF IRELAND AND THE IRISH IN AMERICAN POPULAR SONG LYRICS, 1800-1920, published 1996.
William H A Williams explored sheet-music archives to study changing ideas of Irishness in US pop culture.
#IrishSongs
5/n
It surprised me to learn that, of the #IrishSongs popular in the 1940s, most were decades old at that time.
Soon I found there was a book I should read.
4/n
