A Class Act

 

Julie London (1926-2000)

Many of you who followed me for a long time know that I am an avid collector of vintage big band records, and have been since I was 12.  As I have recounted on several occasions, many of the records I used to get as a kid were from a junk shop in Rio, WV, we locally called the "Rio Mall."  With an allowance of about $5 per month then, I could go to that store and really stock up on stuff I had an interest in, as each record cost me approximately a quarter then.  At about a year or so into collecting, I came across an album with a strikingly beautiful female singer on it and it caught my attention.  That album was this one:

The singer featured on the album was Julie London, and it was originally released in 1956 on the Liberty Records label (album ID LRP-3012).  At that point in time, I was just starting my collection and didn't have a clue to who Julie London even was, but it looked interesting so I got it.  A short time later, I was listening to Henry Boggan's Sunday night program on WBT-AM, and he played the only charting hit she ever recorded - "Cry Me A River," which was released in 1955 as a classic torch song composed by Arthur Hamilton. The song was melancholy, sultry, and actually perhaps one of the best recordings of vocal jazz I ever heard.  It was recorded with simple instrumentation - string bass ("dog house") and guitar playing softly in the background while fully showcasing Julie London's voice, which was excellent.  The arrangement of it was simple yet sophisticated, the type of music you would hear on a romantic date with your girl in a dim candlelit cafe.  Personally, I liked it.  Over the years, I didn't really think much about Julie London until I heard another song she recorded, Cole Porter's classic "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To."  I had a history of appreciating this song too, as the first arrangement I had heard of it was a more upbeat one by Ray Conniff and his singers that I found on one of the first records I ever purchased in 1982, a Columbia Special Products release (these were often released as promotional items for stores and other businesses) that was made in the early 1960s under the serial CSP-160 titled Fall Festival of Stars.  Another good arrangement of this song could be found as part of a medley on a Freddy Martin LP that also came out in the early 1960's on Capital.  Julie recorded this with a small jazz combo organized by her husband, Bobby Troup (a songwriter and actor who also composed Sammy Kaye's 1942 hit "Daddy") and it got my attention.  Realizing her wonderful voice now and also her gorgeous looks, I began to look more into who Julie London was, and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised at the person she truly was. 

In this day and age when you have freaks like Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, and fake beauty like Taylor Swift, dominating the music scene, it is rare to see anyone of real talent.  In recent years, the only singer I think that embodied real talent who made a significant presence on American culture is probably Michael Buble, but even he has compromised some of his standards by hanging out with faux country artists like Blake Shelton.  Looking at modern music in the past 30 or so years, I am honestly not impressed with it - it is too commercial, too fake, and in the case of female "artists," it is all about AI-manipulated vocals, twerking, and showing their boobs (yes, I said it - call me sexist, but they diminish themselves) indiscriminately while also embracing bizarre political agendas that many of their listeners do not relate to.  The "diva" seems to be mainstream in today's music, and at times it is overrated and not really classy - that tub of lard called Lizzo comes to mind here.  This crass oversexualization and diminishing of classic femininity is disgusting frankly, and it also is devoid of actual talent.  This is nothing new though, as my generation had their own share of slutty divas like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper.  This is one reason I stood out in my early teens from many of my own classmates.  Because of my tastes in music, I was often the target of bullying and ridicule by others in middle school and it could be rough.  But, thankfully, my musical tastes remained resolute.  Of course, nowadays Cyndi Lauper looks mild compared to the likes of Lizzo, but the same over-commercialization and garbage is still there which characterizes both of those "singers."  This is one reason why I also think that Simon Cowell is overrated as a music expert - the man is as tone-deaf as a cat being neutered by a buzz saw, yet he is the one determining "talent."  My guess is that ol' Simon has more of a hangup with butts and boobs than he does vocal talent, and that is why I have little respect for the fool.  Some have tried to compare Simon Cowell to Gordon Ramsay, but to be honest that is insulting to Ramsay - Ramsay is at least a talented chef, whereas Cowell don't know jack about actual music.  If I saw Simon Cowell in person, my hope is that I would have a rotten tomato ready to aim at his smug, arrogant face. I know that critique of contemporary culture is harsh, but I am not apologizing for it.  Agendas and artificial enhancements are way too prevalent in much of today's culture, not to mention the "woke" ideology that many of these faux "artists" promote and pander to.  It is time to go back to a few basics, so here is a little lesson in what true art and music should be. 

During my Master's program at Franciscan University of Steubenville, I took a very insightful course as a required part of my curriculum called Philosophy of the Human Person.  One of the texts we used was Fr. Norris Clarke,  The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001).  Fr. Clarke is a Jesuit priest who at one time served as Professor Emiritus of Philosophy at the Forham University, and although I don't agree with all the book (he supports, for instance, a Tielhardian view of theistic evolution), the majority of his work is actually quite good and in concord with Thomistic philosophy in general.   In Chapter 4 of the book, Fr. Clarke initiates a discussion on what are called the "Transcendental Properties of Being," and they are traditionally understood as being the following:

1. Truth

2. Beauty

3. Goodness

He defines a transcendental property of being as essentially an attribute that can be predicated of every real being (p. 60).  He further notes that activity is the outer face of being, and is expressive.  Taking that into a theological realm then, it means God created us with these attributes, and thus we all possess them in a unique way that reflects the person God made us to be. These particular properties are completely and perfectly personified in God himself, as he is perfect Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.  But, because we are created in his image, we are endowed with the creative ability to express those in our daily lives in the form of specific giftings and talents.  However, the process of cultivating those talents is often not as pretty - I remember years ago in a life coaching course I had which was sponsored by the company I worked for then in which an analogy was given of beautiful roses growing over a sewer.  The point of the illustration was that a pretty appearance often belies something ugly underneath.  Over the years I have taken that to have two meanings.  The first is obvious, and has to do with false fronts people put up to hide their own evil - in the classic sitcom Designing Women (I love that show, by the way!) an episode was broadcast where one of the main characters, Julia Sugarbaker (played by late actress Dixie Carter) was miffed at her beau Reese Watson (played by Carter's real-life husband Hal Holbrooke) because he attended a country club dance with a pretty young junior partner in his law firm named Shannon.  Shannon was gorgeous too - beautiful long black hair and smoldering brown eyes - but she was not a good person and wanted to seduce Reese to advance her own career.  Julia confronts her in a bathroom, and when Shannon says what she wants to do with Reese, Julia gives her a lesson in the presentation of manure and concludes like this as I paraphrase it - "I know compost, and I have never seen it wrapped in such a pretty package, yet it is still compost."  The roses over the sewer could be interpreted in the same way. But, there is also another interpretation too - the worst of adversities are what makes the most beautiful of characters.  Yes, sewage is stinky, disgusting, and generally unpleasant, but it has the right nourishment to fertilize either beautiful roses or delicious tomatoes too. Something beautiful can emerge from something evil or bad.  This brings to mind Nat Hentoff's 1965 fictional book Jazz Country, where noted (fictional) jazz pianist Moses Godfrey and his bass player Bill Hitchcock give the young protagonist, 16-year-old aspiring trumpeter Tom Curtis, a bit of wisdom in this statement - "your blues are like a new pair of shoes if you don't get some dirt on them."  Many of the best pieces of music - symphonic works, classic popular songs, and hymns and gospel songs - are beautiful testimonies of adversity that are expressed from the heart of the artist or composer.  This is what underlies true beauty.  Much of today's music lacks that - it is shallow, stupid, and is often produced by spoiled, privileged nudniks who have no actual life experience in anything. That is why much of this crap called "music" today will never become eternal and generations from now it will be largely forgotten because it lacks actual beauty.  And, that includes a lot of so-called "Contemporary Christian Music" that is showcased in Evangelical megachurches.  Lyrics such as "Ooh-ahh-ooo-ooo heaven!" mean very little, and they actually sound kinda stupid. And, they are not exalting God or encouraging a deeper Christian walk, no - they are just something that some aging Boomers can prance around to because they have midlife crises and somehow think that appeals to younger people. The evidence though shows otherwise.  Now that those preliminaries are out of the way, let's get back to Julie London.

California-born Julie London started her career as an actress in the mid-1940s, and was married to Jack Webb (of Dragnet fame) as her first husband.  Early accounts of her described her as a committed wife and mother who actually prioritized her family over her career (rare in itself) but Webb didn't share those priorities, which led to their divorce in 1953. The divorce really hit Julie hard, but then she met a young jazz pianist/composer/actor named Bobby Troup, and he really took an interest in her especially after hearing her sing.  They were later married and had a happy marriage up until his passing in 1999. 

In looking at Julie's life, there are a few interesting facts about her:

1. She cherished being a wife and mother

2. She displayed a sincere humility in her own life and didn't think she was as talented as she really was.

3. She was a very private person - her life was not a Hollywood tabloid feature.

Julie looked very beautiful too - not the artificial Hollywood image-boosting, but a truly natural beauty that was all her own. And, she also sang amazingly.  She originally started out as an actress, but with her husband Bobby Troup's encouragement she began recording a series of albums, first on the Bethlehem label and later on the Liberty label, and although most had modest success she did hit upon a gem when in 1955 she recorded "Cry Me a River," which today is still considered a classic recording.  However, most people remembered her from a 1970's show called Emergency, in which she co-starred with her husband as a nurse named Dixie. Her quiet, unpretentious life was centered around a love of classic jazz and her family - she perfected the "torch song" as an early fan of Billie Holliday, and her sweet, sultry singing style was the perfect late-night romantic mood music that one could relax to.  This makes her stand out as a good representation of the transcendental properties of being - she was true to herself, had natural beauty and talent, and was a decent human being as a person.  Of course, like all of us, she was not perfect - the one vice she had was that she was a notorious smoker, as it was reported that she smoked up to 3 packs of cigarettes a day.  That eventually did affect her voice, and in due time she retired from singing after making her last album in the early 1970s.  However, compared to today's "artists," Julie's smoking habit was trivial in comparison.  She remained a person who wanted to live her life, was properly humble, and was also devoted to those things that mattered most, especially her family.  The smoking habit did eventually take a toll though, and after several years of recuperating from a debilitating stroke she had in the mid-1990s, she developed lung cancer and it led to her untimely passing at the age of 74 in the year 2000, just one year after her husband, Bobby Troup, had passed. I recently came across a published biography of Julie entitled Go Slow - the Life Story of Julie London (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2017) authored by Michael Owen.  I have plans to purchase this in the next few weeks and give it an engaging read, and perhaps I may review it here just to follow up this discussion.  Let me recap my own story of being introduced to Julie London's talent.

As I mentioned, I found the first album of Julie's at a junk store in Rio, WV, for a quarter.  At the time I did not know much about her, and was like, "well, she's a good singer, but meh..." In recent years though as I really came to know more about who she was and as I came to appreciate her singing talents, I really fell in love with her - turns out she was actually an amazing and talented woman, and it would have been nice to have had the privilege of meeting her in person.  I can actually say now that I am a fan of her stuff, and one thing I want to do in the near future is maybe watch her show Emergency.  There is also a good documentary available on her life entitled The Julie London Story that anyone can actually watch for free on YouTube.  Watching it earlier today inspired me to write this.  I think that along with Lena Horne and Keely Smith, Julie London is one of my favorite female vocalists now.  And, thankfully there are some of us old Gen-Xers who still know about this great music, which is often obscured by the garbage that passes as "music" today as many Millennials and Gen-Zers don't have a clue as to good music.  It isn't their fault, as their parents and grandparents - the Boomer generation - were into drug-induced hippie acid rock anthems or subpar country music post-1965. But, as more gen Zers in particular are beginning to gravitate toward more traditional things, I do have hope.  Let's hope that my hope is well-placed.  Thanks again for allowing me to share and hope you all have a good and safe Memorial Day weekend as we are positioned on the doorstep of the summer season now.