Kay Starr In A Blue Mood

Evenin'

Kay Starr
In A Blue Mood
With Orchestra Conducted by Hal Mooney, Frank De Vol and ave Barbour
Capitol Records T-580
1955

From the back cover: How do you become a blues singer?

Well, it isn't easy.

First, you pick out a day like July 21, 1922 and you say to yourself, This is for me, I'm gonna be born. And you are.

Where? There are a lot of good places, but Dougherty, Oklahoma will do. Especially since that happens to be where your folks are living at the time. Your folks, incidentally, aren't just plain old run-of-the-mill type parents. They've got a little Irish and Cherokee blood mixed up in them. And that never did anyone any harm.

Dougherty being what it is, or, more properly what it isn't, you and the family decided to move. Now, if you're going to wind up singing the blues, Dallas is a good place to start and Memphis is a good place to stop.

As a matter of fact, your first professional stop is WREC in Memphis, while you are still going to high school. A couple of radio fans named Joe Venuti and Bob Crosby hear you singing and decide that if you sound that good, you've just got to look that good. And since you do, they wind up with the perfect answer to what goes well in front of a jazz band.

For the next couple of years you go through your basic training by singing for these gentlemen, their bands, and several million people who either show up in person at the dance halls or catch the broadcasts over the radio. Two more years with Charlie Barnet, another character who knows the true and the blue, and you're ready to step out as a single. Which you do. El Rancho Vegas, Ciro's Mocambo.

Enter a five-year record company called Capitol, which is interested in signing up-and-coming singers to recording contracts. And since no one is more up-and-coming than you, Capitol signs you.

Recording history starts being made. Mama Goes Where Papa Goes, Hoop-De-Doo, Bonaparte's Retreat, Ain't Nobody's Business, I'll Never Be Free, Oh, Babe, Wheel Of Fortune, Kay's Lament, Three Letters, Noah, Side By Side, Fortune In Dreams, Comes A-Long A-Love, I'm The Lonesomest Gal In Town, When My Dreamboat Comes Home, Wabash Cannonball and many others. All of which is jukebox history.

So now you're a great blues singer. It has taken time, effort, heredity, environment, Vitamin B and powerful positive thinking.

Admittedly, this isn't the only way to become a blues singer.

But it's a very good way.

From Billboard - November 5, 1955: Capitol, Kay Starr's former label, has gathered together a dozen items which present the chanters at her bluesy best. Miss Starr, of course, has many fortes; but for purposes of atmosphere and mood this selection of tunes makes sense, and included "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good," "What Will I Tell My Heart," "A Woman Likes To Be Told," "He's Funny That Way," etc. Hard to tell at this point how Miss Starr's present slow streak in the singles field will affect her as a catalog artist.

After You've Gone
A Woman Likes To Be Told
Maybe You'll Be There
I'm Waiting For Ships That Never Come
What Will I Tell My Heart?
Evenin'
He's Funny That Way
I Got The Spring Fever Blues
Don't Tell Him What's Happened To Me
I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
Everybody's Somebody's Fool
It Will Have To Do Until The Real Thing