1940 That Wonderful Year - Garry Moore

 

Hawaiian War Chant

1940 That Wonderful Year

Garry Moore

Cover Photograph: Bill Schropp

Warner Bros. Records 1282

Produced for Warner Bros. Records, Inc. by Eastern Productions, Inc., in conjunction with Bob Banner Associates, Inc.

1959

From the back cover: Anybody over 20 years of age is an old foof. Or maybe eve anybody over 18. Let's put it this way – if you're old enough to look back with pleasure to a song, a name or a place, you're an old foof. And that's who this album is for. Us old foofs.

On my television show we inaugurated a weekly feature called 'That Wonderful Year." An idea by Arnold Peyser. And each week we exhume the songs, the sayings, the news events of some given year. And all over the country, we are told, folks sit in front of their TV sets and say, "Oh, yes! Remember that?" or "Hey! I'd almost forgotten!" I ever heard of one case where a man leaned over and kissed his wife. But that's probably a wild rumor.

We hope that this will be the first of many albums ab out "Those wonderful Years." I chose the year 1940 for our first one mainly, I guess, because it was such a nice year for me: married just the year before, our first baby, etc.

And it was a pretty happy year for most everybody in the U.S. A. (To be sure there was the threat of war but we didn't really think we'd get mixed up in it. Altho we had the first Draft Act in our shivery, the men in the camps were singing songs like "Goodbye, Dear, I'll Be Back In A Year.")

In England, of course, it was different. They were already in it – so they drafted Winston Churchill. And he told them, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

But in America – nylon stockings first appeared and the women were thrilled.  They put them on and went to the movies to swoon over Leslie Howard and Clark Gable in "Gone With The Wind." Or they'd sit there and weep buckets over Ginger Rogers as Kitty Foyle... Shirley Temple felt she was getting too old to work so hard, so she retired. After all, she was eleven.

The real America – (the part between New York and Hollywood) – were happy because the Cincinnati Reds beat the Detroit Tigers for the World Series. And Joe Louis was holding up pretty good – he beat Arturo Godoy to retain his title. Again.

In the field of pop music, a young trumpeter by  the name of Harry James left the Benny Goodman band to for his own outfit. And he hired a real unknown singer with his band – name of Sumatra. Or Sonata. Or something like that; his first name was Frank.

In radio rokus were running their dials to Major Bowes, The Aldrich Family,m One Man's Family, Kay Kyser  The Kate Smith Hour – and couple of hot newcomers called Fibber McGee And Molly.

The cost of living was going up then, too. A pound of coffee cost 21¢ and they charged you 12¢ for a quart of milk, delivered!

Well – there are mountains of memories from 1940 – the last happy year before VJ Day in 1945.

So let's live again. Let's lower the needle, lower the lights, sit within kiss-throwing distance of someone special and go back to the That Wonderful Year.

That Wonderful Year / Imagination 

You Are My Sunshine

There's A Small Hotel

Intermezzo

Hawaiian War Chant

The Last Time I Saw Paris

How High The Moon

Johnson Rag

Cabin In The Sky

Takin' A Chance On Love

Dance With The Dolly

When You Wish Upon A Star / That Wonderful Year