The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #137887   Message #3196366
Posted By: MGM·Lion
27-Jul-11 - 04:18 AM
Thread Name: Anyone know Cohen The Crooner
Subject: RE: Anyone know Cohen The Crooner
Another you-tube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_KgnJi3g-M&feature=related

shows the record label, plus this note: "Here is one of the rare comedy numbers of the Ambrose band. What makes this record particularly interesting is the fact that drummer Max Bacon can show his talent as comedian and singer."
The Decca label reads:
   COHEN, THE CROONER — Fox-Trot
*             (Soning/Munro)
    AMBROSE AND HIS ORCHESTRA
       (At the Embassy Club, London)
             (With Vocal Chorus)
                GB 7426 F. 5698

The date of the recording is shown on an illustrated graphic alongside the label as 25.09.1935. The entire lyric/dialogue are precisely as on film a year later for the "Soft Lights, Sweet Music" film, as shown on the other youtube clip referred to above, with the same actors involved, buying fruit & veg from 'Cohen' -- presumably the two men buying potatoes and beans were other Ambrose band members; & the American woman buying bananas was surely Evelyn Dall herself [who, it will be recalled, sang Mrs Worthington on the flip side]?. Also, the lead-in vocal "Down in Mile End there's a funny fella..." is also presumably another band member.

Notably, Max Bacon & the other vocalists are not named {though I am sure Max was credited on the record I used to own in the 1940s - perhaps a later reissue?}, becoming simply "Vocal Chorus" - though in fact they sing/speak individually and never together as "chorus" would surely imply. The other video, extract from the film, shows footage of Mile End Market, and was filmed as a location sequence; perhaps the record, identically vocalised as I noted above, was a pre-issue of its soundtrack before the film's issue the following year; in which case the "At the Embassy Club" on the label might have been for some sort of contractual imperative?

*The name "Soning" is not quite clear due to the edge groove round the hole [though "Munro" is] - it could perhaps be "Sonito" or something similar. Anyone any idea who these credited writer/composer were? My Oxford Companion to Popular Music has entries for neither, and does not even mention this song.

Any help greatly appreciated.

~Michael~