"Glory of Love"

#546 / Flood Time Capsule: 2008

It was a cold, drizzly December night and Charlie Bowen wasn’t really in the mood for picking. “I thought, shoot, maybe we ought to just cancel,” he wrote his mom in an email the next day.

Charlie called Joe Dobbs’ cell phone to see if he wanted to cancel, “and Joe — who usually is more than willing to forego a session, that Joe — said, ‘Well, okay, but I half way there already!’” Charlie wrote.

“So I quickly reversed myself. ‘No, no,’ I said, ‘come on — we’ll have a ball.’ And boy, am I glad we didn’t cancel!”

As it turned out, the Bowens had a houseful that night. Sam St. Clair and Dave Ball came, as did Jacob Scarr and Michelle Hoge (she was Walker, back then), she just back from a trip to California to see family.

Also on hand were a couple of visiting listeners, most notably Nancy McClellan and Zoe Brewer who have driven in from Ashland. “It was the first time we’ve seen Nancy since her hospitalization earlier this autumn,” Charlie wrote. “She looked great and had a good time. Everything just rocked. We missed Doug and Dave, but shoot, the Flood flows on, whoever’s here.”

The Night’s Featured Song

The highlight of the night was the band’s first performance of a ‘30s swing tune called “Glory of Love,” which Joe suggested and Michelle immediately took to. You can hear this first outing from Dec. 10, 2008, by pushing the button below:

This song Benny Goodman made famous in 1936 with vocals by Helen Ward.

Well-known subsequent renditions came from folks as diverse as Peggy Lee, Otis Redding and Paul McCartney. The song has an unusual origin.

The tune was the most popular composition of songwriter/violinist/pianist Billy Hill, who initially found fame writing Western songs like “They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree”, “The Last Round-Up”, “Wagon Wheels” and “Empty Saddles.”

No wonder. A Boston boy (he studied at the New England Conservatory and played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Billy was a cowboy in his mind. And in 1916, at age 17, he left home for the West to put his boots where his heart was.

For the next 15 years, Hill worked a variety of jobs out west. He was a dishwasher in several roadhouses, a cowpuncher in Montana, a payroll clerk at a mining camp in Death Valley and a band leader at a Chinese restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah. His jazz band there was said to be the first one to perform in the West.

Tin Pan Alley

By 1930 Billy and his new wife (fellow songwriter Dedette Hill) were back East and he was one of the first professional New York songwriter to tailor material for the burgeoning country music market.

His earliest country success occurred that year with “They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree.” In 1933, he wrote his first classic, “The Last Round-Up.” It was much recorded by both pop and country stars of the day and made the silver screen, featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 on Broadway.

Among Hill’s many subsequent Western and country themed songs are “Wagon Wheels,” “Empty Saddles,” “Colorado Memories,” “The Old Spinning Wheel,” “Oregon Trail” and “The Call of the Canyon.”

He achieved songwriting immortality with a trio of songs that became huge successes on multiple occasions. The first to appear was “Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue).” It first became a major pop hit in 1933, then was revived on the country charts by Ernest Tubb in 1949 and by Jim Reeves with Patsy Cline in an electronically created posthumous duet in 1982.

“In the Chapel in the Moonlight” initially became a hit in 1936. Kitty Kallen revived it in 1954, and Dean Martin brought it back onto the charts in 1967. Like “Have You Ever Been Lonely,” it has been recorded by dozens of others.

Hill’s enduring “Glory of Love” was a pop smash for the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1936. The Five Keys made it a #1 rhythm & blues hit in 1951. Otis Redding successfully revived it again in 1967. Bette Midler’s performance of it in the 1988 movie Beaches brought the song renewed popularity, and it continues to be recorded today.

Forward in Floodifying

In Flood Time, “Glory of Love” was a late arrival to the band’s repertoire, and it has never made the cut for one of the studio albums. But it has had staying power. A decade after the tune’s maiden flight in the Floodisphere, it was still making the set list for shows.

For instance, above is a moment that Pamela Bowen caught during a January 2018 show at the Woodlands Retirement Community, with Michelle rocking the vocals and beautiful solos provided by guest artist Jim Rumbaugh.