I inherited two Gene Austin LP’s from my grandmother back in the 80’s, including one with the song My Blue Heaven. That guy had the most laid back, haunting style.
I immediately fell in love with it, even as a kid, whose personal album collection was stacked with hardcore punk and ska.
My mother and this song were both teenagers in the 1940s. Mom, who would have been 91 this week, loved it (probably because her first heartthrob Frank Sinatra was singing it on the radio when she was a young wife and mother).
Meanwhile, one of my dad’s favorite tunes was “Makin’ Whoopee” (to which my mom would have said, with the wink, “But of course it was…”) That was another of the tunes we happened to start playing with on Thursday night. (A Flood rendition will probably show up in a podcast soon.) Anyway, it was only when I started researching the background on “My Blue Heaven” that I discovered the same guy (Walter Donaldson) wrote both it AND “Makin’ Whoopee.” :) Serendipity.
I inherited two Gene Austin LP’s from my grandmother back in the 80’s, including one with the song My Blue Heaven. That guy had the most laid back, haunting style.
I immediately fell in love with it, even as a kid, whose personal album collection was stacked with hardcore punk and ska.
My mother and this song were both teenagers in the 1940s. Mom, who would have been 91 this week, loved it (probably because her first heartthrob Frank Sinatra was singing it on the radio when she was a young wife and mother).
Meanwhile, one of my dad’s favorite tunes was “Makin’ Whoopee” (to which my mom would have said, with the wink, “But of course it was…”) That was another of the tunes we happened to start playing with on Thursday night. (A Flood rendition will probably show up in a podcast soon.) Anyway, it was only when I started researching the background on “My Blue Heaven” that I discovered the same guy (Walter Donaldson) wrote both it AND “Makin’ Whoopee.” :) Serendipity.