Recently while scrolling through Ye Olde Electronic Bay‘s digital mail order catalog in search of new old fashioned items to bring to you, something intriguing popped up.
It was an album titled “Erskin Hawkins Jubilee”, made in the 1970s of recordings of the radio show with the same title broadcast circa 1943. That’s interesting in and of itself but it was the tracklist that really caught our fancy. One of the songs was “Mister Beebe” featuring vocals by June Richmond. Hello!!!
The song “Mister Beebe“ was written by Jule Styne (“Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”), Sammy Cahn (“Let it Snow”) & Dudley Brooks (“Everybody’s Waiting (for the Man with the Bag)”).
June Richmond of course lent her magical vocal skills to the incredible “Mister Beebe” song and dance number from Carolina Blues starring big band leader Kay Kyser in 1944. Harold Nicholas, 1/2 of the legendary Nicholas Brothers tap dance duo, sang the majority of the song while Richmond sang parts of it.
So here was this album that was recorded the year prior in 1943! If that’s true, the folks listening to the original broadcast had yet to even see the incredible dance number that accompanied the song. Nor had they seen June’s fabulous outfit she wears in the film!
Naturally our fingers hit the “Buy” button so fast it spun out top hats in a comedic fashion.
The hardest part was the 3-5 business day wait for the album to arrive!
But arrived it did and boy is it a gem. Submitted here for your enjoyment is the live radio broadcast of June Richmond singing “Mister Beebe” circa 1943 as a guest on the Erskin Hawkins Jubilee radio hour. It has some different lyrics than the Kay Kyse/Carolina Blues version—which is pretty cool to hear her presumably improvised take on the tune!
But that’s enough yakkin’ outta me. This is one of those things you just gotta experience, not read about. Enjoy!!
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