Speaker How’s sound that would be needed? Level. OK. Shall we start with. When you first heard Benny Goodman music, where you were, where you were or what? The circumstances?
Speaker Oh, yes, I do. I do very well. It was on the radio when he was doing that first broadcast that he did for Camel Caravan was a camel cure event. The very. Let’s dance the front. That’s right. I’ll be there. OK.
Speaker Well, the first time I heard Benny was on the radio when he was doing that program called Let’s Dance. And I think it came from Chicago, one of the hotels I can’t really remember spin some quite good. But I remembered how thrilled I was to hear this wonderful band. And then at that time, I was singing with a little group and in Los Angeles. And on the nights that he broadcast, I think it was Saturday night when we had 15 minutes off from playing. We’d rush in and turn on the radio and listen to Benny Goodman. And I remember that very well. I was about 17, I think, at the time, and.
Speaker No. OK. Then he came out to us to do the camel camel caravan program. And you were with him?
Speaker Yes, he did. I was. I was performing with a group, swing chorus group. And he came out to do his show, The Camel Caravan. I think it was. And it was an hour long. And they incorporated the swing chorus in the show. And I was part of the chorus. Well, every. Every week, the man that made the arrangements for the Taurus, Alexander, was his name. He would give me a little solo, maybe four bars to sing. And so he was looking for a girl singer at the time. Oh, I didn’t even dream that I would ever be able to sing with Benny Goodman. This was just something that was so far out of my realm of anything. And so his manager came out from New York. Willard Alexander. And they were all in the booth and. And I sang my little four bars. And Willard Alexander said to Benny. Well, you know, that’s. She sounds pretty good. Have you auditioned her? Benny said, no. You know, you wouldn’t think of that. So they came out. His manager came out and asked me if I’d say after rehearsal and audition for Benny. Well, I was just thrilled to death. And I got together with Teddy Wilson and we picked out several tunes in the keys and so forth. And I sang a couple of songs. And finally they said, OK, I’ll do one with that. Little has a little upbeat. I guess I did a couple of ballads, you know. And so I did. And right in the middle of it.
Speaker Then he gets up.
Speaker And walks out of the booth and right by the stage pass me without even looking at me. And out the door, the stage door. This was done in the theater. Well, I was just crushed. You can imagine how upset I was at this point. And so I picked up my purse and I said, well, thank you very much, Teddy. And. And went out and gotten my little Plymouth automobile and went home. And when I got home, I was telling my mother about it. I said, you’ll never know what happened. I auditioned for Benny Goodman today day and I didn’t get the job. And I started to cry. I was really quite upset, primarily because he walked out without saying anything.
Speaker So then the phone rang right then and it was his manager. And he said, Where did you disappear to? He said, we were looking all over for you, said Benny had a very important engagement at the studio and had to leave and had she said she’s great hirer. And he left.
Speaker So that’s the way I got the job with Benny.
Speaker That a river. The next time you son, when you first met him, did it come up? What was the first sort of personal encounter like? The squeak circuit.
Speaker The chair is here. Chair squeaking What can we do?
Speaker Change chairs or can you?
Speaker No, if I just moved slightly, it squeaks. If I don’t move, it squeaks hardly.
Speaker That’s not wrong. What does that show me on the. Oh, yeah. OK. You can hold an average is doing OK.
Speaker We saw you were I was asking you about after the audition, after you’d gotten a job, when you then first met Benny.
Speaker Was nothing memorable. And we don’t have to go into it. But if you have, I got the job. Yeah. And then you saw him the next time.
Speaker I you know, I don’t remember.
Speaker I really don’t remember what he was doing on the highway.
Speaker He was. Oh, yes. He was making that picture. Hollywood Hollywood Hotel.
Speaker Yeah.
Speaker And it was anything about that, you remember, with Frances Langford. And who else was in it?
Speaker We were there any interactions that you had with the movie or.
Speaker No. No. In fact, they had finished the movie. By the time I joined the band and they were ready to leave. In fact, we left two days later to go back to New York.
Speaker And tell me the story. You found out suddenly that you got the job and your two days to go. Yes. Yes.
Speaker Well, when I found out, found out that I had been hired by Benny, of course, I was just completely thrilled to death. And we were leaving in two days to go to New York. Well, this was wintertime and I had no winter clothes at all in California. You very seldom wear fur coats or anything really heavy. So I had to rush out and I remember my mother and I went down and I bought a mink coat, not a mink coat, a fake mink coat to wear back east. It was really cold. And as many clothes as I could get in in a couple of days because I really didn’t have anything to take back with me. And we left and we I don’t remember. I think it was I was so excited and there was so much going on. I don’t remember having any conversations with Benny at that time because he was busy. And you know what? Maybe it was just Halloween sort of travel. We traveled by train. We didn’t travel by plane much in those days at all. This was a long time ago. 37, 1937. And we did occasionally go by plane, but very, very seldom. It was usually by train or bus. But we took the train and and we stopped in Dallas Fort Worth on our way. And that was the first place that I sang with the band. And I had to remember all these new lyrics that I had, these songs that I had never sung with Benny before because the girls that he’d have with them before I’d sung these songs. So I had to sing them, do you know? So I had those to learn. So it was a pretty hectic time for me. Plus, being scared to death, really.
Speaker You arrive in New York in the first place. Pennsylvania Hotel start again because my my family doesn’t tell them anything.
Speaker Well, when we left Fort Worth after the fare there, that’s some kind of a big fare. We were playing, as I recall. And then we took the train back to New York. In the first place that we’ve played in New York was the Pennsylvania Hotel, the Manhattan Room. And that’s when I kind of relaxed and got into the swing of things and realized, you know what, I what I was doing. But those few days in Dallas, I think it was a week or so Fort Worth. It was pretty hectic for me.
Speaker And then when you got to New York before you felt terribly homesick.
Speaker Oh, was I homesick? Oh, I’d never really been away from home before. And everything was so new and strange. And really, I was this kind of babes in the woods type in New York. I thought Los Angeles was a big city till you got to New York City. And I was terribly homesick. And I remember I used to call my mother and I’d say, oh, mom, I want to come home, you know, and cry. And she’d say, Now, Martha, just. No, you just go right on now, dear. You’ll be fine. And where, you know, you call me as often as you want and so forth. And then we’d hang up. And then she told me later that then she’d cry. Oh. But I got over that pretty shortly.
Speaker And then when you went for two years without a day off and then finally you got a two week vacation.
Speaker Oh yeah. Well, people don’t realize that how hard we work. You know, they thought it was all fun and games singing with the band and many good men and all that. But we worked terribly hard. We worked six days in the Manhattan room and then on our Sundays off, we would travel. We would go to Newark or or Boston or some other city and play that night, then come back and Monday start again at the Manhattan Room. And that went on for two years. For two years. This is the truth. We never had a night off, not one, unless you were sick. And I can’t ever remember. I can remember having very bad colds and things, but. Oh, you sang anyway, you know, regardless of a bad cold. But for two years we didn’t have a vacant. And then finally we got two weeks. Then he said, OK. Everybody gets a two week vacation. So he went to Europe. And as I remember, I went down to. Cape May, New Jersey and just laid on the sand for two weeks and slept with, so tired of.
Speaker Now, part part of that. Those two years you were doing the radio show.
Speaker Yes. How about that? Well, we were playing six nights a week in in the hotel. Then we did a radio show once a week and that took up a couple of days or one whole day. And so consequently, it was just really very hard work, but enjoyable, you know. Was J.M. involved with Carroll? Yes. Told me. Yes, he was. Johnny was on the show on the camel caravan. This is where Johnny Mercer Johnny Mercer was on the show with us for Camel Caravan. And he was marvelous. You know, he sings great and wrote some of the lyrics to the songs. We did his tunes, and he was very much a part of the show and a wonderful man. Did you sing together? Yes. In fact, did we do a record together with Benny? I don’t know. That was later capital, I believe. But Johnny and I did some duets together, and once in a while, Benny would sing a little bit with me. You know, he really liked to sing and nobody knows this, but he was really a good singer.
Speaker He had the best phrasing and he could sing, but he never did much, you know.
Speaker But when he sang, it was really good. Not many people know that. I don’t think.
Speaker Tell a little bit about what it was like being a woman traveling on the road with these guys, you talk to first timers, you have to change clothes and the cold ladies room. And you were running around. It was, I guess, you and a few wives. Gladys final happens way. Oh, yeah.
Speaker Well, when we leave the hotel, we were there during the winter. Then in the spring, we’d start out on one nighters and playing all the ballrooms and all the outdoor places in the East, in the Middle West and all over. And that was by bus mostly. And I was usually the only girl on the bus. Once in a while, some of the wives would would go with us. And I always enjoyed that because we could sit together and talk and, you know, woman talk and things. I enjoy that. And the wives were wonderful. They really were. They were. And they were all young. You know, we were all in our early 20s at this time. Everybody in the band. Benny was the oldest. I think he was twenty eight or something and. It was hard on the bus, we might travel all day and then get to this town where we had to play that night. And maybe you’d have time to eat a little dinner. And then if you didn’t check into a hotel, I’d have to go in and change in the ladies room. You know of the place where we’ve got a and sometimes they were real cold and. Oh, it was it was hard work. It really was. But it was fun. The boys in the band at that time were absolutely marvelous to me. They knew that I had never had much experience and had never been on the road like that before and they couldn’t have been nicer. They looked after me and and they were really great.
Speaker Do you have any particular memories of individuals together in your mind, guys, that you will musically worries?
Speaker Well, I would. I was crazy about all them. They were just so nice. And it was such a kick for me to sit on that bandstand and listen to that band, everything. Although it did get a little tiresome sitting right in front of Gene Krupa drums. That got to me once then. But I the person that took very good care of me was Benny’s manager, Leonard Van Heusen, who was his road manager and took care of everything whom I later married.
Speaker Was that sort of a romance, the road?
Speaker Yes, there was a romance of the road and it started out with him being very, you know, helping me with everything. And finally, it got to the point where we were kind of an item. Then after I left the band, we were married.
Speaker OK.
Speaker Well, I guess one last thing about the road forward, do you talk a little bit before about what was like on the buses, what people did to this car? Oh, yeah. And what Betty was up was the first class.
Speaker Oh, no. Benny was with this all the time. No, Benny was on the bus with us all the time. He didn’t travel in a car or a train or anything. He was right with us all. The thing I remember about most about Benny on the bus is he was always trying out reeds and, you know, you’d be trying to sleep, getting a little nap before you. That’s it. And he’s had it back in the back of the bus. Tootling trying to fly. REED Oh.
Speaker But he’s already spent most of his life finding a good read about the other guys on the bus.
Speaker Well, they usually play cards or mostly slept. You know, we’re always so tight that as a rule, we just sleep or they. Well, they read, you know, just like any long bus trip for your.
