‘When You’re Smiling’

The line “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is” was written by Noel Coward for his 1930 comedy of manners “Private Lives”, in which he starred with Gertrude Lawrence. In the years since it was written, the music to which Coward was referring has become far less cheap - and far more evocative. Hearing a familiar tune can recapture a moment of time, a place or a person, and it can enhance an existing mood, or create an entirely new one.

Michael Law, no mean admirer of the Master’s talents, was guided by the quote when he came to assemble this latest offering by his Piccadilly Dance Orchestra, the overall aim being to impart a feeling of euphoria in the listener.

The earliest composition, Tea for Two, is remarkable for the simplicity of its composition, which Vincent Youmans had forged while serving in the Navy in World War 1, and later developed as a vehicle for the 1925 stage production of “No, No, Nanette”. When he invited Irving Caesar to supply the lyrics the latter produced “Tea for Two” as a dummy lyric, intending to revise it later, but Youmans liked it so much they kept it on. It’s since become an oft-played and recorded standard, but it’s worth remembering that for many years sheet music sales outdid those of records. It was the arrangers, often uncredited, who orchestrated the melody, and whose alchemy transmuted the basic structure into orchestral gold.

James P. Johnson was generally acknowledged to be the finest black piano player in Harlem. He composed If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight) in 1926 and, with Henry Creamer’s lyrics, it was interpolated into the revue “Brown Skin Models” and sung by Andy Razaf. Subsequent recordings, most notably by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and Louis Armstrong, made it a nation-wide hit, and secured Johnson’s membership of ASCAP.

In 1928 Mark Shay, Larry Fisher and Joe Goodwin wrote the exhortation When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You) and although many recorded it, Louis Armstrong’s is the version that is perhaps best remembered. It became the title song for the 1950 film starring Frankie Laine, and Frank Sinatra sang it in the 1952 film “Meet Danny Wilson”. Here The Piccadilly Dance Orchestra has harked back to the 1928 version recorded for Vocalion by the Louisiana Rhythm Kings (which pseudonym concealed a contingent from the Coon-Sanders Orchestra) and the banjo solo is recreated brilliantly by Martin Wheatley.

A picture of cosy domesticity was portrayed by Washing Dishes with My Sweetie, a 1929 song which was written by Peter Dixon, Tom Neely and Dave Ringle, and Ted Weems recorded a fine version of it, which provided the basis for the PDO.

Eddie Cantor had a smash Broadway hit with the musical comedy “Whoopee”. In 1930 it was adapted for the silver screen, and Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, who’d provided the music for the stage play, added the song My Baby Just Cares for Me. It was a big hit, and it featured again in the 1932 film “Big City Blues”, which starred Joan Blondell. It made the UK charts in 1987, when Nina Simone’s 1957 recording for her debut album was released as a single after having been featured in a TV commercial. Ambrose was at the May Fair Hotel when he recorded it in 1930, and his arrangement by an up-and-coming pianist named Lewis Stone, provided the perfect template for the PDO.

“The Blue Angel” was a 1930 musical which starred Marlene Dietrich in Germany’s first full-length talking picture. She played the alluring cabaret singer Lola and the film, the first of seven directed by Josef von Sternberg, launched her as a star. It was filmed first in German, and one of the lesser-known songs was “Nimm Dich in acht vor Blonden Frau’n” (Beware of Blonde Women) by Friedrich Hollaender and Richard Rillo. The English lyrics were written by Sammy Lerner, and the song given the less explicit title of Blonde Women. As recorded by Dietrich (in both German and English versions) it began as a dance band number, played by Weintraub’s Syncopators, but slowed down dramatically for Marlene’s vocal – backed by piano duet - to heighten the dramatic effect. The PDO has deliberately retained this change of pace.

Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries (Lew Brown & Ray Henderson) was introduced by Ethel Merman in the 1931 film “George White’s Scandals, 11th Edition”. America was still suffering the effects of the Great Depression, and there was something of a vogue for “cheer up” songs. It put in another appearance in “George White’s Scandals of 1945”, sung by Joan Davis and Jack Haley.

Fritz Steininger and Joe Gilbert wrote the novelty song Ever Since I Kissed Her on the Volga, which managed to combine the mildly exotic with the faintly suggestive… The only other Steininger composition I’ve been able to trace is “Magic Notes”, which was recorded by xylophonist Rudy Starita. Jack Hylton’s was the only British band to record the Volga number, and his arrangement is reflected in the PDO’s treatment of the tune.

The 1934 pre-code Paramount film “Murder at the Vanities” was adapted from a 1933 play at The New Amsterdam Theatre. It featured a homicide detective investigating a murder at Earl Carroll’s Vanities. Having an eye for the ladies, he allowed the revue to continue during the investigation. Gertrude Michael sang Sam Coslow and Arthur Johnston’s composition Marahuana and the lyrics made clear the substance involved. The film also featured Duke Ellington and his orchestra and Marahuana was recorded by Dave Harman on the Bluebird label.


The 1937 Paramount picture “Double or Nothing”, concerned four individuals who, having passed an honesty test, are each bequeathed $5,000 by an eccentric millionaire provided they can double it within a month, failing which it is forfeit. In the course of various manoeuvrings, Bing finds time to sing the lovely ballad by Arthur Johnston and Johnny Burke, namely The Moon Got in My Eyes.

Swing for Sale was written by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, and played by Cab Calloway in a 1937 Warner Brothers cartoon called “Clean Pastures” (a parody of the 1936 film “The Green Pastures”). The cartoon was withdrawn from distribution in 1968 because of the way in which black people were depicted. The PDO’s version is based on the 1937 recording by Harry Roy, which featured Ray Ellington’s first recorded vocal.

Sammy Fain and Lew Brown wrote That Old Feeling, a song dripping with nostalgia. It was sung by Virginia Verrill in “Walter Wanger’s Vogues of 1938”, and the song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song of 1937, but lost out to “Sweet Leilani”. Jane Froman dubbed it on the soundtrack for Susan Hayward, in the 1952 film “With a Song in My Heart”.

The torch ballad There’s a Lull in My Life dates from 1937, and was written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. Alice Faye introduced it in the film “Wake up and Live”, and she recorded it coupled with the title song, which resulted in her only hit record. Carroll Gibbons & his Savoy Hotel Orpheans, whose residency pre-dated that of the PDO, waxed both this and the preceding song - and the PDO’s approach is based on those earlier recordings.

Barry McCanna, September 2021.