Boswell Sisters - The Object Of My Affection
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2010
- Recorded in 1935 with Jimmie Grier and His Orchestra. (The Boswells were the only group who recorded The Object of My Affection with Jimmie Grier.)
Written by Coy Poe, Jimmie Grier, Pinky Tomlin in 1934.
The Boswell parents first settled in Kansas City, where Martha was born in 1905 and Connie in 1907. Helvetia was born in 1911 in Birmingham, Alabama.
Connie was involved in an accident that permanently injured her spine. As David McCain tells it, some kids put her in a coaster wagon that went down a hill and hit a telephone pole. Connie was thrown out. At first, she couldn't move at all. These were the days when infantile paralysis was a major threat and through the years it was reported that polio was the cause of Connie's disability.
In 1914 the family moved to New Orleans. Father Alfred Boswell, a one time circus performer, was appointed manager of the New Orleans branch of the Fleischman Yeast Company.
After Connie's accident, her mother focused on what other family members recall as a natural musical talent. "I couldn't play hopscotch," Connie said in a magazine interview, "so Mom started me on cello."
The other girls moved quickly into music as well. All three were trained in the classics by a German music professor in New Orleans, Otto Finck. Martha took piano, Connie continued on cello, and Vet studied violin, but their interest soon went beyond the classics. Vet learned the banjo and though Martha stayed mostly on piano she learned to play sax as well. Connie picked up the saxophone, piano, and guitar.
From the beginning, the girls worked together to keep Connie's paralysis from being noticeable. Initially, without even a wheelchair, Vet and Martha would carry Connie from place to place. "Their attitude was that everybody has a disability of some kind," says Vet's daughter Chica. "Some are just more noticeable than others. If you were sitting down next to Connie talking, you never even realized she couldn't walk.
The house on Camp Street became a popular gathering place. "They would have to roll up the rugs on Saturday night," says Holley Bendtsen, "and then all the young men would be courting the good looking three girls who wanted to play music. They would jam and people would dance."
"The biggest influence on Connie Boswell, who was the biggest influence on the Boswell sisters, was Mamie Smith," explains Bendtsen. "And Louis Armstrong. And Caruso. Those are the three influences she always named."
In 1925 they made their first recordings, "Nights When I'm Lonely" performed by the trio, and "Cryin' Blues" sung by Connie with Martha on piano.
Despite some offers, their father balked at the idea of the girls going on the road, but in 1928 he gave in and allowed them to go to Chicago. From there they embarked on a vaudeville tour that took them West to Oklahoma and Texas and finally to San Francisco. They met Harry Leedy who became their manager and eventually Connie's husband.
They went to Los Angeles where they got a full time radio job on station KFWB. "I'd solo," Connie said, "the three of us would sing, and then we'd have a half an hour of instrumentals."
In 1930 they made four sides for the OKeh label with Martha on piano. One of the tunes, the "Heebie Jeebies," had been done in 1926 by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five. Connie said she first heard the song coming out of a bar on Tchoupitoulas Street known as the "Tumble Inn." It was recorded twice by the Boswells and they considered it their lucky tune.
The sisters got work with the CBS Radio Network. They started with an unsponsored 15-minute sustaining program. The Boswells were so popular, says Bendtsen, that within a year there were eight groups trying to imitate them, five white and three black.
The Boswells were signed to a long term contract by Jack Kapp of Brunswick Records. They would do their Paramount shows, then recording sessions that ran from midnight to around 4 a.m. The same pattern continued when the girls began working for CBS. They worked with the men who would become the nation's top bandleaders of swing the era-Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Bunny Berrigan among them.
It's hard to believe that nothing they did was written down. Connie was the primary arranger "but the sisters really did work together on it," says Chica. "I think it was Connie 40 per cent and Martha and Vet 30, 30." Glen Miller was the man who would put it on paper for the sidemen.
The trio broke up in 1936. Connie (then changed to Connee) wanted to get on with her own career, while Martha and Vet were ready to call it a day. - Hudba
3 dislikes? Who would look up something like this and then not like it. The Boswells were great. Influenced the Andrews Sisters.
Tin ears. The Andrews wished they were 1/2 as good.
Haters gonna hate 🤷🏼♀️
Easy now, maybe they have fat thumbs.
@@SarahGiove I hate haters... Oops, that's a difficult one...
No People's Republic elections needed here on CZcams. Leave that to the Xi, Putin and Kim regimes. If some people don't like it, so be it.
im 12 about to be 13 and this is just the best music ever
The Object of My Affection was a million selling record for the Boswell Sisters in late 1935 into 1936! I remember Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer singing this song in a Our Gang short and the Boswells not long after stop recording although Connee Boswell continue as a solo artist! The Boswell Sisters have a large musical blueprint on the history of popular music influencing singers from the Andrew Sisters to the Supremes! Their life story needs to be told in a PBS documentary!
@@asiamay2204 ?
I want to go back to my life in the 1930's. I was so happy then!
You doing fine now? 😥
@@andreselizarraras4972 I would also like to know
3 dislikes seriously? What is wrong with those three people the Boswell sisters were some of the best artists of the 1930's.
This IS perfection. There are 12 people who do not understand gifted musicality.
I agree but some people don't have ears. Thanks for listening.
I wonder if many people realize how very much the Boswell Sisters capture the flavor of New Orleans. During their heyday, Canal Street was one of the world's most exciting boulevards. Listening to them, I can actually FEEL and experience that thoroughfare, in that era, long before I was born. And I'm barely old enough to remember the witty, wise-cracking, middle class women of New Orleans, who were endlessly entertaining, and oddly cosmopolitan. Again, the Boswell Sisters capture the essence of what I've described. If you ask me, they rank with the best of the best of the best. There's nobody better.
And listening to some of their songs, I'm floating along, in the dappled light of St. Charles, on a Streetcar . Oh, there's the Goldrings' house, there's the JCC, there's Scheinuk the Florist, and there's Zazou! (these are mostly things from the past...).
This type of music is so wonderfully exquisite, it really sucks how this type of music has been practically reduced to jokes and period films and tiktok trends.
Please tell me…who cleaned up the audio on this performance…and how was it done? The sound is just stupendous!!!
I can only imagine that the audio source is/was a 78 RPM?
Hats off to whomever.
Utter genius. Perfection.
No wonder the Boswell sisters thread on CZcams opens with this song: even in the excellent collection the Boswell Sisters released this one stands out as one of their very best, most elegant songs.
Wonderfully talented AND beautiful gals.
Agreed. Thank you for listening.
@@2ndviolinist
👍..... Happy Thanksgiving.
I first heard this song on an "Our Gang" (The Little Rascals) short on TV.
old days forever ! old music forever !
Clearly a massive influence upon the Andrews Sisters as acknowledged by the latter. Wonderful harmonies. I'm a 30 year old male and I love this stuff.
+pisces69
If you listen closely, you can hear that the Boswells are far and away better singers than the Andrews Sisters. The Andrews Sisters said they were inspired by and not quite on the same level as the Boswells. To my pretty well-trained ear, they were the best and certainly the most innovative female trio. Thank you for listening and check out the large amount of the Boswell Sisters on CZcams.
+pisces69 They're way better! They sing with soul
Same! I’m obsessed. I love the Andrews sisters but Boswell Sisters are the best!
As I heard, a young Ella Fitzgerald listened to the Boswell sisters, too.
BEAUTIFUL VERY SPECIAL SONG❤❤❤❤
This is fabulous!!! ♥️
Their only #1 hit on the charts
I can hear how the young Ella Fitzgerald was influenced . I searched this song because I'm reading a biography on Ella and apparently she tried hard to imitate Connee Boswell when she was learning to sing. And Ella won the amateur night contest singing this song which in turn launched her career. So we have this song to thank for spawning the greatest singer who has ever lived.
Glad Ella learned from Connee and ecstatic that she found her own, fabulous style. Got to see her ~1980. Amazing!
funny that's exactly how I ended Up here 👌
I'm watching a video of a 1980 TV appearance by Ella Fitzgerald (age 62) where she tells the story about the contest while on-stage with Oscar Peterson, seated at the piano, and then they immediately proceed to perform a few bars of The Object of My Affection.
Ella mentions the prize on amateur night was $12.50.
I agreed with everything you said up until you said Ella Fitzgerald was the greatest singer who ever lived. What a bunch of nonsense.
I think Connie Boswell is an even better singer than Ella Fitzgerald.
They are the most "advanced" in their harmonies of all the trio groups I'm aware of. I think it is impossible to discount the influence of playing classical works.
I agree. Their scatting is in the class of a Paganini cadenza- breathtaking and uplifting, never overdone.
You are correct, Brian. They were in the top twenty very often, but this music was pretty "new wave" in its day, and the Boswells earlier works were particularly experimental. However, by 1934 they had found smoother, more commercial style that appealed to mass audiences, and this song, recorded in Hollywood with the Jimmy Grier orchestra, made it all the way.
First time.I'm hearing.someone other that Alfalfa from the Little Rascals sing.this. The Boswell Sisters are wonderful! Just discovered them today.
Look up the Rhythm Girls...the Bozzies live on ❤
Whenever asked - my answer would always be the same...
It's good to have sisters.
🖤
Thank you for listening.
Man you can tell fro the recording how old this song is but it’s still so good. Their voices are so smooth and pretty. Like satin.
Absolutely beautiful!
Pinky Tomlin and The Boswell Sisters both have a lock on this tune! Pure mid 30s sound on both recordings.
FWIW - this is an alternate take. Jimmie Grier botches his vocal comment in the middle of the record by dropping the word, "enough" from his little speech. They had another take, Very similar, So that was issued and this one was either issued by accident or in stayed in the vaults until it was reissued in the LP era.
This was such a treat to listen to!
Glad you enjoyed it.
My wife and I were just discussing “and wondering” if there will be a day when the Beatles and Elvis are names that people ask “who are those guys?” I brought up the up the big band era, Boswell Sisters, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and my wife asked “who are those guys?” case and point. I love listening to the big band swing era music from time to time as it reflects a very significant time in American history.
Elvis, with that smirk, said that about the Beetles
Love this song. Before I heard this version; I heard Pinky Tomlin and Alfalfa try to sing it in The Our Gang Follies of 1936. (I had a crush on Darla). My favorite Boswell song is Take Me Back To Old Yazoo. A Fats Waller song.
Here's a bit of little known trivia.
My friend, the late Juliet Anderson (born Judith Carr) ...aka 'Aunt Peg' from XXX films...Her *Father* was _in_ the Pinky Tomlin Orchestra & little Juliet used to come up on stage as a toddler and dance during this song & was known by the band as 'Tomlin's Sweetheart'. Juliet herself had a lovely singing voice & one of my last memories of her was us singing Sentimental Journey together in Berkeley. Everytime I hear Object of My Affection, I think of her...(& the old show The Little Rascals, where I 1st heard it^^)
This is a pic of Juliet & I.
Imagine her as a toddler on stage dancing to this...💗 (ps...another sadly late friend of mine who was in _that_ Industry... Candida Royalle...HER dad, Louis R. Valada was _also_ in famous jazz bands..he was a drummer who played with Raymond Scott, Louis Prima, Lester Lanin & others. )
flic.kr/p/8kGaCG
@@user-rh5yf2wz8l Thanks for the info. Sorry your friends are gone.
I love this recollection, صلاة الفجر !
ahhh the styles back then
i really love this style for the girl
awesome song
Joseph M&F i agree 500%
The second picture: proof that you can make a wheelchair glamorous. I wonder why you always hear about the Andrews sisters before you hear about the Bosies. Especially since the Andrews sisters were a Boswell sisters tribute group.
They were later, in films, etc. They are a pale imitation but still a lot of fun. Boswells were big in their day, more obscure now. For me, comfort and function are much more important than looks for my wheelchair but she does look elegant.
LOVELY
I love this song. I heard a different version in "Paper Moon"
when America was golden
One of the most important things ever: What could it be? Of course IT'S SWING :-)
Thanks for that. I probably wouldn't have bothered to look it up myself, but it was great reading to accompany the music.
Connie at her best.
I suspect you're correct when she sang as Connie. I am partial to her Smoke Gets Into Your Eyes when she sang as Connee during her solo career. Thank you for listening.
This was the tune Ella sang at the Apollo that turned her into a vocalist iinstead of a tap dancer, I think...
I thought she had polio too. That's what got me interested in the Boswells to begin with because I had polio in the early '50's. I had 3 of their albums. Now I can youtube them without digging through a bunch of records
From the eye witness reports it seems she was a paraplegic. I'm a quadriplegic and, like Connie, was temporarily totally paralyzed. My wife and I had a life-long friend who limped from polio and I played 20 years in a string band where the leader of the band and his wife had polio with no real physical effects except her voice.
I went to a Boswells symposium before I knew of her paralysis and was surprised to be one of 5 or 6 people in wheelchairs until I heard of her condition. I think the sponsors are at www.bozzies.org.
this is the quintessential rendition of this marvelous song
I agree. Thank you for listening.
Thank u for sharing! This is the first day I've heard the Boswell Sisters and I think I'll be listening to them for the rest of the day.
Lullaby was recorded in England and reflects the tightness of their European tour. I don't know if Connie was ever in better voice than she was in 34-35. But the magic that the Sisters conjured throughout their career was definitely in high gear through this tour phase. Did you know there were rumors that they were breaking up in '33, '34? While the alchemy ended far too soon, it is a delight to hear what they did in the last two years.
This is really great - I wish I knew about these sisters before
This is the most beautiful song. I love it!
they were great !
Love this one ! Thank you for sharing this superb post. Much appreciated.
thank so much
My pleasure. Thanks for listening.
Such beautiful phrasing by Connee.
Wow, I was going to say the SAME thing :-) I'm excited to hear more of their songs!
Andrew Sisters, eat your heart out.
These artists are some of the greatest ive ever heard, and i have listened to like many many different ones in many genres. Check out Annette Hanshaw too.
2ndviolinist, Thanks for the bio, very good....
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Check out my upload of Boswell Sisters Volume 3 (entire). You must listen to Lullaby of Broadway, Coffee in the Morning, It's Written All Over Your Face, We Just Couldn't Say Goodbye, Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails, and Connee Boswell's Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. for starters.
Wow! this is beautiful.
All the talk about progress is a big deception; clearly our music has not progressed. And why is it that personalities of former years were more handsome and elegant than now?
We lose, we gain. If not for the computer I am using, the Internet, the ability to transfer 78s to digital formats, and many other inventions, you would not have the ability to listen to the CD I uploaded. On the other hand, many people live in a virtual world and become addicted to cell phones, gaming, etc. Without the discovery of perspective in painting, all paintings would still be flat and stilted. Popular music is a bit like a curve. In the 19th century, most pieces were throwaways. After the turn of the 20th century, jazz and Broadway and pop rose to a very high level and then lost energy to where most pieces are nondescript or just plain terrible. Straight line progression is definitely a hoax.
You are most welcome.
Doug
That looks like their old house in the garden district..is it? So far ahead of their time. What I coulda thought to do with an afternoon, a blanket, some wine, and Ms Connie. That lady had it all.
These girls look...saucy :)
Alfalfa!!!
I dont said know!!!! ❤
2019
schlesmail: Yes, this one went to number 1 in 1935.
This song sure worked well enough for a certain teenaged girl name Ella Fitzgerald on amateur night at the Apollo Theater one autumn night
a long, long time ago…
Did anyone mention that this was the Bozzies' only number one hit on the pop charts?
Doesn't matter. You know about them now, and ain't they fine!
Yep, they fine.
innocent enough
The description is incorrect. Jimmy Grier and his orcestra DID record this song with another vocalist: songwriter Pinky Tomlin (1934).
Great tune. I remember it when I was a kid from Alfalfa singing it on the Little Rascals: czcams.com/video/6QVjXebGz8E/video.html
I believe this arrangment is done with Jimmy Grier and His Orchestra ??? It's my favorite of theirs!
Do you have more of them to share?
Is that the house in which they were born ? Surely looks great !
Ahha. I saw you at the symposium.
How influenced do you think the Boswell harmonies were by their classical violin, 'cello and piano training? It doesn't show so much in this song, but I seem to hear it more and more as I listen.
What's your favourite Boswell sisters song. My favourite is Crazy People
They did so many "goodies" that it's hard for me choose
They were the best-The Puppini Sisters do Heeby Geebys almost as good as them
Great sound. Real music, not like the crap churned out now.
Jimmy Dorsey. The Dorseys were their band for this period of the thirties. Did you know that Southern radio stations wouldn't play them because they thought that the girls were black? They have the earthy soul, for sure, but what a pack of meatheads those guys were.
You show instinctual, good taste. They're really fine, aren't they?
If you are in New Orleans, check out the Pfister Sisters - a tribute group that has been keeping the flame burning for 20 years now. pfistersisters.com/home
Movie: Good bye Christopher Robin about Winnie the Pooh
Thanks for the info and thank you for listening.
The picture at 2:57 is not the Boswell Sisters.
To both Uncleland & 2ndviolinist - Sarah Vaughn & Ella Fitzgerald are both very well known -but the Boswell Sisters? - hardly household names. (C'mon 2nd - Baby It's Cold Outside? - How many people did she duet with on this song?)
Asia M- I do not understand what you mean by saying "it didn't belong to them?"
Wasn't this their biggest hit?
Just a suggestion, listen to Sarah Vaughan. You might never be the same.
I like these ladies, but here's a question(maybe considered a STUPID question) but can you be nostalgic about before you were born??!!
I think so but do remember they made these recordings during the worst part of the Great Depression. It was a great time for music making, in jazz, in classical, and the musicals. If you had money things would've been cheap for you but all the suffering around would have taken the shine off of it, at least for someone like me. Thank you for listening.
@@2ndviolinist A lotta great music/entertainment hailed from times of great oppressive strife.
Yes. She had everything but the ability to stand and walk.
Really? You enjoyed the Great Depression? :(
The Boswell Sisters influenced Ella Fitzgerald, especially Connie Boswell, Ella wanted
very much to sound exactly like her.
You are correct. Thank you for listening.
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