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1944 is a big year. It looms large. This isn’t just a recent development either. Listen to these few hours of music and speech and one thing I think you’ll pick up is that everyone is very much stuck in the present. There’s little in the way of nostalgia, there’s hardly any dreaming, everyone seems to be living for the here and the now. Only a couple of years prior “the war” was this imposition on popular culture – now it seems to be the wellspring from which everything goes. Do we need a song about a GI when we’ve got Cecil Gant the G.I. Sing-Sation? There’s this fateful abandon underpinning everything, like they’re saying “here we are, we may get through this, we may not, but for now we’re going to enjoy every moment” and it’s infectious.
You may have also noticed that this mix is called “Part One” – this is perhaps a temporary solution for how sprawling these mixes have become. It’s been increasingly difficult to contain all I would like in a single mix, the materials available are getting altogether too much, but more importantly I have discovered vast radio archives for these years, and have spent much too long digging through them for gems. I must have listened to over a hundred hours of 1944 radio broadcasts. So this time we will have three mixes, and as I prepare myself for 1945 I promise I will try to find a new strategy.
January
(Clip from 1944-03-xx NRK News Of Norway)
(Clip from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
0:00:00 Lester Young et al. – Jammin’ the Blues (Excerpt 1)
(Clip of V1 Bomb)
(Clips from 1944-12-31 – WOR Year In Review)
0:02:03 Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters – Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
(Clip from Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters – Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive (rejected take))
(Clip from Phantom Lady)
0:04:50 Boyd Raeburn – Hep Boyd
(Clip from Arsenic & Old Lace)
0:05:54 Boyd Raeburn – March Of The Boyds
(Clips from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
0:07:37 Lead Belly – Mr. Hitler (Hitler Song)
(Clips from 1944-01-04 CBC Matthew Halton The Fall Of Ortona)
0:10:28 Mary Lou Williams – Blue Skies
(Clips from 1944-01-09 CBS World News Today)
0:13:00 Lata Mangeshkar – Barsaat Mein Humse Mile Tum
(Clips from 1944-01-13 – It’s That Man Again Navy Show)
0:16:07 Billie Holiday – That Ole Devil Called Love
(Clips from 1944-01-16 CBS World News Today)
0:19:13 Dinah Washington – Evil Gal Blues
(Clip from 1944-01-26 BBC Wynford Vaughn Thomas In Anzio)
0:22:21 Lester Young et al. – Jammin’ the Blues (Excerpt 2)
February
(Clips from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
(Clip from Know Your Ally – Britain)
0:26:50 Arsenio RodrÃguez & Su Conjunto – El Pirulero No Vuelve Mas
(Clip from 1944-02-01 Fibber Mcgee – diamond ring at cut rate price)
(Clip from Laura)
0:30:11 Cootie Williams and His Orchestra – ‘Round Midnight
0:30:30 Cootie Williams and His Orchestra – Seven Eleven
(Clip from 1944-02-05 CAN MacArthur At Flag Raising Ceremony On Manila)
0:34:19 Anjos do Inferno – Acontece Que Eu Sou Baiano
(Clip from 1944-02-06 CBS World News Today)
(Clips from 1944-02-05 NBC Skelly News Of The World)
0:36:16 Gene Autry – Don’t Fence Me In
(Clips from 1944-02-06 CBS World News Today)
(Clip from Hare Ribbin)
0:39:10 Louis Jordan – Mop! Mop!
(Clips from 1944-02-17 – It’s That Man Again RAF edition)
0:42:22 Duke Ellington – Johnny Come Lately
(Clips from 1944-02-20 CBS World News Today)
(Clip from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo)
0:45:51 Andrews Sisters – Straighten Up And Fly Right
(Clips from 1944-02-27 CBS World News Today)
0:49:44 Miguel Caló – Sans Souci
(Clip from 1944-02-29 Crisco Radio News)
(Clip from Supervising Women Workers)
0:53:09 Coleman Hawkins – Rainbow Mist
March
(Clips from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
0:57:00 Lionel Hampton – Hamp’s Boogie Woogie
(Clips from 1944-03-02 Abbott and Costello Show – Special Guests Blondie & Dagwood)
1:00:31 Roy Eldridge, Pete Brown, Willie Smith, Flip Phillips, Les Paul, Hank Jones, Benny Fonville, Alvin Stoller – Blues
(Clips from 1944-03-05 CBS World News Today)
(Clips from 1944-03-12 CBS World News Today)
1:06:10 Jussi Bj̦rling РNessun Dorma
(Clips from 1944-03-19 CBS World News Today)
(Clip from Arsenic & Old Lace)
1:09:24 Trummy Young and his Lucky Seven – Hollywood
(Clip from Double Indemnity)
(Clips from 1944-03-24 MBS Special A Night In A Foxhole)
1:13:12 Halim El-Dabh – Wire Recorder Piece
(Clips from 1944-03-26 BBC Winston Churchill – On Allied Victories)
1:15:41 Noel Coward – Don’t Let’s Be Beastly To The Germans
1:18:47 Laurence Olivier – Speech from Henry V
1:20:20 Walter ‘Foots’ Thomas All-Stars – Out To Lunch
1:23:09 Wynford Vaughn-Thomas – BBC News Report
1:25:05 Harry The Hipster Gibson – 4-F Ferdinand
(Clip from 1944-03-xx NRK News Of Norway)
April
(Clip from 1944-04-02 CBS World News Today)
1:28:24 Olavi Virta – Ennen Kuolemaa
(Clips from 1944-04-02 World News Today)
(Clip from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
1:30:44 Sonny Boy Williamson – Win The War Blues
(Clip from 1944-04-17 RSH Germany Calling – We Are Waiting for You)
(Clip from Lifeboat)
1:35:00 The Mills Brothers – You Always Hurt The One You Love
1:38:16 Wynford Vaughan Thomas – Springtime At Anzio
1:39:02 Andres Segovia – Minuetto
(Clip from Ministry of Fear)
1:40:54 The Nat ‘King’ Cole Trio – I Realize Now
(Clip from To Have And To Have Not)
1:44:22 Cozy Cole – Just One More Chance
(Clips from Double Indemnity)
1:48:08 Oscar Alemán – Polvo De Estrellas
(Clip from 1944-04-13 – It’s That Man Again Army Edition)
1:50:10 Tiny Grimes Quintet – Red Cross
(Clip from Abbott & Costello Show – Special Guest Dorothy Lamour)
1:53:18 Billy Butterfield & His Orchestra & Margaret Whiting – Moonlight In Vermont
May
(Clip from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
1:57:07 Josh White – House of the Rising Sun
(Clip from 1944-05-05 BBC Richard Dimbleby Watches Airborne Troops)
2:01:04 Charlie Barnet – Skyliner
(Clip from 1944-05-13 NBC Skelly News Of The World)
2:04:24 Spike Jones – Leave The Dishes In The Sink, Ma
(Clips from 1944-05-17 BBC Godfrey Talbot in Monte Cassino)
2:07:50 Atahualpa Yupanqui – El Arriero
(Clip from 1944-05-25 RRG Heinrich Himmler – Vor Der Waffen SS)
2:11:09 Red Foley – Smoke On The Water
(Clips from Know Your Ally – Britain)
2:15:00 Cecil Gant – Cecil Boogie
(Clips from 1944-05-18 – Suspense Theater – Donovans Brain)
2:19:08 Ethel Smith – Tico Tico
(Clips from 1944-05-15 – Sherlock Holmes – Adventure of the Missing Bloodstains)
2:22:14 Tommy Dorsey & his Orchestra – Opus No. 1
(Clip from Since You Went Away)
2:25:25 Billie Holiday – No More
June
(Clip from 1944-12-31 MBS News 1944 In Review)
2:28:25 Al Trace Silly Symphonists – Mairzy Doats And Dozy Doats
2:31:25 Judy Garland – The Trolley Song
(Clip from Cover Girl)
2:34:35 Louis Prima – Oh Marie
(Clip from Abbott & Costello Show – Special Guest Alan Ladd)
2:37:38 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Strange Things Happening Every Day
(Clip from Going My Way)
2:42:04 Sister Ernestine Washington – If I Could Just Make It In
2:44:39 Dylan Thomas – Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines
2:47:02 Erroll Garner All Stars – Gaslight
(Clip from Double Indemnity)
2:49:22 Betty Hutton – It Had To Be You
(Clip from The Woman In The Window)
2:52:50 Thyagaraja Bhagavatar & Manmatha Leelaya – Haridas
(Clip from Gaslight)
2:54:16 The Nat ‘King’ Cole Trio – Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You
(Clip from 1944-02-20 CBS World News Today)
(Clip from 1944-02-27 CBS World News Today)