Johnny first recorded this self-penned number in '37, with vocal support from Six Hits and a Miss. Though good, that version is, IMO, only a warm-up for this spectacular treatment! The song itself may seem a rather slight affair, of the type that was concocted as a feature for a comic in an old Hollywood musical, but this amusing account of a little West Virginia college's football-mad student body ("Never mind the sheepskin -- they preferred the pigskin") and its one-off, "a certain Mr. Jamboree Jones," an "awful bore" who practiced clarinet to the exclusion of all other activities (attending football games, dating girls), contains some of the wordsmith's most clever writing. The Savannah GA-born singer-songwriter and his frequent duet partner at Capitol, the great Jo Stafford, run through this briskly-paced tale with both gusto and ease, not the easiest of feats, with rousing support from the Pipers and the Weston band.
Johnny first recorded this self-penned number in '37, with vocal support from Six Hits and a Miss. Though good, that version is, IMO, only a warm-up for this spectacular treatment! The song itself may seem a rather slight affair, of the type that was concocted as a feature for a comic in an old Hollywood musical, but this amusing account of a little West Virginia college's football-mad student body ("Never mind the sheepskin -- they preferred the pigskin") and its one-off, "a certain Mr. Jamboree Jones," an "awful bore" who practiced clarinet to the exclusion of all other activities (attending football games, dating girls), contains some of the wordsmith's most clever writing. The Savannah GA-born singer-songwriter and his frequent duet partner at Capitol, the great Jo Stafford, run through this briskly-paced tale with both gusto and ease, not the easiest of feats, with rousing support from the Pipers and the Weston band.
This is a great recording, I'm partial to Bing Crosby's version it runs a bit smoother and swingier...