This is the story of the little girl with the magnificent voice from Savannah, Georgie who sang out to America with the Big Bands of Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. For two years Connie Haines and Frank Sinatra, who won the title Best Boy and Girl Singer of the era, sang shoulder to shoulder on stages across America, singing: Let's Get Away from It All; Snootie Little Cutie; and Oh, Look At Me Now. With a foreword by her friend and singing companion Jane Russell, and comments by Frankie Laine and Rhonda Fleming, you are transported back to the 1940s and '50s, Big Band Era. With over 50 wonderful, original photos you will relive her days with the Big Bands and the Abbott and Costello tours and with 'Les Girls' Jane, Beryl Davis, and Rhonda Fleming. As Jane Russell says, "I'm sure you'll enjoy learning more about this honourable, faithful, fun-loving, talented, crystal Chandelier-loving Southern Belle.". Richard Grudens brings you this heart-warming story of one of America's best-loved vocalists who still performs today. He provides you with that special insight into her life.

As a companion to The Best Damn Trumpet Player and The Song Stars, this is the last of a trilogy, with a foreword by Bob Hope, explores the world of male vocalists. Richard Grudens initiates a retrospective tribute to the early singers Al Jolson and Bing Crosby, Fats Waller and Nat King Cole. His heart-warming interviews or vignettes with living-legend artists, Frank Sinatra, Jack Jones, Vic Damone, Steve Lawrence, Tony Martin, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell, Eddie Fisher, Andy Williams and Don Cornell are revealing, anecdotal gems. And who could forget Dick Haymes, The Ink Spots, Ray Eberle and Bob Eberly, and Billy Eckstine. Features: Donald Mills and the Mills Brothers, Sam Arlen talks of his father, Harold Arlen, and a look at Lou Lanza, Philadelphia's new singing star. The author provides a special insight into the lives of the Music Men and provides over 60 exceptional photographs to enrich your reading pleasure.

This book traces the real Bob Hope from his early days performing in Cleveland, Ohio, and New York, to his world-wide fame earned in radio, television and films, as well as his unselfish performances all over the world for the USO during World War II right through Desert Storm, documented through the eyes of many of his friends and fellow performers, as well as Bob's own comments as told to Grudens during personal interviews, revealing a touching portrait of a wonderful man. How many of you were unaware that Bob Hope, whose real name is Leslie Town Hope was born in England; a professional boxer; a very good dancer and singer who introduced many standard songs; a full-fledged travelling vaudeville actor; a prominent Broadway star, and a radio pioneer and television icon? The book accurately encapsulates his story incorporating over 100 photos punctuating at each stage of his life. Here you will find personal testimonials and tributes in their own words from legendary actress Jane Russell, singer Connie Haines, actress Rhonda Fleming, M*A*S*H creator Larry Gelbart, vocalist Jerry Vale, President's Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, golfers Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, singers Tony Bennett, Frances Langford, Margaret Whiting, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, and Frankie Laine, and all recent Presidents. With a loving foreword by co-star Jane Russell, this book provides a perfect personal portrait of America's best loved comedian and the World's most famous citizen. This is the book Bob Hope fans all over the world have been waiting for.

This wonderful book pays tribute to the lives of early song innovators Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, Mildred Bailey, Ethel Waters, and the first lady of song Ella Fitzgerald. It also tells a different story about special song star Josephine Baker. Special chapters include legendary Frankie Laine's personal tribute to many big band singers he has known; band leader Warren Covington's historical account of the pied pipers singing group who once backed Frank Sinatra and Connie Haines; and world-famous disc jockey Al 'Jazzbeaux' Collins recollection of his legendary fables of the purple grotto. There are special segments honoring all of the known big band song stars, and even a list of those not so well-known. Richard Grudens provides a special insight into the lives of the song stars and provides over 60 exceptional photos to enrich your reading pleasure.

A book about Big Band musical personalities caught backstage, on-stage, at rehearsal, in dressing rooms, in back seats of cars, in band buses, radio stations, night clubs, and local park outdoor stages, and high schools. Richard Grudens has asked the right questions of these formidable stalwart performers of the past and present. His interviews with Harry James, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Billy Eckstine, and Buddy Rich are rare gems mostly because these personalities, at this particular time of their lives, resisted interviews and personal studies for one reason or another. Others like Frankie Laine, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Tony Bennett, and Sarah Vaughan, were willing and gracious hosts who revealed valuable information for future historians of the genre to ponder. Each interview and encounter was expertly and charmingly photographed by former news photographer, Camille Smith who was able to catch each subject in his own special way, and some captured on film by Grudens' long-time friend, Gus Young.

This book looks at the anatomy of a big band radio station with the broadcasters and the songwriters. Chapters cover the early dance bands of Paul Whiteman, Leo Reisman, Fred Waring, Casa Loma, Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, Fletcher Henderson, Vincent Lopez, Wayne King and covers vignettes about the ballrooms and pavillions where the bands performed the music of America's Golden Age. Max Wirz of Swiss radio recalls the big bands of Europe, from Syd Lawrence and Ted Heath, right up to today's exciting Thilo Wolf and Andy Prior. A special section covers vocalists Beryl Davis and Carmel Quin, the Wizard of the guitar Les Paul, and magical radio journalist Sally Bennett. The book concludes with Honourable Mentions of bands and vocalists you may or may not know. Richard Grudens again provides a special insight into the lives of the performers who lived within the Jukebox of our lives in this book with over 60 exceptional photos provided by most of the books subjects themselves.

2012: If you were to ask anyone under the age of 40 to identify the singing groups of the 20th Century -- the Mills Brothers, Boswell's or Andrews Sisters, and you may toss in the Pied Pipers, Modernaires and Ink Spots, you would undoubtedly earn a long, blank, questionable stare of wonderment. Needless to say, those unknowns each carved out a musical career of great stature over many years, reaching back a few generations during what was known to all as the Big Band or Swing Era, a time when the Great American Song-book was created, and developed from the1930's through 1970 and a trifle beyond. For those of you who were fortunate enough to have lived through a part of this era and had witnessed one or more of their performances on the stage, on film, radio and television, and for those of you who did not, please standby: you are ON THE AIR ...this is their story.

Here is the quintessential Al Jolson tribute from the pen of author/music historian Richard Grudens, documenting the story of Al Jolson's colourful rise to fame in the first half of the 20th century, while earning the title of The Worlds' Greatest Entertainer. This wonderful career is told in stories and photographs - over 200 from the immortals of show business that include Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine, Kathryn Crosby, Patty Andrews, Connie Haines, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Lee and Jake Shubert, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Joe Franklin, Sybil Jason, Beverly Roberts, Richard Rodgers, Milton Berle, George Burns, George Gershwin, Walter Winchell, Davey Lee, Rudy Wissler, Irving Berlin, Tony Babino and others - who interpolated Jolson's life before, during and after.