When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along


Back in the 1920's and 30's she was known as America's Sweetheart of Song and the Sweetheart of Columbia Records, she sang for the Ziegfield Follies and starred on Broadway alongside Eddie Cantor and Ed Wynn, she sang the top songs of all the top composers - Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, DeSylva and Brown and Henderson, she even made a few movies out in Hollywood, and although it's hard to be absolutely certain it's estimated that she probably had 60 hit records before she retired from show business in the late 1930's. Quite a career and if it were possible to measure her success by the media saturated standards of today, she might possibly be compared to Elvis or the Beatles.

And yet, you probably never heard of Ruth Etting. That's a shame, and that's why I'm blogging on her tonight.

According to her bio, Ruth Etting was a small town girl who left her home in David City, Nebraska at the age of 17 to study art in Chicago. She got a job designing costumes for the chorus at a local nightclub, and as one thing led to another she rose to become a featured singer at some of the hotels and speakeasies in town. She met and married a gangster named Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder who took over the management of her career. He got her a job with a local orchestra and eventually a record company executive heard her and signed her to a contract with Columbia Records.

So she left Chicago for New York City and started making records. A composer named Irving Berlin heard her and recommended her to his friend Florence Ziegfeld who promptly signed her up for his show "Making Whoopee" with Eddie Cantor. With a string of top selling records and a hit show on Broadway, Ruth Etting was a bona fide superstar. She dressed well, ate well, hobnobbed with the rich and famous and appeared on the covers of magazines.

Meanwhile her marriage to the Gimp was on the rocks. He was controlling and suffocating and eventually she divorced him and left New York for Hollywood to be with her new love Myrl Alderman. All would end disastrously when the jealous Gimp came 0ut to California seeking revenge against the new boyfriend. He had brought a pistol and one night he found Alderman and shot him. The wound was not fatal but the scandal that followed along with the changing musical taste of a swing-crazy America effectively ended the career of Ruth Etting.

Quite a story, huh, and if it all seems like something out of a Hollywood movie, you're right - sort of. A biopic called "Love Me or Leave Me" starring Doris Day and James Cagney was made in 1955 that was loosely based on the events of Ruth Etting's life. Rumor has it that Ruth herself wasn't too happy with the result, but the movie won an oscar and can still be seen from time to time on some of the old movie channels and local TV stations. But after the movie and a brief rekindling of interest in her work, Ruth Etting just faded into history.

It's hard to tell why. Maybe it was because she never achieved the kind of movie stardom that Bing Crosby or Al Jolson or other Jazz Age singers did. She came to Hollywood late in her career and, with the exception of "Roman Scandals" in which she had a brief singing role, she never had what can be called blockbuster success. Her movies have mostly disappeared and without the big screen to immortalize her, history just passed her by. Lucky for us, though, many of her records have not met a similar fate. They have been preserved by archivists and historians and still sound as fresh to my untrained ear as the did 75 years ago.

But rather than drone on and on I thought I'd offer a little sample of her work instead. These songs are all from the height of her career and I bet most people will recognize them (even if they don't know who sang them). If they pique your interest and you're just dying to know more, the web is always a good source of information (try Ruthetting.com for starters).

So, with that out of he way let's wind up the old Victrola and take a little trip back to the age of flappers, rumble seats, speakeasies and bathtub gin. It's the Jazz Age, my friends, and we have Ruth Etting ready to sing you a few of her popular hits.

First, this great old song recorded November 3, 1929.
Button Up Your Overcoat

Now another one from January 3, 1927. Judy Garland would have some later success with this number, but Ruth Etting sang it first.
I'm Nobody's Baby

Of course no Ruth Etting sampler would be complete without a torch song. This one's from November of 1929 and is one of the better ones.
More Than You Know

From the Rodger and Hart show Simple Simon and recorded April 3, 1930, one of Ruth's biggest hits.
Ten Cents A Dance

And so many, many others.