A Bit of Intrigue...

As I dig around the past, I often run into something that puzzles me and it causes a bit of intrigue in my little world!

I had mentioned that singing star Don Cornell had performed with the McFarland Twins' band before joining Sammy Kaye.

Nothing unusual about that, as singers and musicians often "graduated" from lesser-known bands to bigger name bands. Kind of like being called up from the minor leagues to The Show!

But I've always heard the story that when Don Cornell first joined Sammy Kaye, he was using his real name of Lou Varlaro, but due to Italy being an Axis nation during WWII, audiences were not accepting of him due to his Italian surname.

So the story goes that Sammy decided that Lou should have a new name and came up with "Don Cornell" unbeknownst to Lou. Sammy introduced Don Cornell during a performance and Lou/Don didn't know who he was talking about!

That's one of those wacky show biz stories you hear. Maybe true, maybe not, but fun.

The intrigue comes in with the "Hey! Zeke" record by the McFarland Twins. The singer is billed as Don Cornell, so Lou Varlaro was already Don Cornell before he joined Sammy Kaye!

The "Hey! Zeke" session took place on January 23, 1942 and the session information interestingly lists Don Cornell as the vocalist and Lou Varlaro as the guitarist! Don Cornell did play guitar, but he was proabbaky only paid once!

Anyway, I thought maybe that "Hey! Zeke" was released after Don joined Sammy Kaye and Bluebird figured they would credit him with his new name, but according to "Billboard," the record was out by February:

Then there's this blurb from March:

So, "Billboard" says he was already Don Cornell while with the McFarland Twins. So, where did the whole story about Sammy Kaye renaming Lou/Don come from?

That was 80 years ago, so who's still around that would know?

We'll never know, but Don Cornell had many popular records with Sammy Kaye (before and after following Zeke into military service) and went on to a long and successful career of his own.

Since we're hanging around 1942 with that wartime spirit, let's hear Don's first record with Sammy Kaye:

A must on your WWII playlist!