"Love Never Went to College" (1939)

Still in 1939, we have what I believe is our first college song from a Broadway show!

The song in question is "Love Never Went to College" from the Rodgers & Hart musical "Too Many Girls."

At this point in time, original cast albums still weren't a thing, but one of the stars of the show, Mary Jane Walsh, recorded a few of the songs for Columbia Records.

So, here's Mary Jane with "Love Never Went to College":

That's really nice. I'm so used to hearing dance band versions of 1930s show tunes that something like that is a pleasant change. (I'll talk more about that in a couple pf minutes!)

But I still love me some dance bands, so here's Paula Kelly singing "Love Never Went to College" with Al Donahue's band on Vocalion Records:

I really like Paula Kelly's singing a lot. Her handful of records with Glenn Miller are great!

Let's hear one more version, this time it's Hal Kemp with The Smoothies on Victor:

A fun version showing how the Kemp band was evolving with the times.

And one more version, this one by Benny Goodman with Louise Tobin on Columbia:

The most popular and enduring song from the show "Too Many Girls" was by far "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," so let's flip over BG's record for his version of that standard, again with Louise Tobin on the vocal:

Sounds great!

Louise Tobin is another underrated vocalist of the era, usually only being mentioned as Harry James's pre-Betty Grable first wife, but she passed away only about a year ago at age 104, so maybe she had the last laugh!

Benny Goodman had recently switched to Columbia label after a monumental run with Victor and the word is that part of the reason is that he felt Victor was favoring newcomer rival clarinetist/bandleader  Artie Shaw!

Whatever the case, here's Artie's version of "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" with vocalist Helen Forrest on the Victor subsidiary Bluebird:

More talk is that the tempo is too fast for this number causing Helen to rush through the heartfelt lyrics, and I agree, but I still like it!

Not underrated as a band vocalist and deserving of every plaudit she got, Helen Forrest was always great, but she really hit her stride after her stints with Artie's and Benny Goodman's bands when Harry James's band provided arrangements that better showcased her.

Let's keep things going and hit the movie version of "Too Many Girls" from RKO in 1940!

The movie included "You're Nearer," a Rodgers & Hart song not from the show, which was performed by Frances Langford, who took on Mary Jane Walsh's role from the show.

Here's Frances's recording of "You're Nearer" for Decca:

Talking about tempos, the rare solo vocal star of the era like Frances Langford didn't have to worry about a bandleader keeping a dance tempo!

The film version of "Too Many Girls" casts a very long shadow over pop culture as it was on the set of that movie that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz met!

The mind-boggling thing is that if that movie hadn't been made, maybe Lucy and Desi wouldn't have met and "I Love Lucy" may not have happened, which would mean the whole landscape of TV would have changed!