From Harlem to Hollywood by Van Alexander

Author:Van Alexander [Alexander, Van with Fratallone, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BearManor Media
Published: 2015-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

“Van is an elegant gentleman and he’s proven himself as far as music is concerned,” says Kay Starr, 86. “He taught me a lot of delicate things because I’m just an Oklahoma girl. If anyone has the liking to any of those four albums I worked on with Van, I give the credit to him because he helped me to have a feeling for all kinds of music, more than what I had. He’s really ‘The Gentleman of Music.’”

Kay and I remain good friends to this day.

Truly the most “playful” assignments I had at Capitol during the mid-1950s was arranging the music and conducting the orchestra for a number of children’s albums with voice actor and funnyman Mel Blanc. Known as the “Man of a Thousand Voices,” Mel was a creative genius recognized for his work at Warner Bros. as the voice of such iconic characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzalez and Pepé LePew, and hundreds of others. In addition, Mel did the voice of cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as well as Barney Rubble on The Flintstones televison cartoon series. He was also a mainstay on both Jack Benny’s radio and television programs.

Most of Mel’s body of work doing children’s albums were with Billy May, but some of the albums Mel and I did together in the early 1950s include Bugs Bunny and Rabbit Seasoning, Daffy Duck’s Feathered Friend, Daffy Duck’s Duck Inn, Pied Piper Cat, Mel Blanc Sings Tweet and Toot and E.I.O. Songs, Woody Woodpecker and the Lost Monkey, Woody Woodpecker Meets Davey Crocket, and Happy Hippety Hopper, about an adventurous but loveable Australian kangaroo.

Mel and I also recorded a handful of singles together. One funny single that stands out was “Yah, Das Ist Ein Christmas Tree,” a Dave Cavanaugh and Sid Robin ditty recorded in March 1953, in which Mel sang in the character of a zany German holiday enthusiast in “schnitzelbank” fashion along with a host of other off-the-wall voice characterizations.

Anytime I’d do a project with Mel, I’d always have to make sure we’d limit the number of songs per session because Mel would invariably crack everyone up with his voice characterizations, and we’d end up having to do a number of retakes. It was all in good fun, of course, and Mel was a sweet guy. One just never knew what Mel would say and in what “character” he would say it. The animation world lost its most gifted voice when Mel died of a heart attack in 1989, at age 81.

Speaking more of children’s albums…I also had the wonderful opportunity of working with entertainer Eddie Cantor on Maxie the Taxi, the story of a taxi driver who inadvertently picks up a bear as his fare at the zoo, logging their misadventures together.

Keely Smith was another consumate artist with whom I was privledged to work at Capitol. Long associated as the “straight act” with her husband, trumpeter Louis Prima, Keely and Louis

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