She Did It Her Way enthralls
Big Band fans at Shannondell
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   ©  2017 — Kenneth Lelen — Al Rights Reserved

Residents at Shannondell, a 1,000-unit retirement community in Audubon PA, recently invited Ken Lelen to perform his She Did It Her Way concert. The 75-minute program celebrates the lives, careers, romances and hit songs of some of the 20th Century's most popular female vocalists.

                                                                                                 Both concert photos: Abby Glazier
At She Did It Her Way concert at Shannondell Ken Lelen played a

1936 Gibson L-00. Behind are 1931 and 1932 Regal MarvelTones,
1934 Kalamazoo KG-11 and restored 1940 Gene Autry Round-up.

The event was held Mon, Oct 24, 2016. The concert filled all but five seats at Bradford Theater, one of two 100-seat venues at the continuing care facility, which is spread across a 140-acre site near King of Prussia.

The musician performed a program of 15 tunes that were originally popular hits for female vocalists between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s. Each song was introduced by a musical, historic or romantic anecdote about the singer, the song, the era or the composer.

Concert celebrates only female vocalists
When Lelen performs the She Did It Her Way concert, his program features only female vocalists, including some of the following celebrated artists:

          Kate Smith, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Mildred Bailey, Anita O'Day,

          Edith Piaf, Kate Smith, Kitty Kallen, Ella Fitzgerald, Helen Forrest, Jo

          Stafford, Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker, Marlene Dietrich, Lena Horne,

          Doris Day, June Christy, Dinah Shore, DeCastro Sisters, Ma Rainey,

          Dinah Washington, Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Whiting, Patti Page,

          Frances Langford, Incomparable Hildegarde, Mabel Mercer, Vera Lynn,
          Ethel Waters, Helen O'Connell, Andrew Sisters, Boswell Sisters,
          Maxine Sullivan, Peggy Lee and others.

Hit songs by female vocalists offered in the She Did It Her Way concert at Shannondell included:

          All vocalist photos: Wikipedia
Ella Fitzgerald (1917 - 1996)

I'm Beginning To See The Light — Composed in 1944 by Duke Ellington, Don George, Johnny Hodges and Harry James, this jazz standard and dance favorite was a Billboard Top 100 hit for six weeks in 1945 for the Ink Spots, with lead vocals by Bill Kenny and Ella Fitzgerald.

Kitty Kallen (1921 - 2016)

In 1945 the song was also a hit for band leader Harry James and Orchestra, with vocals by Kitty Kallen. A year earlier she replaced Helen O'Connell on hit records with Jimmy Dorsey, "They're Either Too Old Or Too Young" and "Besame Mucho."

Dinah Shore (1922 - ) 

As much as I like Ella and Kitty's versions, I've grown enthralled with the sultry version by Doris Day in 1964. Doris, who first drew the world's attention in 1945 with "Sentimental Journey," was reported to be inspired to become a singer as a teenager in the 1930s by listening to Ella Fitzgerald on the radio.

Connee Boswell (1907 - 1976)

In a small irony lost to history, Ella once said she was inspired to become a singer when, as a 15-year old, she heard a record of Connee Boswell, another great female jazz singer.

"My mother brought home one of [Connee's] records, and I fell in love with it," Ella recalled years later in a remark noted by the NY Times in a 1996 obituary of Ella, doyenne of the Great American Song. "I tried so hard to sound just like her."

After You've Gone — Written by Turner Layton and Henry Creamer, this 1918 classic is one of the music world's earliest torch songs. The original sheet music instructs musicians to deliver the song as a "Ballad — not too fast."

Sophie Tucker (1887 - 1966)

Ruth Etting (1897 - 1978)

To no one's surprise, the song was first rendered as a blues, with its emotional core expressed as: "Someday you'll feel what I felt, you dirty dog." Indeed, on recordings by Sophie Tucker, Bessie Smith and Ruth Etting — all made in 1927 — the song was offered as a languid blues number.

But "After You've Gone" quickly morphed into a revenge song with an emotional edge best expressed as: "Someday you'll get yours, you dirty dog." The change occurred between 1929 and 1931 as Bing Crosby, Paul Whitman, Red Nichols, Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman and Fats Waller and other male artists gave it their very best up-tempo jazz treatment.

Bessie Smith (1894 - 1937)

Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out — This song was written by Jimmy Cox in 1923 as a cautionary tale about the fickle nature of fortune in an era of apparent prosperity. Songster Bessie Smith released her recording of this song on Friday, Sept. 13, 1929 — two weeks after the Stock Market hit an all-time high and just two weeks before it crashed, sparking a 10-year Depression.

Offered as vaudeville blues with a hulking ragtime feel, Smith's "race record" for Columbia became her best selling song. It was covered by countless musicians long after her 1937 death under tragic circumstances.

I'm Thru With Love — In the 1959 comedy "Some Like It Hot," a saxophone player named Joe (Tony Curtis) and his bass-playing friend Jerry (Jack Lemon) are feckless witnesses to Chicago's St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Feb 1929. To escape harm by avenging mobsters, the pair disguise themselves as women (Josephine on sax and Daphne on bass) and join an all-female band — Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators — and head to Miami to entertain a rich crowd of winter vacationers.

Marilyn Monroe (1926 - 1962)

In a scene near the film's end, Joe/Josephine watches his love interest, the band's vocalist and ukulele player Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), straddle a piano in a black slinky dress and intone "I'm Thru With Love." In an act of romantic disavowal, she sings this 1931 jazz standard by Fud Livingston, Matty Malneck and Gus Kahn.

I've seen the movie numerous times and often make a hash of the plot and its hapless characters. But I've never forgotten the plaintive song or the zaftig girl in the black slinky dress who convinces me she's not really through with love.

Teach Me Tonight — Written in 1953 with music by Gene De Paul and lyrics by Sammy Cahn, this love song was a successful jazz and pop hit for many artists. It was first recorded in 1954 on Decca by a now-obscure jazz vocalist and Charleston WV native, Janet Brace (1927 - 1991). But her cut of the song "sank at launching, with barely a ripple," according to De Paul.

DeCastro Sisters — Peggy,
Cherie and Babette

Jo Stafford (1917 - 2008)

Then, in late 1954, Dinah Washington, Queen of the Jukebox, recorded an R&B version. But that cut got only minor play. It was Jo Stafford's version in 1954 that turned heads when it reached #15 on the pop charts and opened the path for an even better selling version in the next year.

In 1955 the DeCastro Sisters, a trio raised in Havana, Cuba, scored a huge hit with the song when it reached #2 on Billboard's pop charts. Begun as a Latin group, they were inspired by the Andrew Sisters and became protegees of the singer, dancer and actress Carmen Miranda (1909 - 1955), who back in the day was known as the Brazilian Bombshell.

Fever — Co-written by Eddie Coley and Otis Blackwell in 1956, it was the best known tune from jazz and pop singer Peggy Lee (1920 - 2002). Her smooth and sultry cover, slower and steamier than Little Willie John's R&B original, added new lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet" and "Captain Smith and Pocahontas") that have become standard elements of the song.

Peggy Lee (1920 - 2002)

"Fever" was Lee's signature song, best-known work and most successful hit in a 50-year career. Launched on the radio in North Dakota as a teenager during the 1930s, she moved in 1942 to Chicago. There, she replaced Helen Forrest in Benny Goodman's Orchestra and made several hit records over a two-year span.

In the late 1940s she worked in California with Capitol Records. Over the next three decades she produced a stack of hits, including "I Don't Know Enough About You," "It's A Good Day," "Mañana," "Is That All There Is?" and "Fever."

Lee's 1958 version of "Fever" was played in a medium swing tempo and used only an acoustic bass, small drum set and finger snaps for rhythmic back-up. Considered her "most memorable tune," it spent 12 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 in the U.S. and peaked at #8.

I'll Be Seeing You — Written in 1938 by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal, the song was inserted in Right This Way, a Broadway musical that closed after 15 shows.

Still, the song gained renown in the 1940s for its emotional power with soldiers stationed overseas and folks on the Home Front. Like “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” and “Sentimental Journey,” the wistful "I'll Be Seeing You" was recorded extensively during the war years.

The Incomparable Hildegarde (1906 - 2005)

Among other artists, "I'll Be Seeing You" was successfully covered by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell. But the tune gained a certain cachet when sung by the nightclub entertainer dubbed the "Incomparable Hildegarde" by the columnist Walter Winchell.

Raised in Wisconsin, she was also called the Chanteuse from the Continent while performing in U.S. cabarets during the war. And along with her elegant gowns, long white gloves, lace handkerchiefs and precise diction, "I'll Be Seeing You" was one of her best-known numbers.

Vintage guitar tones
For an authentic, back-in-the-day sound at the Shannondell concert, Lelen paired each song with the playing of pre-war acoustic guitars. He played these five period instruments in his She Did It Her Way program:

           1931 Regal MarvelTone — Mahogany bodi grand concert
           guitar by Regal of Chicago IL that originally retailed for $28.

           1932 Regal MarvelTone — Rosewood body grand concert
           guitar by Regal of Chicago IL that originally retailed for $50.

           1934 Kalamazoo KG-11 — Mahogany body grand concert
           guitar with sunburst finish and budget design (ladder-braced
           top, no adjustable rod in neck) by Gibson of Kalamazoo MI
           that originally retailed for $12.50.

           1936 Gibson L-00 — Mahogany body grand concert guitar
           with sunburst finish and upgraded appointments (X-braced
           top and adjustable rod in neck) by Gibson of Kalamazoo MI
           that originally retailed for $27.50.

           1940 Gene Autry Round-up — Recently restored, maple
           body auditorium guitar has the Singing Cowboy's signature
           painted on the fingerboard. Made by Harmony of Chicago IL,
           it was sold in Sears, Roebuck mail-order catalogs for $9.95.

Ken Lelen performing his She Did It Her Way concert at Shannondell's Bradford Theater in October, 2016.

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©  2017  Kenneth Lelen  —  All Rights Reserved

Event logistics, publicity, contracts & fees

Updated for 2017 and 2018 concert seasons

I'm often asked about the logistics, publicity, contracts and performance fees for my concerts. Rather than let uncommunicated assumptions (your or mine) drive our booking discussions, here are the elements I offer, requests I make and the terms I negotiate.

"He who has the talent to instruct, amuse or entertain needs no
passport. All doors fly open at his touch."  —  From 1933 cover
of the "Old Ohio Moon" orchestration for the Hawaiian guitar by
Oahu Publg. Co., Cleveland, Ohio

Logistics
I bring four to six vintage acoustic guitars to every concert for an authentic sound. Ranging in age from 60 to 125 years, my guitars are precious period pieces and integral to every Vintage Music Concert.

I also bring a good sound system. It includes speakers perched on tripods and high-quality microphones on stands — one for the voice, one for the guitar.

I perform 75- to 90-minute indoor concerts with a program theme and without an intermission. Seated theater-style, my audiences have ranged in size from 35 to 350 people. In the past 17 years these events have taken place morning, noon and night, weekdays and weekends, in the following variety of spaces:

  •  galleries, retail showrooms, classrooms, boardrooms, function rooms
  •  auditoriums, multi-purpose rooms, country club ballrooms, gymnasiums
  •  hallways, conference rooms, solariums, foyers, libraries, chamber rooms
  •  churches, basements, coffeehouses, lobbies, theaters, railway waiting room
  •  museums, living rooms, patios, bookstores, dining rooms, lounges, gardens

I need access to electric power, a six-foot-long conference table to display the guitars and one bottled water at room temperature. It takes 45 minutes to set up this equipment, tune up my guitars and address last-minute issues. I need a similar 45-minute period for pack-up after the concert.

I request a brief intro from my host. My concerts are intimate enough that I ask there are no cellphone calls, texting and videos at the event. Likewise, video or audio taping by hosts are prohibited without prior permission. I remain after a concert to answer any and all audience questions or discuss vintage music and vintage guitars.

Publicity
I can send hosts multiple copies of an 8½ x 11-in. color poster on card stock. Other publicity materials are available as well, including PDFs and Word® files of my posters, promotional postcards and bookmarks for libraries. I can also send press releases to concert sponsors for distribution to their local media.

My website — www.KenLelen.blogspot.com — has a current tour calendar, links to music videos, photos and background info on Vintage Music Concerts. These resources are useful to hosts as they plan their posters, invitations, press kits, sponsor materials and promotions.

Contracts and fees
I receive emails from folks who ask my fee but don't reveal a date, program or budget. Truth to tell, I don't have a one-size-fits-all fee for them. I work for a variety of venues, sponsors and facilities, and compensation for these events varies as well.

I usually ask what date, program, concert theme and budget are proposed. I'd like to know what kind of event I'm offered, how it fits my tour schedule, what logistic issues are present, and what concert themes are possible. As important to me are the scope of an event, expected audience, publicity plans and budget. 

Once we air the major issues, it's not a big step to discuss terms for logistics, publicity and fee. This process occurs in one or two phone calls, not in endless rivers of emails.

I perform upon receipt of my signed, one-page contract. It encapsulates event terms, conditions and fee we discussed. I will supply an invoice, W-9 form, voucher or P.O., and publicity materials. But I don't show up unless the contract is signed and I don't sing unless I'm handed a check at the event.

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©  2017  Kenneth  Lelen  —  All  Rights  Reserved