The above ad appeared in the Lorain Journal on the eve of the performance. Also on the bill at the Palace was singer Julie Sherwin (later known as Julie Conway).
According to this Wiki entry, Johnnie Davis was working with Fred Waring as a musician and vocalist before he made the move to Hollywood. The popular musician is probably best known for introducing the classic song “Hooray for Hollywood” in the movie Hollywood Hotel. The tune would become the theme song for his band.
Davis would appear in many movies during the 30s and 40s.
Here’s Johnnie Davis performing “Hooray for Hollywood” and a few other catchy tunes (that you’ll recognize from Looney Tunes cartoons) in Hollywood Hotel. He’s mainly singing here, in his “scat” singing style.
Davis had a very likable, infectious personality and I’ll bet it was a great show at the Palace that day.
2 comments:
Dan,
It looks like this is Julie Conway:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0176718/
Short version: She ended up going to Hollywood and got three movies to her credit (all of them with bandleader Kay Kyser, who was very popular at the time but was also a demanding professional, so she would have had to have been very good), and that's all that are listed. Guessing she decided to lead a nice, normal life after that, and made it to January 12th, 1988.
Johnny "Scat" Davis looked kind of familiar, and it took some time but I finally figured out where I'd seen him before: there was a multi-night special in the early 70s called "The Movies", on ABC - kind of a history of Hollywood - and one of the bits in there was that first ever performance of "Hooray For Hollywood"...
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the help with the research. I’m glad she lived a nice long life. Looks like she had a least one big hit in 1942 with Kay Kyser with “Jingle Jangle Jingle,” backing up and echoing Harry Babbitt near the end of the tune.
I agree, Johnnie Davis looked familiar, one of his bios said he was comedy relief in several movies.
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