The Revelers - Honolulu Moon (1927)

The Revelers were an American quintet (four close harmony singers and a pianist) popular in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Revelers' recordings of "Dinah," "Old Man River", "Valencia," "Baby Face," "Blue Room," "Birth of the Blues," "When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba," and many more, became popular in the United States and then Europe in the late 1920s.

All of the members had recorded individually or in various combinations, and formed a group in 1925. The original Revelers were tenors Franklyn Baur and Lewis James, baritone Elliot Shaw, bass Wilfred Glenn, and pianist Ed Smalle. Smalle was replaced by Frank Black in 1926. The group (with Black at the piano) appeared in a short movie musical, The Revelers (1927), filmed in the sound-on-disc Vitaphone process. This one-reel short film, recently restored by "The Vitaphone Project," shows the group performing "Mine," "Dinah," and "No Foolin'." A second short, filmed the same day with another three songs, awaits restoration.

Baur was replaced by Frank Luther and then James Melton (later a Metropolitan Opera tenor).The Revelers were stars on radio and in vaudeville, as well as in the recording studio. On radio they were regulars on The Palmolive Hour (1927-31). Ring Lardner observed, "Under any name, they sound as sweet." Lardner outlined his "perfect radio program" for The New Yorker magazine, and found a place for The Revelers along with Paul Whiteman and Fanny Brice.

The German group The Comedian Harmonists formed in 1927 after hearing some records of The Revelers.


The Revelers - Honolulu Moon (1927)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Revelers
• 1927
• 20s
• 30s

[teaandc]

Thank you for posting this. My Dad who will soon be 90 told me today that this song was playing from the Hindenburg as it passed over his backyard when he was a very young boy. How frightening and eerie the big Hindenburg was to my father at the time and how strange to hear it blasting this song. :-)

[bill3murr]

so nice to hear this version...love these guys. i have the hilo hawaiian (nat shilkret) version which is great as well. thank you for sharing.

[HarborGuy]

Very nice - no doubt a change of pace forl1927 - great harmony! Hawaii was still a major ways by Ocean Liner ......

[OldBluesAndDubMusic]

nice1

[tapp247]

Now that's great cruising music.