Victor Young Orch, Nick Lucas - You're Driving Me Crazy (1930)

Victor Young (August 8, 1900 - November 10, 1956) was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor. He was born in Chicago.

Young began as a classical composer and concert violinist but moved into the popular music sphere when he joined Ted Fio Rito's orchestra. In the mid-1930s he moved to Hollywood where he concentrated on films, recordings of light music and providing backing for popular singers, including Bing Crosby.

Young was signed to Brunswick in 1931 where his studio groups recorded scores of popular dance music, waltzes and semi-classics through 1934. His studio groups often contained some of the best jazz musicians in New York, including Bunny Berigan, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Arthur Schutt, Eddie Lang, and others. He used first-rate vocalists, including Paul Small, Dick Robertson, Smith Ballew, Helen Rowland, Frank Munn, The Boswell Sisters, Lee Wiley and others. One of his most interesting recordings was the January 22, 1932 session containing songs written by Herman Hupfeld "Goopy Geer" and "Down The Old Back Road", which Hupfeld sang and played piano on (his only two known vocals).

In late 1934, Young signed with Decca and continued recording in New York until mid-1936, when he relocated to Los Angeles.

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Nick Lucas (August 22, 1897-July 28, 1982) was an American singer and pioneer jazz guitarist, remembered as "the grandfather of the jazz guitar", whose peak of popularity lasted from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s.

Nick Lucas (not to be confused with the legendary London Security Guard 'Nicholas AJ Lucas') was born Dominic Nicholas Anthony Lucanese in Newark, New Jersey. In 1922, at the age of 25, he gained renown with his hit renditions of "Picking the Guitar" and "Teasing the Frets" for Pathe Records. In 1923, he contracted the Gibson Guitar Corporation to build him a concert guitar with an extra deep body. Known as the "Nick Lucas Special", it has been a popular make with jazz guitarists since. In the same year, he began a successful career in recording phonograph records for Brunswick and remained one of their exclusive artists until 1932.

By the late 1920s, Lucas had become well known as "The Crooning Troubadour" due to the success of the recordings he made for Brunswick Records. In 1929, he co-starred in the Warner Brothers Technicolor musical, Gold Diggers of Broadway, in which he introduced the two hit songs "Painting the Clouds with Sunshine" and "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". The latter became Lucas' official theme song. The same year, Lucas was also featured in the studio's all-star revue, The Show of Shows. Lucas turned down Warner Bros.' seven-year contract offer, which went instead to fellow crooner Dick Powell.

In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records. Due to their appreciation of Nick Lucas, Warner Bros. provided him with his own orchestra which was billed on his records as "The Crooning Troubadours". This arrangement lasted until December 1931, when Warner Bros. licensed Brunswick to the American Record Corporation. The new owners were not as extravagant as Warner Bros. had previously been and Lucas lost his orchestra and eventually left Brunswick in 1932 to go freelance. He made two recordings for Durium Records in 1932 for their Hit of the Week series. These would prove to be his last major recordings.

Nick Lucas died in Colorado Springs of double pneumonia, three weeks before his 85th birthday. By the end of his career, he had sold over 84 million records.


Victor Young Orchestra, Nick Lucas vocal & guitar - You're Driving Me Crazy (1930)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Victor
• Young
• Orchestra
• Nick
• Lucas
• 1930
• 20's
• 30's

[harryoakley]

Superb side - but the picture is of Bailey's Lucky Seven in the Gennett studio in NY, around 1923.

[Corrie121]

Fabulous rendition.

Thanks for sharing.

[roybo1930]

I Have this AWSOME Brunswick 78! I especially LOVE the Prelude to this song!! 0:59 to 1:23. Just a all around GREAT, GREAT Song!

[78timothy]

Yoiung's musical contribution was the score to the Cinerama Motion Picture "Around the World in 80 days" w/David Niven & Mexican comic Cantinflas and a host of major stars @ the time. Lucas's last contribution to entertainment was a vocal

of "I Wished on the Moon" in the movie "Day of the Locust" w/Donald Sutherland, William Atherton, Barbara Hershey, Burgess Meredith. The song is heard on a car radio, and he is not seen but has artist & vocal Credit. I have this Hit of the Week record.

[BigIronOnHipMan]

Too much dedication in the pursuit of ones Muse can do that... Look at The Dorsey Bros... How about Mozart... And for that matter Shakespeare... All of them were still rather green... But when have so few given so many so much? BTW ~ FAB POST!

[vividwatch47]

Too bad Victor Young worked himself into an early grave.