Gus Haenschen and his Palmolive Hour singers in 1927 and his much larger 1940 American Album of Familiar Music cast.
GUS HAENSCHEN
A case can be made that Gus Haenschen influenced the collective music worlds of radio, records and transcriptions more than any other individual over a 20 year span. Yet, few knew he existed except for the brief name credit given to him on the radio shows whose music he supervised, most notably NBC’s American Album of Familiar Music and Saturday Night Serenade on CBS.
But he was well known and respected throughout the music industry for his ear for talent and his guidance of Brunswick Records and World Transcriptions in their eras of greatest popularity.
Walter Gustave Haenschen, (pronoun. HEN-chin), was born in St. Louis in 1889 and took to playing the family piano at an early age. That talent became a necessity when his father abandoned the family in 1902 and young Gus was forced to go to work in movie houses playing accompaniment to silent films to help support his mother and sister. Daytime schooling and nighttime work became his life for the next decade and set the pattern for Haenschen’s incredible workload in later years.
While attending Washington University he formed a band that played between innings of St. Louis Cardinals baseball games and soon W.G. Haenschen’s Banjo Orchestra became popular for country club dates, weddings and parties.
After college graduation with an engineering degree, young Gus supplemented his musician’s income by managing the Victrola music department at the large Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney Department Store, selling phonographs and records - records which included his own sides cut for Columbia. One of those records was Maple Leaf Rag, written by Haenschen’s friend Scott Joplin who was then a St. Louis resident..
World War I interrupted Haenschen’s multiple careers and he served over a year in the Navy. Returning from the service he was approached by the St. Louis bowling and billiard manufacturer Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company which had branched into phonographs and records. He left for New York in 1919 as the first popular music supervisor for Brunswick Records working with such veteran talents as Ben Bernie, Isham Jones and Al Jolson.
During his seven successful years at Brunswick he also arranged and recorded multiple sides under the name Carl Fenton - a pseudonym drawn from Fenton, Missouri, near Haenschen’s native St Louis. (1) The alias was used because of lingering anti-German resentment from World War I. Two Carl Fenton releases on Brunswick are posted below, The Moon & You and Deep In Your Eyes. Under another name, Paul Dupont, he composed the music to La Rosita, a 1923 hit played in theaters as the theme for the Mary Pickford film of the same name.
Haenschen introduced two unknown singers as a team at Brunswick, Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, who soon after became The Happiness Boys of radio fame. An audio post of the early Jones & Hare novelty Go Long Mule backed by Carl Fenton’s Orchestra is posted below. Jones & Hare were among the many talents Haenschen brought to the label. Among them were legendary jazz guitarist-singer Nick Lucas, banjoist-bandleader Harry Reser and tenor Frank Munn, (See Frank Munn's Golden Voice on this site.) Munn and many other of his young Brunswick discoveries would then turn up on Haenschen's radio shows.
Gus was introduced to radio in 1925 via The Brunswick Hour of Music, followed by The Gold Strand Hour and The Champion Sparkers, all from WJZ/Newark. He decided to leave his success at Brunswick after a corporate shakeup in July, 1927, and joined the new Network Radio industry as musical director of The Palmolive Hour, one of NBC’s first major programs. He brought with him two of his Brunswick stars, Frank Munn and Virginia Rea - known to listeners of the show as Paul Oliver and Olive Palmer.
The Palmolive Hour ran for four successful seasons until July, 1931, just as Frank Hummert was in the planning stages of his new American Album of Familiar Music. Nine weeks later on Sunday, October 11, 1931, the flagship of Hummert’s musical programs debuted with musical director Gustave Haenschen and singing stars Frank Munn and Virginia Rae - all appearing under their real names.
American Album held a Sunday night timeslot on NBC until November 19, 1950, when it moved to ABC for an encore season all under the sponsorship of Sterling Drugs’ Bayer Aspirin. (See Hummerts’ Musical Mystery on this site.) Rea retired to private life in 1935, but by that time Haenschen had assembled a pool of highly talented female vocalists who built their own followings. Jean Dickenson, Evelyn MacGregor, Vivian della Chiesa, Lucy Monroe, Vivienne Segal, Elizabeth Lennox, and Veronica Wiggins all soloed on the program and joined Munn in romantic duets.
The Haenschen-led parade of talent from Brunswick Records to Hummert radio shows didn’t stop there. When Munn retired in 1945 he was replaced by Brunswick’s star tenor Frank Parker. Gus also recorded the popular piano duo of Victor Arden and Phil Ohman who became American Album listener favorites. Arden later became conductor of Frank & Anne Hummert’s Manhattan Merry Go Round in 1937. (2) (See Top 40 Radio's Roots on this site.)
When Haenschen finally left American Album in 1947, his baton was picked up by Abe Lyman who had contributed two of his own compositions to Brunswick’s string of hit records, I Cried For You and What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry. Lyman was also the maestro of Hummert’s Waltz Time.
Gus Haenschen even found his wife at Brunswick. The former Rose (Roxanne) Hussey was a secretary at the record company when they married in 1925. Their union lasted 55 years and produced three children.
Surprisingly, Haenschen’s American Album duties and his other radio jobs, including musical director of Maxwell House Showboat, (NBC, 1935-36), Coca Cola’s Song Shop, (CBS, 1937-38), and Pet Milk’s Saturday Night Serenade for twelve seasons, (CBS, 1938-50), were really just profitable sidelines.
His fulltime occupation was Music Supervisor for World Program Services, a leading syndicator of transcribed musical programming to radio stations founded by former Brunswick Records executive Percy L. Deutsch in 1929. Haenschen was one the original partners in World and held its chief creative position for 21 years.
World’s libraries consisted of 16-inch, 33 1/3 rpm discs containing all types of music, leased to stations and updated monthly with up to 50 new selections. To keep the supply lines flowing, Haenschen employed staff musicians plus some of America’s top bands and singers who recorded for World separately from their sessions for their consumer brand labels.
A partial list of World artists who recorded under Haenschen’s supervision includes The Andrews Sisters, Desi Arnaz, Mildred Bailey, Les Brown, Carmen Cavallaro, Bob Crosby, Xavier Cugat, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Joan Edwards, Bob Eberle, Duke Ellington, Red Foley, Benny Goodman, Glen Gray, Lionel Hampton, Dick Haymes, Woody Herman, Eddy Howard, Harry James, Gordon Jenkins, Dorothy Kirsten, Evelyn Knight, Peggy Lee, Johnny Long, Hal McIntyre, Russ Morgan, Helen O’Connell, Jan Peerce, Ethel Smith, Charlie Spivak, Claude Thornhill, The Three Suns, Mel Torme, John Scott Trotter, Ernest Tubb, Jimmy Wakely, Lawrence Welk and Victor Young.
By 1943 when World was sold to Decca Records, over 300 stations subscribed to the service which contained 3,800 selections. Five years later when Decca sold the library to Frederic W. Ziv of Cincinnati, the number of subscribers had doubled and the library had grown to 4,800 selections. Although he had assistants, Gus Haenschen was responsible for all of them.
At the peak of this period, 1938-47, Haenschen was found during weekdays at World, on Saturdays at CBS for Saturday Night Serenade and on Sundays at NBC for The American Album of Familiar Music. The one-time schoolboy who worked in theaters at night and society bandleader who doubled as a department store manager took it all in stride. And in later years he expressed regret that he didn’t do more composing and recording work under his own name!
Although he never really retired from music, Gus served on the Board of Trustees of Ithaca College from 1948 until 1973. He died in 1980 at the age of 91 and donated his wealth of scores, orchestrations and research to the school where they remain as the Gustave Haenschen Collection.
A 1945 episode of The American Album of Familiar Music is posted below. Also posted are two 1942 performances from Haenschen’s Saturday Night Serenade, Jessica Dragonette singing Wanting You and Shine On Harvest Moon sung by Emil Cote’s 14 voice chorus.
(1) The name was later adopted by Brunswick staff violinist and bandleader Rudy Greenberg, who legally changed his name to Carl Fenton in 1932.
(2) Frank Hummert married his assistant, Anne Ashenhurst, in 1935 after which time she shared billing with her husband on their programs.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
A case can be made that Gus Haenschen influenced the collective music worlds of radio, records and transcriptions more than any other individual over a 20 year span. Yet, few knew he existed except for the brief name credit given to him on the radio shows whose music he supervised, most notably NBC’s American Album of Familiar Music and Saturday Night Serenade on CBS.
But he was well known and respected throughout the music industry for his ear for talent and his guidance of Brunswick Records and World Transcriptions in their eras of greatest popularity.
Walter Gustave Haenschen, (pronoun. HEN-chin), was born in St. Louis in 1889 and took to playing the family piano at an early age. That talent became a necessity when his father abandoned the family in 1902 and young Gus was forced to go to work in movie houses playing accompaniment to silent films to help support his mother and sister. Daytime schooling and nighttime work became his life for the next decade and set the pattern for Haenschen’s incredible workload in later years.
While attending Washington University he formed a band that played between innings of St. Louis Cardinals baseball games and soon W.G. Haenschen’s Banjo Orchestra became popular for country club dates, weddings and parties.
After college graduation with an engineering degree, young Gus supplemented his musician’s income by managing the Victrola music department at the large Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney Department Store, selling phonographs and records - records which included his own sides cut for Columbia. One of those records was Maple Leaf Rag, written by Haenschen’s friend Scott Joplin who was then a St. Louis resident..
World War I interrupted Haenschen’s multiple careers and he served over a year in the Navy. Returning from the service he was approached by the St. Louis bowling and billiard manufacturer Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company which had branched into phonographs and records. He left for New York in 1919 as the first popular music supervisor for Brunswick Records working with such veteran talents as Ben Bernie, Isham Jones and Al Jolson.
During his seven successful years at Brunswick he also arranged and recorded multiple sides under the name Carl Fenton - a pseudonym drawn from Fenton, Missouri, near Haenschen’s native St Louis. (1) The alias was used because of lingering anti-German resentment from World War I. Two Carl Fenton releases on Brunswick are posted below, The Moon & You and Deep In Your Eyes. Under another name, Paul Dupont, he composed the music to La Rosita, a 1923 hit played in theaters as the theme for the Mary Pickford film of the same name.
Haenschen introduced two unknown singers as a team at Brunswick, Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, who soon after became The Happiness Boys of radio fame. An audio post of the early Jones & Hare novelty Go Long Mule backed by Carl Fenton’s Orchestra is posted below. Jones & Hare were among the many talents Haenschen brought to the label. Among them were legendary jazz guitarist-singer Nick Lucas, banjoist-bandleader Harry Reser and tenor Frank Munn, (See Frank Munn's Golden Voice on this site.) Munn and many other of his young Brunswick discoveries would then turn up on Haenschen's radio shows.
Gus was introduced to radio in 1925 via The Brunswick Hour of Music, followed by The Gold Strand Hour and The Champion Sparkers, all from WJZ/Newark. He decided to leave his success at Brunswick after a corporate shakeup in July, 1927, and joined the new Network Radio industry as musical director of The Palmolive Hour, one of NBC’s first major programs. He brought with him two of his Brunswick stars, Frank Munn and Virginia Rea - known to listeners of the show as Paul Oliver and Olive Palmer.
The Palmolive Hour ran for four successful seasons until July, 1931, just as Frank Hummert was in the planning stages of his new American Album of Familiar Music. Nine weeks later on Sunday, October 11, 1931, the flagship of Hummert’s musical programs debuted with musical director Gustave Haenschen and singing stars Frank Munn and Virginia Rae - all appearing under their real names.
American Album held a Sunday night timeslot on NBC until November 19, 1950, when it moved to ABC for an encore season all under the sponsorship of Sterling Drugs’ Bayer Aspirin. (See Hummerts’ Musical Mystery on this site.) Rea retired to private life in 1935, but by that time Haenschen had assembled a pool of highly talented female vocalists who built their own followings. Jean Dickenson, Evelyn MacGregor, Vivian della Chiesa, Lucy Monroe, Vivienne Segal, Elizabeth Lennox, and Veronica Wiggins all soloed on the program and joined Munn in romantic duets.
The Haenschen-led parade of talent from Brunswick Records to Hummert radio shows didn’t stop there. When Munn retired in 1945 he was replaced by Brunswick’s star tenor Frank Parker. Gus also recorded the popular piano duo of Victor Arden and Phil Ohman who became American Album listener favorites. Arden later became conductor of Frank & Anne Hummert’s Manhattan Merry Go Round in 1937. (2) (See Top 40 Radio's Roots on this site.)
When Haenschen finally left American Album in 1947, his baton was picked up by Abe Lyman who had contributed two of his own compositions to Brunswick’s string of hit records, I Cried For You and What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry. Lyman was also the maestro of Hummert’s Waltz Time.
Gus Haenschen even found his wife at Brunswick. The former Rose (Roxanne) Hussey was a secretary at the record company when they married in 1925. Their union lasted 55 years and produced three children.
Surprisingly, Haenschen’s American Album duties and his other radio jobs, including musical director of Maxwell House Showboat, (NBC, 1935-36), Coca Cola’s Song Shop, (CBS, 1937-38), and Pet Milk’s Saturday Night Serenade for twelve seasons, (CBS, 1938-50), were really just profitable sidelines.
His fulltime occupation was Music Supervisor for World Program Services, a leading syndicator of transcribed musical programming to radio stations founded by former Brunswick Records executive Percy L. Deutsch in 1929. Haenschen was one the original partners in World and held its chief creative position for 21 years.
World’s libraries consisted of 16-inch, 33 1/3 rpm discs containing all types of music, leased to stations and updated monthly with up to 50 new selections. To keep the supply lines flowing, Haenschen employed staff musicians plus some of America’s top bands and singers who recorded for World separately from their sessions for their consumer brand labels.
A partial list of World artists who recorded under Haenschen’s supervision includes The Andrews Sisters, Desi Arnaz, Mildred Bailey, Les Brown, Carmen Cavallaro, Bob Crosby, Xavier Cugat, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Joan Edwards, Bob Eberle, Duke Ellington, Red Foley, Benny Goodman, Glen Gray, Lionel Hampton, Dick Haymes, Woody Herman, Eddy Howard, Harry James, Gordon Jenkins, Dorothy Kirsten, Evelyn Knight, Peggy Lee, Johnny Long, Hal McIntyre, Russ Morgan, Helen O’Connell, Jan Peerce, Ethel Smith, Charlie Spivak, Claude Thornhill, The Three Suns, Mel Torme, John Scott Trotter, Ernest Tubb, Jimmy Wakely, Lawrence Welk and Victor Young.
By 1943 when World was sold to Decca Records, over 300 stations subscribed to the service which contained 3,800 selections. Five years later when Decca sold the library to Frederic W. Ziv of Cincinnati, the number of subscribers had doubled and the library had grown to 4,800 selections. Although he had assistants, Gus Haenschen was responsible for all of them.
At the peak of this period, 1938-47, Haenschen was found during weekdays at World, on Saturdays at CBS for Saturday Night Serenade and on Sundays at NBC for The American Album of Familiar Music. The one-time schoolboy who worked in theaters at night and society bandleader who doubled as a department store manager took it all in stride. And in later years he expressed regret that he didn’t do more composing and recording work under his own name!
Although he never really retired from music, Gus served on the Board of Trustees of Ithaca College from 1948 until 1973. He died in 1980 at the age of 91 and donated his wealth of scores, orchestrations and research to the school where they remain as the Gustave Haenschen Collection.
A 1945 episode of The American Album of Familiar Music is posted below. Also posted are two 1942 performances from Haenschen’s Saturday Night Serenade, Jessica Dragonette singing Wanting You and Shine On Harvest Moon sung by Emil Cote’s 14 voice chorus.
(1) The name was later adopted by Brunswick staff violinist and bandleader Rudy Greenberg, who legally changed his name to Carl Fenton in 1932.
(2) Frank Hummert married his assistant, Anne Ashenhurst, in 1935 after which time she shared billing with her husband on their programs.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
| carlfenton_themoonyou.mp3 |
| carl_fenton_deep_in_your_eyes.mp3 |
| joneshare_carl_fenton__go_long_mule.mp3 |
| american_albumof_familiar_music_60245.mp3 |
| gushaenschen_jdragonette_wantingyou.mp3 |
| gushaenschenemilcote_shineon_harvestmoon.mp3 |
