Margaret Whiting: A Musical Appreciation

A dozen years ago, I remember being surprised that the passing of Mel Tormé caused barely a ripple. His departure was newsworthy for a day or two, and there were the requisite obits in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Postand other noble outlets that still appreciated such seminal, if faded, figures; yet the outpouring seemed pitifully inadequate for one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time.

But the attention paid to the death of Margaret Whiting, three weeks ago at age 86, made the Tormé trickle seem like a torrent. Granted, Whiting was never as pivotal or prolific a performer as Tormé. Even among the coterie of white songbirds who emerged from the ashes of the big band era as solo stars — Doris Day, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee, Kay Starr and Dinah Shore — Whiting was the least popular and the least distinctive.

Still, Whiting had a significant impact on the popularization of the Great American Songbook and a decent, even occasionally stellar, career that survived seven decades. The Times, Post and others did, again, rise to the occasion, with solid, if hardly effusive, obits that centered around the same key facts: she was the daughter of popular songwriter Richard Whiting and, after her father’s death, was mentored by Richard’s longtime friend and frequent collaborator Johnny Mercer.

When Mercer founded Capitol Records in 1942, Whiting, then age 16, was among the first artists signed to the label, scoring a significant hit with “That Old Black Magic” when teamed, for her debut recording, with Freddie Slack’s orchestra. A long list of chart hits followed, notably “Moonlight In Vermont” (with an uncredited Les Brown), “Far Away Places,” “It Might As Well Be Spring” and, with Mercer, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” She also proved popular among country music fans, scoring a string of hit duets with warbler Jimmy Wakely.

Though never as strong a chart performer as Day, Stafford, Lee or Starr, Whiting remained a decent seller of singles straight through the mid-fifties, when she finally parted ways with Capitol. Like her contemporaries, she recorded her fair share of dreck. But there was plenty of cream among the sour milk, including covers of “Guilty,” “Old Devil Moon,” “A Wonderful Guy,” “My Foolish Heart” and “I’ll Walk Alone” that, if not definitive, are unquestionably fine.

Unlike Lee, and to a lesser extent Stafford and Day, Whiting never quite succeeded as an album artist; a significant contributing factor to her comparative obscurity. Between 1950 and 1990 she released a scant 16 albums (not counting Greatest Hits compilations). None were major sellers. Yet there are precious gems among them. Most have, over the years, surfaced on CD, though by the time of Whiting’s departure, few remained in print. (She has fared better on iTunes, where more than half of her album-length output, plus several excellent compilations, is available).

Complete on: http://jazztimes.com/articles/27095-margaret-whiting-a-musical-appreciation

Margaret Whiting

News of Margaret Whiting's death at 86 on Monday must have sent her fans to the shelves in search of her recording of "Moonlight in Vermont." She recorded the song in 1943 when she was 19. It helped make her a star, and she stayed on the charts well into the 1960s, surviving even as rock and roll displaced scores of her pop music contemporaries.
Johnny Mercer did not write the lyric for "Moonlight in Vermont," but when he was the creative power at Capitol Records he chose the song for Whiting. Mercer and Frank Loesser helped shape her singing from the time she was the grade school daughter of their fellow songwriter Richard Whiting. In a passage from Gene Lees' Mercer biography Portrait of Johnny, Whiting recalled how Mercer prepared her for the record session.

"...Johnny said, 'I want you to think, what does Vermont mean to you?' "I said, 'A calendar with a church in the snow.'
"He said, 'there are more images.'
"I said, 'Well, there's got to be summer, winter, fall. Fall. Everybody goes to see Vermont in the fall for the leaves.'
"He said, 'I want you to think of those pictures. I want you to think of the coming of spring. I want you to think of summer, people swimming and people walking, people having a lovely time outdoors.'
"So we go in and record it and I'm envisioning all these pictures. It gave me something to go on. That's what he taught me and that's what Loesser taught me. Pick up that sheet music and look at those lyrics and make them mean something. Read the lyric aloud, over and over and over. Recite it until you get it. Your own natural instincts will tell you."

Here's the record: Trumpeter Billy Butterfield and his orchestra, with Margaret Whiting's vocal.

From: http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/2011/01/margaret_whiting.html