FROM MAXINE SULLIVAN
AS LONG AS I LIVE: This is one of those songs that "you have to have been there in those days" to really enjoy. Imagine yourself there at a "Cotton Club Revue"...maybe you´ll be able to see a bevy of brown chorus girls, including Lena Home!
GONE WITH THE WIND: The first selection I ever recorded. The label read "introducing Maxine Sullivan." The band was under the direction of Claude Thornhill my Svengali (late 1937).
DARN THAT DREAM: My featured solo number in the Broadway production "Swingin´ The Dream" starring Louis Armstrong and featuring the Benny Goodman Sextet and Eddie Condon´s group. I, of course, was Titania, Queen of the Fairies enamored of "Bottom" ± Louis Armstrong.
EV´RY TIME (Ev´ry Time I Fall In Love): This is not so simple as it appears. It swings and it´s fun. Try it!
HARLEM BUTTERFLY: One of my featured songs at Le Ruban Bleu East Side supper club. I didn´t even know at the time that Johnny Mercer had written it. I memorized the lyrics and music after hearing it sung and played by Johnny Johnston on TV.
LOCH LOMOND: My one and only hit. I still tell the story of (i) how Leo Fitzpatrick cut the Saturday Night Swing Session off the air when I first broadcast "Loch Loiaond." He said it was sacrilegious; (ii) how Benny Goodman duplicated and featured the arrangement, there-by enhancing its popularity; and, (iii) how the Scots loved it when I sang it "on the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks." What really puzzles me is why after 31 years people still scream for "Loch Lomond."
TOO MANY TEARS: I first heard this song at a local vaudeville theatre in my hometown Homestead, Pennsylvania. It was background music for a troupe of "Singers´ Midgets." They were dressed in penguin costumes! Of course, I really learned it from a recording by Ruth Etting, or maybe it was the Boswell Sisters. (We knew it from a Carmen Lombardo vocal - with brother Guy´s Royal Canadians Producers.)
JEEPERS CREEPERS: I appeared in the picture "Going Places" starring Dick Powell, Anita Louise and Louis Armstrong, in which "Jeepers Creepers" was a featured number. When Louis and I appeared together at the Cotton Club, our entrance was made through a "paper screen" upon which the scene from the picture was projected. "Jeepers Creepers" was the horse!
RESTLESS: Torch song. Another term for a kind of Blues! (We were delighted that she decided to do this number, as we had liked it ever since the original 1935 recording by Helen Ward with Benny Goodman Producers.)
YOU´RE DRIVING ME CRAZY!: This gives me a chance to "swing" with the "boys in the band."

Maxine Sullivan: Vocals
Bob Wilber: Leader, Soprano Sax & Clarinet
Bernie Leighton: Piano
George Duvivier: Bass
Gus Johnson, Jr.: Drums

These recordings made in 1969, along with the others Maxine Sullivan made for Bill Borden and released on Monmouth-Evergreen, are regarded by many to be her finest. They were the primary reason we aquired all the M-E masters from Bill in 1987. There is the magnificent wordless swing we get from a cool Maxine on Ellington´s Rockin´ in Rhythm, the seldom-heard Restless, a Sam Coslow-Tom Satterfield gem from 1935 which has been kept alive by Jimmy Rowles, but has been given it´s definitive recording now by Maxine, Darn That Dream was introduced by Maxine and she had a popular recording with Gone With the Wind in 1937 when it was new. I believe these renditions match the originals. And what is there left to say of Loch Lomoad One cannot easily erase the memory of Mildred Bailey´s Harlem´s Harlem Butterfly but Maxine found it a most requested song from her repertoire, and it became her song when this LP first saw light. Certainly the wonderful arrangements made by Bob Wilber for these sessions were a great contribution to the successful performances by Maxine. He understood how to enhance her vocalizing and his playing on this album is perfection. Again, I must refer to their duet on Rockin´in Rhythm, a particular favorite of mine. It´s no surprise that Bob placed first in our recent Jazzology Poll of 1985 as the best all-around jazz musician in the world. Maxine Sullivan is truly one of the greats among our female vocalists. Inside this album cover you will find a complete listing of both Maxine Sullivan and Bob Wilber records available on our labels. We offer the greatest number of LP´s available by Miss Sullivan. We are very proud of that, and very privileged to be able to make that claim.

If you would like to receive a complete catalogue of Audiophile, Circle, Progressive, Jazzology, GHB, Southland and Black Swan Records, please send your request to us at the address below.

® 1987, AUDIOPHILE RECORDS, 1206 Decatur Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70116, U.S.A.
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