The A&P Gypsies
Encyclopedia
Background and history
Born July 20, 1896, in Tiflis, Russia, Horlick remained in Russia when his family left for America at the beginning on World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and he became a prisoner of war. His family and the American consul helped him get to the United States where he performed in cafés in the early 1920s. Horlick's six-piece ensemble was playing unsponsored on New York's WEAF in the winter of 1923 when they were seen by a Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, is a supermarket and liquor store chain in the United States. Its supermarkets, which are under six different banners, are found in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. A&P's liquor stores, known as...
executive who was taking a tour of the radio studio. The music group began regular broadcasts, sponsored by A&P, on Monday nights, beginning March 17, 1924.
As noted by Elizabeth McLeod, such musical features were central to programming of the period:
- The most popular program format of the late twenties was the sponsored musical feature. It could be a large symphonic group, a dance orchestra, or a song-and-patter team—and it would usually carry the sponsor's name. The A&P Gypsies, for example—a large, genre-crossing orchestra conducted by Harry Horlick. The Ipana TroubadorsThe Ipana TroubadorsThe Ipana Troubadors was a musical variety radio program which began in New York on WEAF in 1923. In actuality, the Troubadors were the Sam Lanin Orchestra...
—a hot dance band directed by Sam LaninSam LaninSam Lanin was an American jazz bandleader.Lanin's brothers, Howard and Lester, were also bandleaders, and all of them had sustained, successful careers in music. Lanin was one of ten children born to Russian-Jewish immigrants who emigrated to Philadelphia in the decade of the 1900s...
. The Goodrich Zippers—a banjo-driven orchestra conducted by Harry ReserHarry ReserHarry F. Reser was an American banjo player and bandleader. Born in Piqua, Ohio, Reser was best known as the leader of The Clicquot Club Eskimos.- Career :...
, when he wasn't leading the same group under the name of The Clicquot Club EskimosThe Clicquot Club EskimosThe Clicquot Club Eskimos was a popular musical variety radio show, first heard in 1923, featuring a banjo orchestra directed by Harry Reser. A popular ginger ale, Clicquot Club, was Canada Dry's main rival...
. Everyone remembers The Happiness BoysThe Happiness BoysThe Happiness Boys was a popular radio program of the early 1920s. It featured the vocal duo of tenor Billy Jones and bass/baritone Ernie Hare who sang novelty songs.-Career:...
, Billy Jones and Ernie HareErnie HareThomas Ernest Hare was a bass/baritone who recorded prolifically during the 1920s and 1930s, finding fame as a radio star on The Happiness Boys radio program.-Career:...
—but what about Scrappy LambertScrappy LambertHarold "Scrappy" Lambert was an American dance band vocalist who appeared on hundreds of recordings from the 1920s to the 1940s....
and Billy Hillpot, who performed exactly the same sort of material as Trade and Mark, The Smith Brothers. The list is endless: The Silvertown Cord Orchestra, featuring the Silver Masked TenorThe Goodrich Silvertown OrchestraThe Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra was a musical variety radio program, sponsored by B. F. Goodrich and heard in different formats and timeslots from 1925 until 1935. The performers included Henry Burr , Carl Mathieu , James Stanley , Stanley Baughman , Monroe Silver , Frank Banta , and Sam Herman...
. The Sylvania Foresters. The Flit Soldiers—yet another Harry Reser group. The Champion Sparkers. The Fox Fur Trappers. The Ingram Shavers, who were the Ipana Troubadours on alternate Wednesdays. The Yeast Foamers. The Planters Pickers. And, the magnificently named Freed-Eisemann Orchestradians. All playing pretty much the same sorts of music, all announced by Phillips CarlinPhillips CarlinPhillips Carlin was a radio broadcaster and television executive. Carlin started his broadcasting career with the New York radio station, WEAF. He teamed up with Graham McNamee to announce the 1926, 1927 and 1928 World Series...
or John S. Young or Alwyn Bach or Milton CrossMilton CrossMilton John Cross was an American radio announcer famous for his work on the NBC and ABC radio networks.He was best known as the voice of the Metropolitan Opera, hosting its Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 43 years, from the time of their inception in 1931 until his death in...
in pretty much the same sort of stiffly formal style.
On January 3, 1927, the show moved to NBC, heard for an hour on Mondays at 9pm and then at 8:30pm from 1928 until 1931 when it split into two half-hours, one on the Blue Network
Blue Network
The Blue Network, and its immediate predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, were the on-air names of an American radio production and distribution service from 1927 to 1945...
Thursdays at 10pm and the other on the Red Network Mondays at 9pm. Beginning in 1932, the show was reduced to a half-hour on the Red Network only, heard on Mondays at 9pm. Phillips Carlin and Milton Cross
Milton Cross
Milton John Cross was an American radio announcer famous for his work on the NBC and ABC radio networks.He was best known as the voice of the Metropolitan Opera, hosting its Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 43 years, from the time of their inception in 1931 until his death in...
were the show's announcers.
In 1933, A&P took part in the World's Fair in Chicago with a canopied boardwalk where tea dances were held, and free tea and coffee samples were distributed. The many listeners to The A&P Gypsies came by the thousands to the A&P Carnival, a 2,000-seat amphitheater featuring shows by the A&P Marionette Revue, Harry Horlick and the A&P Gypsies and other entertainments. In Popular Music for Orchestra, Dick O'Connor described the appeal of the radio program:
- It may have been some of the early experiments in symphonic jazz that inspired violinist Harry Horlick to include concert versions of popular hits on his A&P Gypsies show. The Gypsies began as a six-piece salon group with a repertoire that ran the gamut from classical and semi-classical to folk and Gypsy music. From 1923-24 into the 1930s they were the most popular instrumental music program on the air. Horlick’s genius was for simple, logical, concise arrangements of tunes that added vital narrative, dramatic, and vibrant orchestral elements, effectively transforming them into light classical compositions. His highly melodic treatments, by turns soaring, fiery, or sentimental, provided listeners with a welcome alternative to the more frenzied heavily rhythmic dance music of the period. Toward the end of the decade the Gypsies, maintaining the same style, content, and characteristics, expanded to a fashionable 30-piece ensemble which Horlick scored in a deft, well-balanced, and richly satisfying theatre orchestra manner.
The musicians performed while wearing gypsy costumes, and over time the six-man ensemble expanded to the 25-piece A&P Red Circle Orchestra, plus a singing quartet. One member of the quartet was Frank Parker who later became a regular on the shows of Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Godfrey
Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead...
and Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
. Guest stars included Frank Munn, Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
and Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette was a singer who became popular on American radio and was active in the World War II effort.-Early life and career:...
. When the series came to an end on September 7, 1936, A&P was forming a new alliance and product identification with Kate Smith by sponsoring Kate Smith's Coffee Time (1935-36) and The Kate Smith A&P Bandwagon (1936-37).
After The A&P Gypsies run (1924-36), Decca signed Horlick for almost 20 sets of 78s featuring what was described as "musically sturdy, if somewhat careful, albums, with a number devoted to popular and theatre music." Horlick died in July 1970, but his music lives on with 78rpm transfers to CDs by the Switzerland-based Guild Records and other companies. Horlick's 1930s recordings can be found in such collections as The Golden Age of Light Music: In Town Tonight—The 1930s, Volume II (Guild) and A Victor Herbert Showcase
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
(Pearl).
Listen to
- The A&P Gypsies with Frank Parker (1929)
- Harry Horlick Orchestra playing Victor Herbert's "Toyland Waltz" from Babes in Toyland (1934)
Sources
- Terrace, Vincent. Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of over 1800 Shows. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0351-9
- Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-507678-8