The Happiness Boys
Encyclopedia
The Happiness Boys was a popular radio program of the early 1920s. It featured the vocal duo of tenor Billy Jones
Billy Jones (singer)
William Reese Jones was a tenor who recorded during the 1920s and 1930s, finding fame as a radio star on The Happiness Boys radio program....
(1889-1940) and bass/baritone Ernie Hare
Ernie Hare
Thomas 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:...
(1881-1939) who sang novelty songs.
Career
Jones and Hare were already established as soloists on phonograph records. One of Jones's better solos was "Mary Lou," while Hare scored with the Yuletide novelty "Santa Claus Hides in the Phonograph." In 1920 recording executive Gus HaenschenCarl Fenton
Carl Fenton born as Walter G. Haenschen, was an American bandleader, composer, and radio musician.- Name origin :The Carl Fenton Orchestra was a title given to Brunswick Records studio bands through the 1920s...
had them sing an accompaniment on a Brunswick recording. They went on to do numerous recordings for Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...
, Edison
Edison Records
Edison Records was one of the earliest record labels which pioneered recorded sound and was an important player in the early recording industry.- Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records :...
, and other companies. Similarities between the two singers were often noted: same height, same weight, birthdays a few days apart. Fred Rabinstein, who worked with Edison, recalled:
- They had amused themselves by singing opera in a burlesque fashion, as they [later] did in their 1922 record of "Operatic Syncopation"...They seemed to have everything in common except that Jones was a bachelor (he took a wife after his mother's death) and Hare was married, with a little girl named Marilyn, who was to serve for a short time as Jones's singing partner after her father's death in 1939... both had mothers whose maiden names were Roberts; both were five feet and seven inches tall; both had voices of operatic calibre that perfectly complemented each other, and both had had operatic experience.
They began on radio October 18, 1921 on WJZ
WABC (AM)
WABC , known as "NewsTalkRadio 77 WABC" is a radio station in New York City. Owned by the broadcasting division of Cumulus Media, the station broadcasts on a clear channel and is the flagship station of Cumulus Media Networks...
(Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
), where they were sponsored by the chain of Happiness Candy stores. Listeners mailed in their comments about the singers on cards supplied to retailers by Happiness Candy.
Beginning August 22, 1923, the Happiness Boys broadcast on New York's WEAF, moving to NBC from a run from 1926 to 1929. The duo sang popular tunes, mostly light fare and comic songs, and they engaged in humorous repartee between numbers. Their theme song was "How Do You Do" (1924). However, only the words to this song were new at that time. The melody had been used for a variety of other songs in the past and is still used in the camp favorite "If You're Happy and You Know It (Clap Your Hands)
If You're Happy and You Know It
"If You're Happy and You Know It" is a popular repetitive children's song, stemming from an old Latvian folk song. The song is supposed to belong to the public domain, although many of the different versions of the song are still protected by copyright law...
".
By 1928, Jones and Hare were the highest paid singers in radio, earning $1,250 a week. They also made highly successful personal appearances in the United States and Europe. (They mention the European tour fondly in their recording of "We Don't Like It, Not Much.")
Jones and Hare specialized in comic songs that commented on trends and popular culture. When the song "Collegiate" swept the country and prompted a host of similar tunes, Jones and Hare countered with "We Ain't Never Been to College." Gracious living and social propriety were skewered in Jones and Hare's "Etiquette Blues." America's fascination with radio triggered the pungent parody "Twisting the Dials," probably the very first comedy sketch of its kind: Billy and Ernie simulate tuning a radio and getting snatches of random radio programs (Ernie's stentorian recitation of "Gunga Din" interrupted by Billy singing a fast Hawaiian song, Billy saccharinely introducing children's storyteller "Daddy Scarem" [Ernie] who turns out to be pretty grim, an incomprehensible boxing match, etc., punctuated by frequent time-outs for station identifications and time signals).
One of their most pointed satires, recorded with a full orchestra, was "We Can't Sleep in the Movies Anymore." Jones and Hare demonstrate how talking pictures have changed a restful evening in a theater into a noisy onslaught of "sneezes, squawks, and squeals." The lyrics also note that the actors' voices seldom matched their silent screen images:
HARE: The sheik is from the ghetto. I thought he came from Spain.
JONES: His voice is high falsetto! And he sounds like he's in pain!
Jones and Hare kidded the "talkies", but were featured in A Movietone Divertissement (MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, 1928) and Rambling 'Round Radio Row #4
Rambling 'Round Radio Row
Rambling 'Round Radio Row is a series of short subjects, produced by Jerry Wald, and released by the Vitaphone division of Warner Brothers...
(Warner Brothers/Vitaphone, 1932), both sound short subject
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
s.
Radio's "Happiness Boys" changed their identities and allegiance whenever they changed sponsors. For Taystee Bread, for example, Jones and Hare became "The Taystee Loafers," and for Interwoven Socks they became "The Interwoven Pair." Regardless of their affiliation, they continued with their songs and jokes through the 1930s.
The partnership ended with Ernie Hare's death on March 9, 1939. Hare's 16-year-old daughter, Marilyn Hare, joined Jones at the microphone, allowing the act to continue as "Jones and Hare" until Jones's death on November 23, 1940.
Billy Jones and Ernie Hare's music was recently reissued on the Living Era CD (AJA 5628), How Do You Do?, which brings together two dozen of their more popular hits, including "Barney Google
Barney Google
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Barney Google, is a long-running American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck . Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a huge international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries...
" (lyrics by Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
), "Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?" (1924, revived in 1959 by Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
), "I've Never Seen a Straight Banana
I've Never Seen a Straight Banana
"I've Never Seen a Straight Banana" is a novelty song from 1926, written by Ted Waite. A short film was made in 1926 in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process with music hall comedian Dick Henderson singing it....
", "Etiquette Blues", "I Miss My Swiss (My Swiss Miss Misses Me)," "Twisting the Dials", "The Village Blacksmith Owns the Village Now", "Yes! We Have No Bananas" (Billy Jones solo), and "She's the Sweetheart of Six Other Guys" (parody of "Sweetheart of Sigma Chi
Sweetheart of Sigma Chi
Often called the most beloved and popular of college fraternity songs, "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" was written in 1911 by Byron D. Stokes and F. Dudleigh Vernor...
").
Listen to
- Jones and Hare (December 8, 1933)
- The Happiness Boys: "How Do You Get a Radio Program Ready?" (March 22, 1938)
- Turtle Services: Billy Jones and Ernie Hare sing "How Do You Do?" (1925)
- Turtle Services: Billy Jones and Ernie Hare sing "Old King Tut" (1923)
- http://www.authentichistory.com/1920s/music/Happiness_Boys-Since_Henry_Ford_Apologized_To_Me.html"Since Henry Ford Apologized to Me" (1927), lyrics by Billy RoseBilly RoseWilliam "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
in 1922] - "You Tell Her--I Stutter"