A look at American popular music during the war. This period marks the decline of the big bands, which occurred for a number of reasons, among them two crucial strikes in the music industry.
The videos above are of Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performing “In the Mood” in the 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade (I will have more to say about both Glenn Miller and this film in a future episode) and Jessica Rabbit (Amy Irving) performing “Why Don’t You Do Right?” in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
- Listen now:
Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening War Theme
Piano Concerto No. 1.
Composed in 1875 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.
“Stardust.”
Composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael. Public domain.
Performed by US Army Blues. Public domain recording. Source.
Closing War Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
On the subject of juke joints, you may be interested in the 2025 film Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan in a dual role of identical twins Smoke and Stack. The plot revolves around setting up a juke join in 1932 Mississippi. Oh, and there are vampires.
You mentioned two songs that are part of my life
My favorite song of all time is Stardust. I prefer the instrumental version, it was originally written as an instrumental and the lyrics were added later. The version I like the most was performed by the great trumpet player Ruby Braff, who got a poignant tone out of his instrument that really speaks to me. It is even better than the Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman recordings.
The other is As Time Goes By. When my wife and I were first dating (we just celebrated our 48th anniversary) the first movie we ever saw on a date was Casablanca. That remains our favorite movie, and the song has special meaning for us.