ROSEMARY CLOONEY – “This Ole House”
A word on teenagers and adults. It’s a truism to suggest that in the early 50s the “teenager” hadn’t been conceptualised; judging by these records, it’s also generally accurate. Nothing about them suggests they are aimed at anyone other than young adults, or simply adults. The subject is generally love – love treated not with an adolescent intensity or passion but usually with ticklish wordplay that we recognise is to be taken as grown-up, or sophisticated. When the subject isn’t love it might be faith, or parenthood, or in this case property.
OK, it’s a stretch to describe “This Ole House” as ‘about’ anything much: it’s a knees-up party record, meant for dancing and smiling to. As such it does its job with vim and charm – the pompous bass voice (representing the tumbledown house itself, I suppose) is a particularly fun touch. But there’s no sense in this dance that it’s something for the young to do, or that anyone can or should be excluded from it.
4
And yet, isn’t there a sense here that the old house is the old order, no longer needed because the world is moving on? That could be quite a radical reading. There’s certainly an energy here which has been missing from much of what’s gone before. And why should it necessarily be only for the young? There’s a whole country here now finally free of the shackles of rationing.
The bassman on this version – replaced by party revellers on Shaky’s cover – was Thurl Ravenscroft, aka the voice of Tony The Tiger in the Frosties ads.
This is the musical equivalent of the Arkansas Chug-a-Bug; it has the same rickety sense of momentum and sounds like you could get splinters off it. I’d be intrigued to know if the writer Stuart Hamblen’s version – based on a hunting trip in which he found a corpse in a tumbledown shack – is quite as lighthearted. You can certainly imagine it with a little more country/gospel gravitas.
I’m not sure that there is much evidence of added gravitas in Stuart Hamblen’s original.
I think Rosemary Clooney’s version is huge, confident fun, and now I know it has Tony the Tiger on it I can’t believe it only merited a 4.
Light Entertainment Watch: This early television appearance is missing;
SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE LONDON PALLADIUM (VAL PARNELL’S …..): with Bruce Forsyth, Rosemary Clooney (1957)
But these later ones survive;
THE BOB MONKHOUSE SHOW: with Rosemary Clooney, Joan Rivers, Larry Miller (1983)
LOOKS FAMILIAR: with Rosemary Clooney, Roy Castle, Alan Dell (1976)
LOOKS FAMILIAR: with Rosemary Clooney, Roy Castle, Jack Parnell (1976)
NIGHT MUSIC: with Rosemary Clooney, Tony Monopoly (1982)
THE ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE: with Michael Barrymore, Shirley Bassey, Sarah Brightman, Cannon and Ball, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Davro, Les Dawson, Five Star, Stephen Fry, James Galway (1987)
THE VAL DOONICAN MUSIC SHOW: with Rosemary Clooney, Kevin Johnson (1982)
Yeah, it’s a great “fun” record, with Rosie putting all her oomph into it.
Stuart Hamblen actually preferred Brit girl Billie Anthony’s cover version (a #4 hit) – he subsequently penned a song just for her.
I’m also fond of ‘Britain’s Atomic Blonde’ Billie Anthony. She had a good country catch in her voice, the sobbing counterpart to Alma Cogan’s laugh; on It’s Fun Finding Out About London she sounds as if she’s blubbing on the stage of Wiltons.
According to her website Billie was a victim of dastardly Dorothy Squires’ at a show in Halifax: “Squires decided to close the first half of the show with such a stunning rendition of ‘This Ole House’ that the applause she received was thunderous. This left Billie to follow with her own hit version, which then sounded a little deflated and disappointing, and gained only a luke warm reaction from the audience.” Boo!!!
Glad to find another Billie fan. She was quite unlucky really, to be marketed by EMI as another Alma Cogan, when the one Britain already had was quite popular… Billie’s daughter (whom I know fairly well) tells me that her mother was a jazz fan – which makes sense if you listen to some of her records carefully.
Hamblen also wrote It Is No Secret after attending a Billy Graham Crusade. The subsequent “This Ol House” is metaphoric for leaving earth and going to heaven. Listen to it wiht that in mind and it will be obvious
DESERT ISLAND DISC WATCH (Up to 11/04/11)
Ian Fleming, author (1963).