High Hatters - Send For Me

Little is known about the High Hatters, a studio band led by Leonard Joy during the late 20's and early 30's. Quality of their performances, however are invariably excellent. The vocal on this 1930 disc is by Frank Luther (1899-1980, né Francis Luther Crow), who was an American country music singer, dance band vocalist, playwright, songwriter and pianist. He began to study piano at age 6, improvising his own music, and began vocal instruction at 13. Three years later, he toured the Midwest with a quartet called The Meistersingers. He began studying at the University of Kansas, but attended a revival meeting conducted by Jesse Kellems and was so impressed that he accepted an offer from the evangelist to become his musical director. During a subsequent stop in Iola, Kansas, young Crow himself was ordained, despite his never having studied for the ministry. By 1921, the Rev. F. Luther Crow was in the pulpit of the First Christian Church in Bakersfield, CA. There, he organized a 30-voice children's choir, an 80-voice adult choir, and two church orchestras. In 1927 however he joined The Revelers. In 1928 Luther met and worked with fellow Kansan Carson J. Robison, recording hillbilly music with him from 1928 till 1932. While Frank Luther's role in the early development of country & western music is significant, he regularly performed many other types of music. From 1928 until the outbreak of World War II, he recorded hundreds of vocal choruses with popular dance bands of the day. The High Hatters, Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, Leo Reisman, Russell Wooding's Red Caps, Joe Venuti, and many other recording bands featured Frank's jazzy tenor vocals. He was also tenor with a number of pop trios and quartets, performing not only on records but on radio broadcasts - often as many as five different programs per day. He also made a series of movie shorts in New York, several of which were released by Educational Pictures. In 1936, he starred in his only full-length Hollywood feature "High Hat". Frank Luther's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame represents what was to become his chief claim to fame. Early in his recording career, he made some 7" shellac records for children. Several sets were made for Victor in 1933. In 1934, however, Jack Kapp signed Frank to record for the new 35-cent blue label Decca company. He began by making a series of hillbilly records, but did two extremely successful albums of songs for children a few months later. "Mother Goose Songs" and "Nursery Rhymes, In the late 1930s and early 1940s. he made more successful albums focusing on Americana, including Civil War songs, Gay Nineties songs, Irish favorites, rare Christmas carols etc. Most widely-acclaimed were two albums of compositions by Stephen Foster. In 1946, Luther - by now a Decca Records executive, in charge of children's, educational, and religious recordings - returned to the studios to re-record many of his pre-war albums for children and to make many others through 1954.