Topic: Roy Smeck "Shuffle Off to Buffalo"

[banjochris]

Does anyone know who the vocalist is on the recording of "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" on the Yazoo Roy Smeck album? The liner notes don't say.
Chris

[Mr.OMuck]

I always assumed it was Mr. Smeck himself, no?

[banjochris]

I didn't think he sang -- there's quotes from him in the liner notes to that album saying that he had to work up a lot of his gimmicks be cause he didn't. I may have to see if it's in the Jazz Records discography over at the library tomorrow...
Chris

[Bunker Hill]

I didn't think he sang -- there's quotes from him in the liner notes to that album saying that he had to work up a lot of his gimmicks be cause he didn't. I may have to see if it's in the Jazz Records discography over at the library tomorrow...Chris

Not really being into Smeck I haven't followed this discussion but if you reckon he's likely to be in a jazz discography I'll look in Rust in a couple of hours. Like you I always thought he was a 'non vocalist'.

[Bunker Hill]

No Smeck entry in the 1983 edition of Jazz Records.

[banjochris]

Oh well. But thanks for looking, Bunker Hill.
Chris

[Bunker Hill]

A couple of months back Malcolm Rockwell (son of T.G.) popped up here at a Sylvester Weaver discussion. I have a nagging feeling that six or so years ago he mentioned to me that he was working on a  Hawaiian (and related) discography. Are you still out there Malc?

[dj]

The discography has indeed been published.  Roots & Rhythm has listed it.  Malcolm has a rudimentary web site at 78data.com

[Mr.OMuck]

I'm votin' for Russ Columbo who was a Crosby style crooner known to have worked with Smeck. There are some cuts by him on iTunes which sound like the same voice as on the shuffle off to Buffalo recording.  Half of the i Tunes cuts seem to mistakenly be of a French chanteuse. Good though.

[banjochris]

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable conclusion to me. I'd never heard of him, but here's a piece of info on his death from Wikipedia that is around the Net in several different forms. Bizarre.

On September 2, 1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown. Columbo was visiting him at the studio one day. In lighting a cigarette, Brown lit the match by striking it against the wooden stock of an antique French dueling pistol. The flame set off a long-forgotten charge in the gun, and a lead pistol ball was fired. The pistol ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo in the left eye, killing him almost instantly. Columbo's death was ruled an accident, and Brown exonerated from blame. His funeral mass was attended by numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard.

[Alexei McDonald]

I have seen the singer credited elsewhere as Harlan Lattimore, a black crooner from Cincinnati.

[mr mando]

The Rockwell discography has the following personnel for "Shuffle Off To Buffalo":
Roy Smeck: sg, v; unk: g; unk: xyl; Harlan Lattimore (as himself or Harmon Nelson): v;
NY, 04/20/1933

[banjochris]

Thanks Mr. Mando -- that discography should also include Smeck on uke on that tune -- the train impression at the beginning is him on the uke.
Chris

[Mr.OMuck]

Glad we got that cleared up. And so the name Russ Columbo vanishes forever from the Weenie universe! 

[Richard]

Mr O'M has it in one as regards R Columbo Esq, that name spells certain death in the 78 collectors.."Oh not another @&%7*# Russ Colombo.......... etc"

As for the song I used to play it in a 20s bigband and the bottom of my drum part states first published 1932, words by Al Dubin - didn't he have a shoe cleaning business... or is that one lost across the Atlantic