Hi skyline3,
Thank you for a fascinating question!
The answer is: Dick Jurgens Orchestra. The Theme Song was "Daydreams
Come True At Night", and the opening lines to his show were: "Once
again, from out of the west - the beauty spot of California - the
world famous Guard Room of the Hotel Claremont, high atop the
Oakland/Berkeley hills, overlooking San Francisco Bay, just a few
minutes drive from the city by the Golden Gate and around the nation,
the music of Dick Jurgens and his Orchestra!"
My answer also includes many links to various sound clips for your enjoyment!
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http://www.dickjurgens.com/faq.htm
Q: What was the Dick Jurgens Orchestra Theme Song ?
A: The theme song was "Daydreams Come True At Night" written by Dick
Jurgens and his girlfriend, Jeanette Brown, for a Sacramento college
music exam.
Although I searched extensively for the lyrics wasn't able to locate
them, however if you email: DickIII@dickjurgens.com and ask them to
provide the lyrics for you, I'm sure they will oblige. Lyrics were
written by Ralph Freed -Also Known As: Burton Lane Ralph Freed
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The Dick Jurgens Website
http://www.dickjurgens.com/
This website is dedicated to the original Dick Jurgens Orchestra and
Dick's friends, family and music. It's the World Wide Web New
Millennium celebration of 6 Decades of beautiful music, friendship,
and memories. Click here for our theme song, "Daydreams Come True At
Night "! - first recorded August 19th, 1939
Hear The Theme Song: http://www.dickjurgens.com/Music/Daydreams.mp3
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View the Sheet Music for "Day Dreams Come True at Night"
http://www.yagelski.com/sbox/music/daydreamscometrueatnight.gif
View the Album Cover for "Day Dreams Come True at Night"
http://www.dickjurgens.com/images/daydreams-Hank.jpg
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Hear How Great Old Time Radio Can Sound! First Generation Radio Archives
"Preserving Radio's Past for the Future" membership@radioarchives.org
http://www.radioarchives.org/PC12.htm
Premier Collections:
The Best of the Big Bands
Liner notes written by Karl Pearson, Elizabeth McLeod, and Harlan Zinck
"Once again, from out of the west - the beauty spot of California -
the world famous Guard Room of the Hotel Claremont, high atop the
Oakland/Berkeley hills, overlooking San Francisco Bay, just a few
minutes drive from the city by the Golden Gate and around the nation,
the music of Dick Jurgens and his Orchestra!"
Click here: http://www.radioarchives.org/PC12.ram to listen to the
audio clip using Real Audio
or Click here: http://www.radioarchives.org/PC12.mp3 for a higher quality MP3 file
The music of a generation, preserved for generations yet to come. It's
the Big Bands at their best, live and on the air -- presented in this
exciting new Premier Collection from the First Generation Radio
Archives.
Dance music remotes from restaurants, ballrooms, hotels, and
nightspots are one of radio's most enduring formats. First heard in
the early 1920s, band remotes lingered on until the early 1970s as a
feature of late-night programming. The remotes were usually unsullied
by commercial sponsorship, and above all, they were live -- preserving
the music with a fresh spontaneity that explodes past the confines of
the more familiar - and often abridged - studio recordings.
Some of the broadcasts in this collection come from original network
transcriptions; of particular interest is a series of previously
unknown broadcasts from 1951, unearthed from a private collection and
heard here for the first time in over fifty years. Others are taken
from the Armed Forces Radio Service "One Night Stand" series which,
from 1943 through the 1960s, preserved a vast cross-section of
dance-band broadcasts using edited linechecks of original network
broadcasts, pressed on vinyl for distribution to the troops overseas.
Still other recordings are special transcriptions distributed by
various government agencies to stations around the US as a way of
meeting their public service obligations. But what all these
recordings share is the fun and excitement of a uniquely American form
of popular music. Enjoy them all -- in this new Premier Collection
from the First Generation Radio Archives.
Here is the complete content of this new "Premier Collection," ten
audio compact discs containing ten full hours of singing, swinging,
and danceable musical entertainment:
Premier Collections: The Best of the Big Bands $60.00
http://www.radioarchives.org/CDsforSale.html
"Ten of the big band era's best and most popular orchestras perform
live and on the air in newly transferred, digitally restored splendor.
Enjoy ten hours of original broadcasts - including many performances
not heard in over fifty years - in this newly released ten-CD set."
"Dick Jurgens and his Orchestra
An excellent middle-of-the-road band, the Dick Jurgens orchestra was
perfectly at home with comfortable dance arrangements -- but given the
opportunity, it could also turn out a respectable bit of swing.
"Here's That Band Again" in two live broadcasts featuring this popular
musical organization:"
A Mutual remote - unheard since its original broadcast - originating
from the Trocadero Ballroom, Elitch's Gardens, Denver, Colorado, and a
1946 remote from the Garden Room of the Hotel Claremont in Berkley,
California featuring vocals by Jimmy Castle, as rebroadcast by the
AFRS as One Night Stand #1001.
Summer 1951 - 25:00 - Mutual, sustaining
Wednesday, May 15, 1946 - 30:00 - AFRS
See photo of Armed Forces Radio Services presents "One Night Stand"
http://www.radioarchives.org/scans/15128A.jpg
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Radio Years: 1937-1939 Broadcasts [LIVE] Dick Jurgens
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000395N/ref=m_art_li_2/103-9004013-1679814?v=glance&s=music
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Hear a 4:28 minute sound clip of the Radio Broadcast for ABC on
Christmas 1947 at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley...Hear the Band
members introduce themselves! Can you hear Ann Freeman frolicking in
the balcony?
http://www.dickjurgens.com/Music/Claremont-Intro.mp3
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The Claremont Hotel Big Band Broadcasts Coming Soon
http://www.dickjurgens.com/
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Q: Dick Jurgens had so many hit records on the Lucky Strike Hit
Parade. Why isn't the band currently as widely known as Glenn Miller,
Lawrence Welk, etc. ?
A: During the "Golden Age" of big bands, the DJO's popularity was
unsurpassed. Listen to this brief interview as Dick Jurgens talks
about his decision not to go on TV. He was actually offered the TV job
that Lawrence Welk took, before the Welk band was!
Here sound clip with Lawrence Welk and Dick Jurgens speaking about his
decision to not go on TV:
http://www.dickjurgens.com/Music/DadandLawrence.mp3
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Music Stack Music Place Dick Jurgens music - 2 pages of all his music for sale
http://www.musicstack.com/search/jurgens,_dick.html
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Dick Jurgens Orchestra Biography
http://64.33.34.112/usa/j2.html#DJ
b: Nov. 9, 1911 Sacramento, CA; d: October 5, 1995 Sacramento. CA
Theme Song: "Day Dreams Come True at Night"
"Jurgens had already become an accomplished trumpeter by age 14. Dick
and his brother Will formed their first band to play in the summer
camps at Lake Tahoe. They worked as garbage collectors during the
times when the band was inactive, but within 3 years, the band had
it's first residency in one of the local hotels, remaining until
booked by San Francisco's prestigious St. Francis Hotel in 1934. (
Here's a photo of the Jurgens 1934 Band, probably taken inside the St.
Francis.) It would appear that they were either bad garbage
collectors, or fairly good musicians. Time would bear out the latter.
In due course, the band developed into a solid, polished ensemble,
with a sound that was ideal for ballrooms and hotels.
Guitarist/Trombonist Eddy Howard, an old friend from Sacramento, was
the orchestra's first singer. ("My Last Goodbye" was his big hit.)
Next came Harry Cool. (Perry Como had recommended him.) Buddy Moreno
(guitar) sang up-tempo novelty songs. Here's a photograph of the 1937
Jurgens Band, and another "normal size" photograph of the 1938 Dick
Jurgens Band, while for those folks with a slow modems and a little
more patience, here's the same photo "full size", which really gives
one the "feel" of the excitement at that very moment, as well as
showing faces more clearly. The photo shows leader Dick Jurgens, with
Ronnie Kemper at the Piano, and their vocalist Eddie Howard, -not
singing, but playing the guitar. (All of the pictures shown here were
kindly made available, and are used with permission, by Mr. Clay
Kemper, Ronnie Kemper's son.
Later, Jurgens had residencies at the Elitch Gardens in Denver, CO, at
the Avalon Ballroom on Catalina Island, CA., and also at Chicago's
Aragon Ballroom., where he became a friend of the owner.
In WW2, Dick saw service with the U.S.Marine Corps, where he and
brother Will toured the South Pacific war areas with an entertainment
unit that they had formed. When WW2 ended, Dick returned to Chicago
where his band was booked into his friend's Aragon and Trianon
Ballrooms. He worked in Chicago until 1956, when he disbanded and went
into the High Fidelity retail sales business. In 1969, 13 years after
disbanding, he was asked to form a unit for the Willowbook Club, in a
suburb of Chicago. The band played there until when in 1976, Jurgens
retired.
It is interesting to note that one day Dick Jurgens heard a young
mortician, named Elmer (Albrecht), fooling around at the piano with a
little tune he had composed. Dick liked it so much that he arranged it
as an instrumental for the big band, naming it simply, "Elmer's Tune".
Glenn Miller heard the song and liked it so much that he asked Dick to
allow him to play the tune with his own band. Jurgens not only
graciously agreed, but even had a local lyricist, Sammy Gallop, write
a lyric for the song before giving it to Glenn Miller. Miller's
version became a national hit."
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Dick Jurgens Discography
http://www.dickjurgens.com/discography.htm
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Google search:
Dick Jurgens
Dick Jurgens Claremont Hotel
high atop Oakland/Berkeley hills
Dick Jurgens Orchestra theme song
Dick Jurgens biography
Best regards,
tlspiegel |
