Borrah Minevitch & His Harmonica Rascals - Harmonica Specialty and Rascal Bill McBride's vocal turn on
Always In My Heart are excerpts from
Borrah Minevitch & His Harmonica School--a wmv video file of a Vitaphone Short which with no surprise we find at
Vitaphone Shorts, a subsection of
Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans--which was
first brought to our attention by the noble crunchland, albeit at another and now defunct URL, let it be noted. .
Whether the impish and dapper
Borrah Minevitch was the originator of the
Harmonica Madness of the swing era or merely the most successful, many of the following
dyi harmonica orchestras cited him as inspiration
The equally if not more impish and extremely diminutive Rascal in Ha
rmonica Specialty is one
Sammy Ross, who had quite a run of his own. He was the replacement for the runaway Rascal
Johnny Puleo, who eventually inherited the franchise. And indeed
Leo Diamond and
Larry Murad of the
Harmonicats were Minevitch alumni.
It is interesting as well to note that the Harmonica Madness and Doo Wop were both dyi phenomena that had their origins in the
1942-1944 Musicians Strike known as the
Petrillo Ban, which was also the nail in the coffin of the Big Band era. Harmonicas were not considered musical instruments while harmony groups could record accapella with vocal lines reproducing big band horn lines while the big bands sat by. Between the ban and the introduction of Juke Boxes, touring big bands were doomed.
Oh, and PS.
Always In My Heart was the theme song of the movie of the same name, a movie in which Borrah Minnevitch and his Harmonica Rascals provided comic relief and the song was nominated for an Oscar in 1942.
White Christmas won. And Dean Martin covered both in his time.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:59 AM on January 25, 2008