The Helen Morgan Page

… 1929, ninety-five years ago today, Sweet Adeline opened at the Hammerstein Theatre in New York.

The musical reteamed Helen Morgan with Show Boat authors Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). New this go round was Oscar’s Uncle Arthur replacing Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. as producer, and Oscar’s brother Reginald (and Helen’s ex-boyfriend) as the nominal director (Oscar supervised the production).

Oscar’s original story revolved around Addie, later Adeline, Schmidt (Helen), with several characters and situations modeled on Helen’s parents and her own upbringing.

As with Show Boat, Helen was the only original cast member to commercially record any vocals from the score. Sadly, she did not record every song assigned to her, but others were happy to fill in the blanks from Kern’s cornucopia of a score:

And then there’s this:

While a Morgan vehicle, she shared the stage with ten other principals. That said, only the two main comics, Charles Butterworth and Irene Franklin, had roles comparable in size to Helen’s in terms of dialogue, although Morgan still sang the majority of Kern’s score.

Franklin’s clout extended to writing her own lyrics. She even preserved her opening Sweet Adeline number on film a few years after the fact:

In 1934, Warner Brothers filmed Sweet Adeline. Typical for the era, the studio recast Morgan, Butterworth and Franklin – all working in Hollywood at the time – with Irene Dunne, Hugh Herbert and Wini Shaw. Hammerstein’s plot gets thrown out the window in the second half, but much of the stage score remains. In addition to “‘Twas Not So Long Ago,” “Here am I,” “Don’t Ever Leave Me” and “Why Was I Born?” the film score includes “Play Us a Polka, Dot,” “Oriental Moon” and “Molly O’Donahue.” For added measure, Kern and Hammerstein interpolated “Lonely Feet,” rescued from the recently closed London production Three Sisters, and a new composition. “We Were So Young” into the proceedings. The film shows up from time to time on TCM and was released on disc as part of the Warner Archive Collection.

John McGlinn intended to follow up his landmark 1988 recording of Show Boat with a complete reading of the Sweet Adeline score, but such a thing was not to be. Thankfully, he peppered other collections with five Sweet Adeline tracks, and all featuring the original orchestrations.

First is the clever fin de siècle Overture, in which Kern utilized famous 1890s tunes, saving his own writing for later in the show:

More importantly, McGlinn recorded the show-stopping ten o’clock number, “Some Girl is On Your Mind.” After “All the Things You Are,” this may be the single best thing Kern ever wrote yet, oddly, not one critic in 1929 singled out this expanded barber shop quartet for comment.

McGlinn also waxed the original duet setting for “Don’t Ever Leave Me.”

Helen and Robert Chisholm first sang the song as a triumphant expression of their love (think Hammerstein’s later effort “I Have Dreamed”).

Only later in the show did Helen give the song its tragic, torchy spin.

Last but not least, Helen’s biggest hit of the night:

This site will serve as a companion to Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld’s Last Star, which was published on September 3, 2024.