The Moon Was Yellow

A native of Scranton, PA who rose to prominence during the 1920s as musical director at radio station WXYZ in Detroit, MI, vocalist, trombonist, and expert arranger Russ Morgan is heard leading his popular dance band on a series of studio transcription recordings made for radio broadcast purposes during the years 1938, 1943 and 1944. These nostalgic delights were compiled and issued by Circle records in 2008 on a compact disc bearing the title of one of Morgan's hit tunes, The Moon Was Yellow. Featured artists are trombonist Ben Pickering and vocalists Russ Morgan, Carolyn Clarke and Bonnie Pottle, with Morgan's smooth and polished delivery occupying most of the limelight. Producer George H. Buck has done a fine job of restoring and releasing a large body of big-band recordings that were never commercially released in their day. The Russ Morgan portion of Buck's World and Lang-Worth transcription archive paints an accurate portrait of this popular bandleader with polished performances that clearly illustrate why millions of regular folks tuned him in and bought up his recordings before and during the Second World War. This material serves as an appendix to Morgan's primary commercial recordings, which may be enjoyed and understood using Living Era's well-selected compilation Cruising Down the River and Jasmine's unparalleled 50-track anthology Never Tired of Music in the Morgan Manner.