MUSIC VIDEO: from the LP "Music to Suffer By", by Leona Anderson

I don't believe we've ever postsed two music videos in a row, let alone three, but the news this week, ranging from ridiculous to depressing, is such that Walt just can't bear to write about it. It's time for an interlude!

Accordingly, we are pleased to present, from the library of rightly forgotten music, "Italian Street Song" from "Music to Suffer By", a 1957 LP by Leona Anderson. As you can read below, Ms Anderson was a star of the silent screen. When you listen to this, you'll know why her career faltered with the coming of "talkies".

 

Leona Anderson (née Aronson) was born on 3 April in St. Louis MO. She was the younger sister of Broncho Billy Anderson, who co-founded Essanay Studios in Chicago in 1907, for which company she appeared in several films, beginning in 1914, without much success.

In 1915, she appeared with Charlie Chaplin in the Essanay Studios comedy In the Park. In 1922, she starred opposite Stan Laurel in the comedy Mud and Sand, a spoof of the Rudolph Valentino film Blood and Sand.

In 1953, Ms Anderson revived her career in music, billing herself as "the world's most horrible singer". Who could argue with that? She became a favorite of comedian Ernie Kovacs and appearing several times on his TV show. Mr Kovacs' widow, Edie Adams, later recalled that "She (Anderson) knew she was camp, but she was very funny, and very sweet."

Discography: In 1953, Leona Anderson recorded a single, "Fish", for a small New York City record label. The song would later appear on the 1997 CD "The Ernie Kovacs Record Collection." This led Columbia Records to issue two singles by Anderson in 1954–55. This was followed by "Music to Suffer By" published by Unique Records in 1957, later reissued in 2011 on Trunk Records. 

"Music to Suffer By" featured Ms Anderson slaughtering several classics and standards, such as Georges Bizet's "Habanera" from Carmen and Cole Porter's "I Love Paris", as well as new material such as "Rats in My Room" and "Limburger Lover". By the late 1950s, she had become widely known for her bad singing, which was apparently an act she created to mock the pompous style of serious opera singers; "Opera singers just can't kid themselves properly," she said. "They can never let their voices go."

Leona Anderson came to Walt's attention and affection for her recording of the theme song for some of the Bob and Ray radio shows on WINS, New York. Yes, we have the video... well, the audio...

Leona Anderson's final film appearance was as the frightening Mrs. Slydes in the 1959 horror film House on Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price and directed by the legendary William Castle. She died in Fremont CA in 1973, at the age of 88.