Frank Conrad Makes Vaughn Monroe Famous

Born in Akron, Ohio, on 7 October 1911, vocalist, Vaughn Monroe, was about four years old when Dr. Frank Conrad (b 1874) invented the radio in his garage in Wilkensburg, Pa in 1916. That had a 75 watt transmitter and was given the call letters, BXK, by the Department of Commerce. Upon more tinkering by Conrad with a microphone and phonograph, Monroe was nine years of age when Conrad mounted a 200 watt transmitter atop a building he owned in Pittsburgh and made the first commercial radio broadcast on 2 November 1920 with the call letters, KDKA, which station yet operates to this day. Future radio star, Monroe, was a baritone with a grand style that set him apart from more natural crooners like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. He began his career in a jazz environment playing trumpet and trombone, later expanding into the popular milieu to accommodate his operatic style of love ballad. Graduating from high school in 1929, the next year he found employment w Gibby Lockhard's orchestra w which he worked until '33. He was a student at the Carnegie Institute of Technology when he first sang on radio in 1931 for KDKA in Pittsburgh, the song 'Out of Nowhere'. The Vaughn Monroe Society (VMS) identifies him w a stage production of 'The Gondoliers' in 1932. If that was the Broadway musical at Erlanger's Theatre which staged eight shows in January he goes uncredited at both IBDB and Playbill.

Monroe abandoned college to join Austin Wylie and His Golden Pheasant Orchestra in 1933. In 1935 he moved onward to the Larry Funk Orchestra with which he had made his first known recordings on 19 September 1934, 'Rain' (Melotone 15941) among them:

'Rain'   Vaughn Monroe w the Larry Funk Orchestra

Recorded 19 Sep 1934 in NYC   Melotone M-13186

Composition: Hill / De Rose

In 1936 Monroe joined Jack Marshard's big band. VMS has him singing w Marchard per a radio broadcast from the Hotel Statler in Detroit on 17 March 1938: 'I Fall In Love With You Every Day' and 'Ol' Man River'. VMS has him recording numerous titles on instrument w Marchard in 1939 along w three vocals: 'My Love for You' (Brunswick 8389) and 'In the Still of the Night'/'S'wonderful' (Brunswick 8417):

'In the Still of the Night'   Vaughn Monroe w the Jack Marchard Orchestra

Recorded 7 June 1939   Brunswick 8417

Composition: Cole Porter   1937

Lord's Disco traces relatively little of Monroe since it's a jazz discography, but begins its account of Monroe upon the formation of his own orchestra in 1940, lending a date of 19 August for 'Salud, Dinero y Amor' ('Health, Wealth and Love'). Discogs has that issued the same year w 'Donkey Serenade' on Bluebird B-10866. That same year Monroe built The Meadows restaurant in Massachusetts from where he began to host the Camel Caravan radio program in 1946 to its last documented program on 19 Nov of 1954. The Meadows was later destroyed by fire in 1980.

Monroe's heydays in the forties, popular releases were such as the 'Take It, Jackson' in '41, 'Something Sentimental' in '45, 'Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!' in '46 and 'Ballerina' in '47. His is thought to be the first recording of 'Let It Snow!'. Discogs and RYM have Monroe issuing the 10" album, 'On the Moonbeam', as early as 1945. His next 10" album, 'Vaughn Monroe's Dreamland Special', saw issue in '46, later on LP in '56. He issued his highest selling title, '(Ghost) Riders in the Sky', in 1949.

'There I Go'   Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra

Recorded 19 Aug 1940   Bluebird B-10848 & Victor 20-2644

Arrangement: Johnny Watson   Composition: Hy Zaret / Irvng Weiser

'Take It, Jackson'   Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra

Recorded 13 Jan 1941   Bluebird B-11045 & Victor 20-1591

Composition: Johnny Watson

'Racing with the Moon'   Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra

Recorded 17 Feb 1941 in NYC    Bluebird B-11070

Composition: Johnny Watson / Pauline Pope / Monroe

'My Devotion'   Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra

Recorded 1 June 1942 in NYC    Victor 27925

Composition: Johnny Napton / Roc Hillman

'Let's Get Lost'   Vaughn Monroe w the Four Lee Sisters

RCA Victor 20-1524   1943

Composition: Jimmy McHugh / Frank Loesser

'The Trolley Song'   Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra w Marilyn Duke