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A native of David City, Nevada, Ruth Etting began her musical career in Chicago where she developed a style that could be said to epitomize the art of the straight and narrow pop vocal, for she never deviated from the melody or the lyrics as written. This places her in a completely different realm from Billie Holiday; Ruth Etting represented the "normal" approach to singing from which Lady Day deviated so wonderfully. As if to demonstrate the case in point, Living Era's tribute to Ruth Etting opens with her 1928 recording of Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn's "Love Me or Leave Me," a song that became a jazz standard after Fats Waller recorded it as a stride piano solo in 1929, and underwent remarkable transformations when Billie Holiday and Lester Young reinterpreted it in 1937. A comparison of Etting's and Holiday's approach to the same songs speaks volumes about the parallel arts of jazz and pop singing (examples included here are "Back in Your Own Back Yard," "I'll Get By as Long as I Have You," "Body and Soul," "I'll Never Be the Same" and "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie"). Although remembered as a paragon of the sentimental torch song, Ruth Etting sounded best when delivering pleasantly upbeat numbers like "Button Up Your Overcoat." On this collection, she is backed by excellent jazz musicians like Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, guitarist Eddie Lang, pianists Rube Bloom and Frank Signorelli; trumpeters Charlie Spivak and Manny Klein, and bassman Joe Tarto. Even if she sang like the girl next door, her story reads more like something out of an old Humphrey Bogart movie. During her early days as a Chicago nightclub entertainer, Ruth Etting became the consort and then the wife of mobster Moe "The Gimp" Snyder, a notorious thug who appointed himself as her manager and bulldozed people in the entertainment industry in order to further her career. Throughout the mid-'20s Etting became famous on Broadway, as a radio personality and as Columbia's most popular female recording star. The plot sickened, however, as her few appearances in motion pictures were flummoxed by careless casting and lousy scripts. Her marriage steadily deteriorated under the burden of Snyder's jealous boorishness -- he even gunned down her accompanist Myrl Alderman, who recovered and married Etting after Snyder went to prison. Withdrawing from public scrutiny for a few years, the aging singer attempted a comeback in 1947 and then retired to Colorado where she passed away in 1978. This double-disc portrait of "The Queen of the Torch Singers" proceeds in a more or less chronological manner, from her early recordings made in April of 1926 to her hit records of 1931 and 1932; sweetly stylish stuff presented during the darkest days of the Great Depression. ~ arwulf arwulf
Love Me Or Leave Me Music
Ruth Etting - Love Me Or Leave Me Songs
| 1 | Love Me Or Leave Me * See All 4  | 3:21 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 2 | Lonesome and Sorry * See All 2 | 3:12 | $0.99 | (Different version) |
| 3 | But I Do, You Know I Do! * See All 2 | 2:41 | $0.99 | (Different version) |
| 4 | 'Deed I Do * See All 3 | 2:50 | | (Different version) |
| 5 | What Do We Do On A Dew-Dew-Dewy Day See All 2 | | | |
| 6 | It All Depends On You | | | |
| 7 | I'm Nobody's Baby See All 2 | | | |
| 8 | Sam, the old accordion man * See All 2 | 3:16 | $0.99 | (Different version) |
| 9 | Shaking the blues away * See All 2 | 3:08 | | (From different album) |
| 10 | Song Is Ended, But The Melody Lingers On | | | |
| 11 | Keep Sweeping The Cobwebs Off The Moon See All 2 | | | |
| 12 | Back in Your Own Back Yard | | | |
| 13 | When You're With Somebody Else | | | |
| 14 | Ramona | | | |
| 15 | Happy Days and Lonely Nights | | | |
| 16 | Because My Baby Don't Mean Maybe Now | | | |
| 17 | Beloved See All 2 | | | |
| 18 | Sonny Boy | | | |
| 19 | My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now | | | |
| 20 | You're the Cream In My Coffee * See All 3 | 3:05 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 21 | I'll Get by as Long as I Have You * See All 2 | 2:40 | | (From different album) |
| 22 | Button Up Your Overcoat * See All 5 | 0:32 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 23 | Mean To Me * See All 4 | 3:26 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 24 | More Than You Know See All 2 | | | |
| 25 | Cryin' For The Carolines See All 3 | | | |
Disc 2 |
| 1 | Ten Cents a Dance * See All 5 | 3:15 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 2 | Funny, Dear, What Love Can Do * See All 2 | 3:09 | $0.99 | (Different version) |
| 3 | Dancing With Tears in My Eyes * See All 3 | 2:45 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 4 | Don't Tell Him What Happened to Me * See All 2 | 3:21 | $0.99 | (From different album) |
| 5 | Just a Little Closer See All 4 | | | |
| 6 | If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight * See All 2 | 2:59 | $0.99 | (Different version) |
| 7 | Body And Soul * See All 3 | 3:28 | | (Different version) |
| 8 | Love Is Like That, What Can You Do? See All 2 | | | |
| 9 | Nevertheless I'm In Love With You See All 2 | | | |
| 10 | Shine On, Harvest Moon | | | |
| 11 | Guilty * See All 4 | 3:26 | | (From different album) |
| 12 | Me! See All 3 | | | |
| 13 | Faded Summer Love See All 2 | | | |
| 14 | Cuban Love Song See All 2 | | | |
| 15 | It Was So Beautiful See All 2 | | | |
| 16 | I'll Never Be the Same See All 2 | | | |
| 17 | Linger a Little Longer in the Twilight See All 3 | | | |
| 18 | Close Your Eyes See All 3 | | | |
| 19 | Smoke Gets In Your Eyes See All 2 | | | |
| 20 | Riptide See All 2 | | | |
| 21 | Easy Come, Easy Go See All 2 | | | |
| 22 | Life Is a Song, Let's Sing It Together | | | |
| 23 | You See All 2 | | | |
| 24 | It's a Sin To Tell a Lie See All 3 | | | |
| 25 | There's A Lull In My Life See All 3 | | | |
| 26 | Goodnight, Sweetheart See All 2 | | | |
| (*) MP3 for this song is from a different CD. Listen to the sound sample to be sure this is the version you're looking for. |
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