A Vaudeville Tour - Tribute to the Gumms

Ready for the first show at Don't Tell Mama in
NYC. (l. to r. David McMullin, Laura Oseland, Erin Romero,
Sofie Zamchick and Brian De Lorenzo.

After returning from that first trip to Tennessee in September of 2011, we set to work creating the musical CD recording, eventually be titled, “Made in America – Vaudeville Songs.” The first half of the title came from a song that Frank and Ethel Gumm sang shortly after their marriage.

The recording was under the musical direction of the very talented Mark Hartman, who was an expert in playing the music of that period. Brian De Lorenzo,  was cast as Frank Gumm, Erin Romero as Ethel, Laura Osland as Mary Jane, Ashley Birmingham as Dorothy Virginia and a little girl with a big voice, Melissa Magaliff as Baby Gumm. Since I was in contact with one of Judy’s cousins, Bob Milne, the son of Ethel’s brother John Milne, we cast David McMullin as “Uncle John” and had him sing one of his songs, “The Curse of an Aching Heart.”

The cast worked in New York City in the midst of constant warnings of new terrorist attacks and anthrax threats. Bomb sniffing dogs and guards roamed the subway stations, something we were not at all used to, while on the southern end of our beloved Manhattan, for months, fires continued to burn the remains of the World Trade Center. I could only imagine what it was like living in London during WWII. We were not being bombed, but it did feel as if we were living in the midst of wartime. Tensions were high and the sense of terror and feelings of deep mourning for those who had died was thick in the air. New York was not a happy place to be; the restaurants were empty, as were the Broadway theaters. Still, everyone went about their business, as they knew they must.



Brian and Jennifer sing
Berlin's "Alexander's
Ragtime Band," a big hit
three years before they
married.

My goal with this musical recoding was to create a little window into the past, something like an old radio show. We could not know exactly what Frank and Ethel Gumm sounded like or the children, but we could try to capture something of the atmosphere, and make it real to the people. For one of the girls’ numbers, I even brought in a group of kids to cheer them on.

In the long run, for various reasons, we were not able to use all of these ideas. Once the recording was completed, it seemed the best way to promote it would be to perform the music as a show. And so, on and off for the next three years, the cast performed “Made In America – Vaudeville Songs” at Don’t Tell Mama’s in New York City, retirement homes in New Jersey and old vaudeville houses. There were still a number of them around and people were interested in having shows in them. The neat thing about our show was we could take it apart and do sections without loosing the quality.



Ashley Birmingham
sings "Five Foot Two,
Eyes of Blue" on the
vaudeville stage.



At one point, the girls and I appeared at an old vaudeville house in Dunellen, New Jersey as the opening act for a Groucho Marx impersonator. We performed there every night for a week and, by the time we finished; the girls (who now included Laura Osland, Ashley Birmingham and Sofie Zamchick) had a real feel for vaudeville. What fun! I think they were able to imagine what must have been like for the Gumm Sisters.



Laura Oseland,
"When My Sugar Walks
Down the Street, the Little
Birdies Go Tweet, Tweet, Tweet
at the Dunellen Theater



            As mentioned above, Sofie Zamchick had taken over the role of Baby Gumm and did a marvelous job, eventually playing the role on the new revision of our CD. Sofie would go on to have some fame as Linnie the Guinea Pig in The Wonder Pets.



Jennifer Ackerman and Brian De Lorenzo as Frank and Ethel
Gumm. In this scene, Frank is courting Ethel as he sings
"Dream Girl."



Erin Romero, who played Ethel wonderfully on our original CD, had another show lined up and was replaced by Jennifer Ackerman. Eventually, Jennifer rerecorded some of the music with new arrangements. She did a wonderful job as Ethel, and could even play piano!  Unlike the living history in Grand Rapids, I never tried to have the performers look like the people they were playing with wigs, etc. We were simply working to pay tribute to them and give something of the feel of the period.

I remember one winter night in New Jersey. Some of the cast had appeared in a benefit at an old vaudeville house. It was late at night, and David McMullian and I were standing in the shadow of the old railroad station, in a tiny old fashioned town, waiting for the train back to New York City, when it began to snow. Standing there, under the street lights with the snow coming down it seemed that we were back in 1910. I couldn’t help thinking of all the vaudeville performers who had waited out in the dark and cold, just as we were waiting. Life on the road was not always easy, but sometimes it was enchanting.



Photo by
Cathy Zamchick



       There was one special place the girls performed as the Gumm Sisters. When we got this gig, it seemed like we were on our way to the big time.  This job was on 42^nd Street and Broadway, in a sort of vaudeville circus. There was a man who did rope tricks like Will Rogers, an arial act, a sword swallower and juggler, among others. And there were the three little girls, as the Gumm Sisters, singing, “Wear A Hat with A Silver Lining,” a song Judy performed at the age of six, but which I didn’t have a copy of when we were recording the original CD.  Eventually, the girls did record it as a single. It is now on the second (blue) version of Vaudeville Songs.



Photo by Cathy Zamchick



"Wear a Hat with a Silver Lining" at the
vaudeville theater on 42nd Street.
(l. to r.) Sofie Zamchick, Ashley Birmingham
and Lynda Senisi who joined us after Laura
Osland moved on to other shows.
Photo by Cathy Zamchick

At these performances, it was so much fun watching the girl’s eyes get wide as they viewed these acts (and remembered what fun Judy and Donald O'Connor had backstage looking for Haji Ali's tricks when there were none.)

It was also a lot of fun to see a little boy with glasses in the audience, looking lovingly at Sofie as she sang and danced. Past and present didn’t seem so far away,  and I was thrilled to feel that my girls and audience were learning that those old songs were not to be discarded. In fact, I was informed that at home the girls and their families were walking around singing them—especially “Carolina in the Morning, said to be the Gumms’ favorite song!

Having experienced this, I can imagine how much fun Judy and her sisters had in those early days. I believe Judy’s bitterness about performing as a child and about her mother only came later, when she realized that all the excitement and the dreams had come to sadness and ill health.

In 1935, she spent all those months out on the road, on the last year of her father’s life. That was time she could never get back. And although she made wonderful films at MGM, the personal cost was great and would affect the rest of her life.  I believe that after she finally left MGM and went back onstage, she felt that she had indeed come home. I think that’s how it felt to her all her life when she went onstage.



"And that's vaudeville!"



For our last shows at Don’t Tell Mama, I played the Vaudeville MC. It was such a thrill for me at the end to talk about Judy Garland playing vaudeville at the Palace “only two blocks from here” and point my hand in its direction, down 46^th Street! These are wonderful memories I know none of us involved in the show and CD will ever forget. Thank you all!

For further information about “Vaudeville Songs,” please visit these sights:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/miamerica

The original CD, with Erin Romero and David McMullin can still be purchased from:

 http://www.catsongpublishing.com

The revised CD with Jennifer Ackerman and Sofie Zamchick, some  added violin and clarinet plus the song, "Wear a Hat with a Silver Lining," can be purchased or downloaded from CDbaby.com  



Judy Garland at the Palace, NYC in 1951.



 Because this blog ended up being so long, I will continue with my story in two weeks. Meanwhile….

On September 15^th & 16^th, I will be in Chesterton, Indiana at The Oz Festival. You can find me in authors/celebrities section, near….   In preparation for this great event, this coming Friday, I will be paying tribute to "The Wizard of Oz" and the many people I’ve met who worked on the film.

See you soon!!!