Rudy Vallee "The Whiffenpoof Song" on The Ed Sullivan Show

[@radicalross7700]

"We'll pass and be forgotten with the rest". Rudy Vallee has passed, but he hasn't been forgotten.

[@irafutterman5557]

I'm sure many cool cats would reject this as so old fashioned and stodgy but this is masterclass sophistication, class,and talent a great treasure to be able to enjoy with our technology.

[@steveperry1344]

i've been a fan of rudy vallee ever since i was a kid, i used to sing along with my mother to his records, great to hear and see him in this film clip.

[@trevorpark7768]

I catch some of these old shows and it is a different world. The audiences are so civilized and classy. Everyone puts on their best. They cared how they looked in public. They all had manners. Do not know what happened to Americans.

[@chipmartin1223]

Yes indeed. When I was young my grandfather would play old 78’s of Rudy Vallee for me while showing me how to wire up old telephones. My grandfather was born in the 1800’s. We would leave the house to walk Into down town Memphis. He always wore a nice hat and a suit with tie. They all went out carry about their appearance and were very kind to one another. I miss those days. It was a totally different world then. Yes it was

[@reneehenderson5787]

Perhaps ‘Americans’ have reverted to their true nature. Maybe the polite audiences you recall are merely an illusion. The book “Lies My Teacher Told Me” reveals the true American that you so fondly remember.

[@charlestait5303]

Bad parenting!

[@josephnatoli3935]

1:01 1:06. There are no more civilized Americans as of late. BORDERS language and culture, without these 3 we will loose our beautiful AMERICA. We are not a democracy... We are a republic.🙏❤🙏👍🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[@Itchybooty]

Not just America, it’s all over the world. Also only the people with money dressed this way, the rest of the working class people May have tried to dress as nice and cleans as possible but only for special situations. 😂

[@bradstewart7007]

15 years between this an introducing The Rolling Stones. Feels like a century apart.

[@scifiradioguy]

So great for you to have all of this material digitized and presented for generations to come.

[@TomElvisSmith]

Now this is a great Rudy Vallee clip! I liked his explanation of the origin of the song too. I'm going to copy what I said on the previous Vallee post, since it would be better suited here. Rudy Vallee, along with Gene Austin, and eventually Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo, pioneered the crooning singing style which made the ladies swoon back in the 1920's and early '30's. Some of his big hits were "I'm Just a Vagabond Lover", "Betty Co-Ed", "Stein Song" and many, many others. He later experienced a revival in his career in the 1960's when he starred in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Rudy appeared on quite a few early Sullivan shows. Other songs sung by Rudy on this episode were "Another Girl Like You" (possibly "If I Had a Girl Like You"), "Ragtime Gal" "Bamboo Tree" and "Tell Me Pretty Maiden".

[@jimdrake-writer]

Indeed he sang “If I Had a Girl Like You,” which he had featured on his “Fleischmann Hour” in the early-1930s. He sang “Under the Bamboo Tree” and noted that the novelty song was a favorite of none other than Enrico Caruso.

[@davidhapka5410]

A gentler time. In stark contrast to the ugliness of today 🥺

[@eightinches6094]

Mankind has changed.

[@davidhapka5410]

@Frank Lopez Boo hoo...

[@drfelixgraham]

Oh yes, the time of lynchings. A much more beautiful and gentle time.

[@davidhapka5410]

@@drfelixgraham Virtue signal somewhere else, Doc.

[@elainesmith7512]

@@davidhapka5410 "Doc" is telling the truth.

[@domenicleone8051]

Beautiful voice

[@juanlespin]

Well my impression of Rudy Vallee just went up. Lovely introduction and sweet singing, especially the coda. Normally singers love holding long high notes but he pauses on the low ones. Very effective.

[@jimdrake-writer]

His ability to sustain a 14-second breath stemmed from his mastery of the clarinet and saxophone-actually, “saxophones” because he played the soprano, alto, C-melody, tenor, and bass saxophones with the Yale Collegians in the 1920s.

[@josephnatoli3935]

I loved this crooner!❤❤

[@jones616]

Wow, I didn't know Ed Sullivan was around for Rudy Vallee...I saw the Beatles "premiere " on Ed's show, was so exciting...I was just getting into adolescence, life was so full of promise .

[@jimdrake-writer]

I was fortunate to interview Rudy Vallee at length, and he told me that when he introduced the variety show on network radio in the early 1930s, Ed Sullivan, who was then a newspaper columnist, often covered Vallee's "Fleischmann Hour" shows in his column.

[@jimdrake-writer]

He slipped in the first part of the “bridge” of the song by singing “Damned from here to eternity,” when “damned” was a curse word banned from television-but this was “live” and in his second rendering of that line he sang the accepted version, “Doomed from here to eternity.”

[@deborahkelly1489]

This song is beautiful it always makes me emotional.

[@rjstreeter1961]

My mother turned 100 recently, and mentioned that she'd been thinking about Rudy Vallée singing The Whiffenpoof Song - I think she will love this version! RJ Streeter 7-2-2021

[@joycejean-baptiste4355]

Ed Sullivan looks so young here. I watched his show on T. V. when I was a kid.

[@williamschlenger1518]

My mom used to sing this to me when I was very young.

[@johnhourigan6049]

I find these late 1940s clips of Ed’s shows fascinating.

[@Daman.-wx4zx]

This was 39

[@jackmeeellleee4896]

Whose still listening in 24?

[@leobrussel9471]

What a marvelous voice, both singing and speaking. His introductory remarks were astonishingly articulate. Whether rehearsed or off-the-cuff, I have rarely, if ever, heard the like from a variety show guest. There are a lot of remarks here and on other videos from this era about how classy and dignified we were as a country back then, and not so much now. That is true up to a point. There were also terrible things in our national character at the time, racism being the most pernicious. When we who support President Trump now hear "Make America Great Again", we nearly all think of this side of America, the side of decency, fairness and dignity. Not the negative side. Not the racism. We were surely not great in those areas and need never return to them. But the positive side? We definitely will be greater with a return to that.

[@ardeladimwit]

ah, but you have to realize that he was on radio or television virtually nonstop from 1922 onwards and very used to doing live shows in clubs. good singers never lose their voices, but I really hadn't realized he was truly bass-baritone.

[@Folkie44]

Had to listen to this song after reading Dylan's Philosophy of Modern Song, although his remarks are based on the Bing Crosby version.

[@ricksandoval1187]

He had a very relaxed demeanor and took the song serious. Too bad he didn't sing more

[@reneleclerc6119]

I wonder if Steve Allen had as much fun with the lyrics of this song as he had with rock songs.

[@dougmilesmedia]

"Lord Marmaduke Phogg" from "Batman"

[@michaelpohas2608]

In Londinium!

[@catguy00]

I wish I sounded like this

[@pdmacguire]

That was back when Yale was still a respected center of learning.

[@stevefaure415]

You can tell Ed and Rudy were friends.

[@finallybrainunderstood479]

@4:30 as weeeeeeeeee...... Yes🙏baaa👌

[@jimdrake-writer]

It takes a professional clarinet and saxophone player, which he was, to be able to sing such a long phrase as his “such … as we-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee” on descending notes as he does “live” here as well as on his 1930s recording of “The Whiffenpoof Song.”

[@chuckschafer942]

IN 1949 IT WAS "TOAST OF THE TOWN"

[@pqdlindasgaiolascarlinhosd5758]

👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@randquadrozzi1280]

I would cringe when my grandparents put Lawrence welk on but their generation loved it.

[@timcarr6401]

Elvis does a shortened version of this song. It's much better than Rudy's take. But for sentimental reasons, Rudy gets the nod.

[@markhyde7783]

I have alot of his 45s promo no scratches I don't know if I should keep them or ditch them.

[@exenx2995]

Goodwill

[@davidlogansr8007]

I still like Rudy Valee Eve my though he wasn’t very nice I’ve read.

[@therudyvalleearchives6831]

Rudy was a complicated person. From speaking with several folks who knew him and reading his autobiographies, he was very aware of the fact that he was opinionated, outspoken and not popular with many of the “in” crowd of Hollywood. He was not afraid to correct anyones grammar, or tell them what he really thought. However, he also was incredibly self aware, humble (almost to a point of self deprecation) and knew his strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately I think he was just like all of us, full of strengths and weaknesses, shades of gray.

[@manouka]

he looks a lot like a young Edward Herrmann (who plays the grandfather in gilmore girls) and as soon as I thought that he said he's going to Hartford which is where that character lives in the show! so weird

[@Nonduality]

Now let's see Elvis sing it.

[@eightinches6094]

Or the Beatles!

[@exenx2995]

If you would have researched first you would have seen that Elvis did sing this song in his 1969 movie "The Trouble With Girls (and how to get in to it)"

[@MattWillis]

The Black Sheep Squadron

[@miyoshiumeki]

There is a blandness about Rudy that is undeniable, maybe because he never appeared to have much of a vocal range and his facial expression when singing lacked personality. Somehow that was made humorous in the movie The Palm Beach Story and later to the exaggerated character in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I will never forget when as an old gentleman he appeared on a documentary about sexual mores of the 20th century and said rather proudly that in his life he slept with more than 200 woman and girls. I thought it was most interesting that he somehow kept score :)

[@iluvhou]

Whoo. Thank goodness for this, I was spooked and creeped out from watching earlier performances of Mr. Valle's. I was curious and decided to look him up and was fascinated that he was popular or successful at all. Stinkers. But I do not know what other choices were out there during his early career, they must've been horrendous. Maybe he was different? His voice definitely improved with age. Very nice! He just looked & sounded scary when he was young.

[@Emiliee]

Why were you spooked!

[@adamzajac4042]

BYŁ ZNAKOMITY.

[@ChrisBieber-d3t]

Idle rich at Yale and Harvard......

[@anniefannycharles9951]

Exactly. He would bore me to tears.

[@TIffanyOakes1002]

Rudee Valley was a terrible person.

[@gregoryian123]

They are all fakes.

[@exenx2995]

You must be talking about todays so called artists.