"Whispering" Jack Smith

Jack Smith (31 May 1898, The Bronx, New York City – 13 May 1950, New York City) was known as "Whispering" Jack Smith and was a popular baritone singer in the 1920s and 1930s who made a brief come-back in the late 1940s.Liner notes "Charleston: Great Stars Of The 1920s" CD:PPCD 78132 ] He was a popular radio and recording artist who occasionally appeared in films.

Life

Smith was born John Schmidt. He died of a heart attack [Staff (15 May 1950) "“Whispering Jack Smith” is Dead" "Dunkirk Evening Observer" p.11, col. 2] at the age of 51 and is buried next to his mother Anna Schmidt at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City. His grave is unmarked. He was survived by his wife, Marie. ["Jack Smith Dies at 52; Whispering Baritone", "The New York Times", May 14, 1950, p. 106.]

He had a very distinctive style which was a combination of singing and talking in a very "intimate" way using the microphone very effectively as opposed to "belting" the song out. His "whispering" style of singing was a result of a World War I injury from poison gas that kept him from singing at full volume. He made the "whispering" style popular, and there were a number of imitators. Smith took to the relatively newly invented microphone, and it was singers like "Whispering" Jack Smith and the early "crooners" who developed the use of this "modern" technology.

Smith began his professional career in 1915, when he sang with a quartet at a theater in the Bronx. After service in World War I, he got a job in 1918 as a "song plugger" for the Irving Berlin Music Publishing Company. He was a pianist at a radio station when he got his singing break substituting for a singer who failed to show up. Smith was exclusively on the radio, but beginning in 1925, he began making records. He also started performing on-stage on the vaudeville circuit. In 1927, Jack Smith was touring England, performing with the "Blue Skies Theater Company" singing tunes such as "Manhattan" by Rogers and Hart and songs by Gershwin, when he was suddenly replaced by a new all girl singing trio, the Hamilton Sisters & Fordyce. Smith returned to New York and eventually went to work for NBC Radio.

Reviews

Smith’s "disarmingly intimate, polite, and velvety smooth delivery … distinguished him from everyone else." [ [http://www.spun.com/music/product-detail.jsp?id=1536631 Review of the 2000 "Me and My Shadow" CD AJA 5372, "Spun.com"] ] One reviewer in describing his "whispering" style said that "His art was the epitome of understatement." Another indicated, "With a pleasing stage presence, and a genial manner, Whispering Jack Smith establishes contact with his audience just as soon as he sits at his grand piano, and he wins more applause with every song." [Staff (7 April 1929) "Whisperer Pleases Martini Audience" "The Galveston Daily News" p.17, col.4]

Republications

His performances can be found on a number of compilations of recordings from the 1920s and 1930s. In 1995 Pavilion Records released a retrospective CD entitled "Whispering Jack Smith". ["Whispering Jack Smith" PAST CD 7074, Flapper, Pavilion Records, Wadhurst, E. Sussex, England, 1995. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/43543276 OCLC 43543276] ] In 2000, ASV released "Me and My Shadow" ["Me and My Shadow" CD AJA 5372, ASV, London [http://worldcat.org/oclc/50909934 OCLC 50909934] ] a compilation of his later songs, taking its title from his 1927 hit song "Me and My Shadow".

Notes

External links

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* [http://www.archive.org/download/WhisperingJackSmith/WhisperingJackSmith-MeandMyShadow.mp3 Listen to "Me and My Shadow"] from Internet Archives
* [http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B00004U9N0001018 Listen to "Miss Annabelle Lee" from the album "The Charleston Era" Asv Living Era] from Amazon.com, [http://worldcat.org/oclc/45182288 OCLC 45182288]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwEvNOi_c3g Watch Whispering Jack Smith sing Happy Days - From 1929.] from YouTube Archives.