Shep Fields

Infobox musical artist
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Born = birth date|1910|9|12|mf=y
Brooklyn, New York
Died = death date and age|1981|2|23|1910|9|12|mf=y
Heart attack
Los Angeles
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Occupation = Bandleader
Years_active = 1933-1953
Label = Bluebird Records
Associated_acts = Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm
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Past_members = Sid Greene
Carl Frederick Tandberg
Toni Arden
Sid Caesar
John Serry, Sr.
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Shep Fields (September 12, 1910 – February 23, 1981) was the band leader for the critically acclaimed "Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm" orchestra during the Big Band era of the 1930s.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and his mother's maiden name was Sowalski. He played the clarinet and tenor sax in bands during college. By 1933 he led a band that played at Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel. In 1936 he was booked at Chicago's Palmer House, and the concert was broadcast on radio. A contest was held in Chicago for fans to suggest a new name for his band. The word "rippling" was suggested in more than one entry, and Fields came up with "Rippling Rhythm". When he was at a soda shop counter, his wife was blowing bubbles into her soda through a straw and that sound became his trademark that opened each of his shows. In 1936 he received a recording contract with Bluebird Records. His hits included: "Did I Remember?", "Cathedral in the Pines" and "Thanks for the Memory". In 1937 Fields started a radio show called The "Rippling Rhythm Revue" with Bob Hope as the announcer. In 1938 he was in his first motion picture, "The Big Broadcast of 1938". Even though a leading "sweet band" of the era (i.e. an orchestra that didn't pursue swing music but performed rather old fashioned ballroom music, often spiced with lot of theatrics and tongue in cheek humor), Shep Fields tried to change his style to the supersmooth sax swing in the early forties, but popular demand prompted him to revert to his previous style in 1947. The group disbanded in 1953, and he moved to Houston, Texas where he worked as a disc jockey. He later started a talent agency in Los Angeles, and died on February 23, 1981 in Los Angeles. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Shep Fields, Leader Of Big Band Known For Rippling Rhythm. |url= |quote=Shep Fields, the band leader who made his fame and fortune in the 1930's and 40's with a unique sound he called Rippling Rhythm, died of a heart attack yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 70 years old. Mr. Fields developed the Rippling Rhythm sound in 1936 when he ... |publisher=New York Times |date=February 24, 1981 |accessdate=2008-06-23 ] [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Shep Fields Dies. Was Bandleader. |url= |quote=Bandleader Shep Fields, who rose to fame in the big band era with an orchestra that opened its performances with a sound called Rippling Rhythm, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 70. |publisher=United Press International in Hartford Courant |date=February 24, 1981 |accessdate=2008-06-23 ] [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Died. |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921036,00.html |quote=Shep Fields, 70, bandleader who was known during the 1930s and '40s for his Rippling Rhythm, a bubbly blend of light, catchy orchestrations and the sound made by blowing through a straw into a bowl of water near the microphone; of a heart attack; in Los Angeles. |publisher=Time (magazine) |date=March 9, 1981 |accessdate=2008-06-23 ] He was buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery in New York.

Band

* Sid Greene (1913-2006), drums & percussion, band manager, circa 1932-1943
* Hal Derwin, vocals 1940
* Larry Neill, vocals 1940
* Dorothy Allen, vocals 1940
* Ken Curtis, vocals
* The Three Beaus and a Peep, vocals circa 1947-1948
* Bob Johnstone, singer circa 1947-1948
* Toni Arden, singer, circa 1945
* Carl Frederick Tandberg (1910-1988), bass fiddle, circa 1940
* Lou Halmy, trumpet, circa 1935
* Sid Caesar, saxophone, circa 1940
* John Serry, Sr., concert accordionist and soloist, 1937-1938

Recordings

*That Old Feeling
*Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm, 1940, Volumes 1 and 2

Live broadcasts

*Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California during September 1938 - October 1938 with John Serry, Sr. as featured soloist on the NBC radio network [ "The Los Angeles Examiner", October 9, 1938, pg. 1] .
*Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York on May 12, 1947 with Toni Arden, Bob Johnstone, and The Three Beaus and a Peep.
*Ice Terrace Room of the Hotel New Yorker on March 6, 1948 with Toni Arden, Bob Johnstone, and The Three Beaus and a Peep.

Filmography

* "You Came To My Rescue" (1937) - Director Dave Fleischer
* "The Big Broadcast of 1938" (1938) - Director Mitchell Leisen with W.C. Fields, Martha Raye, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope.
* "Kreisler Bandstand" (1951) - TV Series Director Perry Lafferty.

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6844852 Shep Fields] at Find A Grave
* [http://www.radioarchives.org/sets/PC42.htm Radio Archives: Shep Fields]
*Solid|d_fieldss.php

References

Further reading

*Washington Post; February 7, 1937 "Shep Fields in Town Wednesday for Dance."
*Washington Post; May 8, 1937 "'Wings of the Morning,' in Technicolor, And Shep Fields Share Honors at Earle. Racing Picture and Ace Band Divide Top Spots on Bill of General Appeal."
*Washington Post; January 17, 1939 "Los Angeles, January 16, 1939 (United Press) Mrs. Myra Wallace, wife of a music publisher, learned tonight the $10,000 banknote which she tossed to Shep Fields, orchestra leader, for playing one her favorite numbers might be legal -- not stage money as she had thought."
*Time (magazine); November 4, 1941 "On his 127th birthday, a dance program was dedicated to the late Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone and thereby the unwitting father of the modern dance band. Dedicator was Bandleader Shep Fields, who lately gave up his trade-mark "Rippling Rhythm," threw out his brass, concentrated on nine saxophones."
*Washington Post; July 12, 1957 "Shep Fields admits that his wife, Evelyn, was responsible for the bubbling water through a straw sound that has identified his music for a score of years."
*Washington Post; February 26, 1981 "Famous Bandleader Shep Fields a ..."
*The Register-Guard; Eugene, Oregon; February 15, 2002 "When trumpet star and jazz arranger Lou Halmy looks back on the Great Depression of the 1930s, it doesn't seem depressing at all. "I was lucky," the 91-year-old Eugene musician says. "I was playing with a band and working all the time. We had a steady job, which was the rarest thing in music." While many people were standing in bread lines and living in shanty camps, Halmy was inside New York's posh Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, cheering people up by playing his horn in one of the most popular dance bands of the era: Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm ..."