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Too Marvelous

About the Album

Too Marvellous - Track 3 on the album Back In Your Own Backyard Richard Whiting, Johnny Mercer (1937) With more than 850,000 total YouTube views for their Modern Vintage music without radio, TV or label backing, Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters have created a fourth album with twelve 1920s - 1930s songs. Johnny Mercer’s lyrics for Too Marvellous fit Richard Whiting’s melody perfectly. The composer’s daughter, singer Margaret Whiting, called Mercer’s lyrics a massively original approach to saying, “I love you.” This is a favourite song. The head arrangement I came up with for this was inspired by the driving George Wettling and his New Yorker’s version. I asked drummer Lawrie Thompson to punctuate the song with a final bass drum note. Simple, but effective. A few dance bands did this in the late 1930s, notably Jan Savitt on ‘Futuristic Shuffle’ and Jimmy Dorsey on ‘Dolomite’. I used the bass drum ending on ‘It’s Only A Paper Moon’ in Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters’ first album, ‘The Phantom Dancer’ (2006).

Date featured

October 30, 2016

This song appears by permission of the contributing artist and/or record company. It is for personal use only; no other rights are granted or implied.


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