Episode 130. Hutch [Leslie Hutchinson] (Black History Month 2022)
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Leslie Hutchinson (1900-1969), known universally as Hutch, rose from his beginnings in Grenada, to become the biggest music star in London in the 1930s. Though he is but little remembered today, he personified class and élan with his smooth, supple baritone and his relaxed yet buoyant pianistic stylings. His career spanned the years from 1923 to his death, and this episode samples recordings ranging over that entire period. His musical importance is overridden today by the many sexual exploits with both women and men that remain even today, legendary. This episode highlights not just the music of Cole Porter, Hutch’s mentor and lover, but covers the entire gamut of the Great American Songbook and beyond, including many near-definitive performances of works by Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Schwartz and Dietz, and Jerome Kern, as well as some classic British standards.
A few live clips of Hutch performing (as mentioned in the episode, the first two clips highlight the handsome gentleman in the background who is clearly enamored of Hutch):
What Makes You So Adorable? (1932)
And a rare post-war radio transcriptions
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Cole Porter: Anything Goes [1930s]
Thomas Morris: Original Charlestown Strut. With Ruth Coleman [1923]
Dave Dreyer, Billy Rose: Me and My Shadow. With Helen Morgan [1927]
Cole Porter: I’m a Gigolo [1929]
George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin: He Loves and She Loves (Funny Face) [1929]
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: Thou Swell (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) [1929]
Fats Waller, Andy Razaf: Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Connie’s Hot Chocolates) [1929]
Irving Berlin: How Deep Is the Ocean? [1932]
Cole Porter: Two Little Babes in the Woods [1930s]
Cole Porter: Just One of Those Things [1941]
Cole Porter: Easy to Love [1937]
Cole Porter: Begin the Beguine (Broadway Melody of 1940). With small orchestra [1940]
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: That’s Love (Nana) [post-1934]
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: You Are Too Beautiful (Hallelujah, I’m a Bum) [post-1932]
Jack Strachey, Erik Maschwitz: These Foolish Things [1936]
Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II: Why Was I Born? [1930s]
Manning Sherwin, Eric Maschwitz: A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square [1940]
Ted Grouya, Edmund Anderson: Flamingo. With Orchestra [ca. 1941]
Arthur Schwartz, Howard Dietz: Dancing in the Dark (The Band Wagon). [late 1930s]
Jerome Kern, Ira Gershwin: Long Ago and Far Away (Cover Girl) [1944]
Consuelo Velázquez, Sunny Skylar: Bésame mucho. With orchestra [1944]
Georges Auric, William Engvick: The Song from Moulin Rouge [Where Is Your Heart?]. with small orchestra [1953]
Cole Porter: It’s All Right with Me. with Bob Sharples and His Music [1954]
Bart Howard: On the First Warm Day [1953]
George Posford, Eric Maschwitz: Surprisingly (Happy Holiday). with Bob Sharples and His Dance Music [1954]
Tony Hatch, Jackie Trent: Joanna [1969]
Mack Gordon, Harry Revel: Goodnight My Love [1954]