Larry Clinton

Larry Clinton was a versatile composer, arranger, and bandleader whose swing band was one of the dominant forces in pop music in the late '30s, specifically in the period between Tommy Dorsey's initial success and the rise to fame of Glenn Miller. Born in Brooklyn, Clinton broke into the business as an arranger on the staff of Ferde Grofé & His Orchestra, which formed in 1932 in the wake of the rift between Grofé and Paul Whiteman; Clinton also held down a trumpet chair in the Grofé band for a time. Upon leaving Grofé, Clinton joined the arranging staff of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, but continued to write charts on a freelance basis for other leaders. When the Dorsey Brothers split in 1935, Clinton went with Jimmy Dorsey, but it was an arrangement placed with Tommy Dorsey's band, "The Dipsy Doodle," that established Clinton's name with the public. On the strength of that hit, Clinton formed his own band in late 1937, graced with the extraordinary talents of girl singer Bea Wain and the rough but personable singing of "Boy" Ford Leary. Some of the hits Clinton enjoyed in the late '30s were with songs of such significance that his connection in introducing them has become forgotten; the ever-prevalent favorite of amateur pianists "Heart and Soul" and "Deep Purple" were among the tunes Larry Clinton made famous. Clinton's specialty was "jazzing the classics," transforming familiar classical melodies into dance hits; for example, Claude Debussy's early piano piece Reverie became "My Reverie" and an enormous hit with a lovely Bea Wain vocal. Clinton also similarly transformed music by Tchaikovsky, Flotow, and the hoary anthem "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" into solid sensations -- musicians' scuttlebutt of the era in reference to Clinton eulogized such efforts as "it...