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Marianne Lanham sings the blues to the |
Tucson Region
Bonnie Henry :
Big band singer traveled in tune across America
By Bonnie Henry
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.10.2009
Somehow, you just know there's going to be a story behind someone who's sung at places called the Green Parrot and the Silver Palm, the Hi-Hat and the Cat and Fiddle (featuring an "All-Girl Revue").
"I worked at the Cat and Fiddle for seven months," says Marianne Lanham, who shared the stage with burlesque performers, not to mention a pony with a monkey on its back.
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She's also rubbed elbows with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
"I can't believe I've done all these things," says Lanham, 90, now living in Tucson.
She was a big band singer who graduated from gigs at the Elks Club to appearances at the Meadowbrook ballroom, where Tommy Dorsey and Frank were performing. Lanham's singing stretches back to early childhood in Newark, N.J.
"Yes, We Have No Bananas" was the first song she ever warbled. Continuously. "The neighbors begged my mother to teach me another."
Luckily, her mother did. The talent came naturally, what with her mother being an accomplished singer and pianist, and her dad being a concert violinist.
Lanham studied voice and piano and was soon performing with her sister in an act called "The LeGlise Sisters," specializing in song and tap dance.
Venues ranged from the Masons to the Moose Lodge. When she was 16, she started singing as Marianne Lee in front of the big bands playing in Jersey.
"All those trumpets and trombones," says Lanham, who became staff vocalist with Cliff Dailey at the Meadowbrook.
While she was there, Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, featuring Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers, opened for a few weeks, and she even sang with Dorsey's orchestra a time or two.
At the tender age of 18, Lanham had an agent who set her up for a singing gig in Albany, N.Y.
But when she got there, she discovered the place was filled with "B-girls," expected to make nice with the customers.
"Thank God I had the sense to get out of there," says Lanham.
In 1941, she began a gig at the Ambassador Hotel in Washington, D.C. "I was in the Hi-Hat Lounge when someone hollered, 'They just bombed Pearl Harbor.'
"All those congressmen and generals having their afternoon cocktail hour were scrambling to get out," says Lanham.
By late 1942, she was in Atlanta, where she sang at the Owl Room and the Biltmore Hotel, and also held forth with two radio programs, one in the afternoon, the other in the wee hours of the morning.
"I finished at midnight with the band, and I was on at 12:30 a.m. with the radio show."
While in Atlanta, she met guitar man Roy Lanham, who was working radio, nightclubs and concerts with jazz and country groups, both as a guitar player and singer.
The youngest of nine children, Kentucky-born Roy was all-country. "He talked like a hillbilly," says Marianne, who nevertheless agreed to meet Roy's family. "I took a bath in their washtub in the kitchen," she says.
They courted for three years, with Marianne singing everywhere from Miami to Chattanooga.
Her best gig, she maintains, was at the M'Toto Room of the Ringling Hotel in Sarasota, Fla. There, she hobnobbed with such circus folks as the Ringlings and the Wallenda family.
Meanwhile, Roy was working as staff musician for Cincinnati radio station WLW and doing studio record work for various artists, including Chet Atkins.
He and Marianne married in 1946 in a little town in Georgia. "The preacher was 92 and so feeble he couldn't sign the marriage license," she says. "My girlfriend signed for the preacher."
The next year, Roy reorganized the musical group, the Whippoorwills, and they toured the country before relocating to California in 1951. By 1956, the group had disbanded.
While Marianne was having babies — five in all — Roy kept busy as a session player for everyone from Jim Reeves to Johnny Horton. In 1959, he played guitar on the Fleetwoods hits "Come Softly to Me" and "Mr. Blue."
He also played guitar on Loretta Lynn's "Honky Tonk Girl" and on the Dale Evans recording of "Happy Trails."
In 1961, he joined the Sons of the Pioneers, featuring Roy Rogers. During the '60s, Roy Lanham also produced two record albums.
Marianne and sometimes the kids went along on tour with the Pioneers, often traveling in the family motor home. She also continued to perform — with and without her husband — everywhere from Apple Valley, Calif., to Vegas and Reno.
When the Sons of the Pioneers made Tucson their winter home in the mid-1980s, Marianne and Roy made a second home here. "I was tired of the motor home," she says.
By then, Roy had already undergone open-heart surgery. Then came the cancer. He died in 1991. "I took care of him for five years," says Marianne.
A few years ago, she appeared as an extra in the movies "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Catch Me If You Can."
As for her last singing gig: "It was at a church in Branson, (Mo.) in 1986," says Marianne. "I sang 'Amazing Grace.' "
Bonnie Henry's column appears Sundays and Mondays. Reach her at 434-4074 or at bhenry@azstarnet.com, or write to 3295 W. Ina Road, Suite 125, Tucson AZ 85741. Blog: go.azstarnet.com/bonniehenry
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| The Sons of the pioneers performed winters from 1984 to 2003 at the Triple C Chuckwagon. After it closed, they performed for three years at the Hidden Valley Inn before heading back to their main location in Branson, Mo., in 2006 | ||
