Author: Mark

Stars of the past who were not necessarily working regularly, and new talent on the way up: In both cases, Soundies producers could get experienced

It would not be true to claim that Lucky Millinder was on the forefront of racial integration during the Swing Era. Benny Goodman was adding

In the World of Soundies, racism and racial/gender/religious stereotyping range from ugly and virulent, to obscure and what today we call “dog whistles.” One of

I have no idea about the age demographic of our group, but in the off chance that we have some younger members, it bears noting

Song-stories, in which lyrics were acted out without any musicians appearing on screen, were a familiar Soundies format, especially during the first two years of

Back in the 1970s, before 16mm film came my way, I was an avid collector of 78s, and one of the first discs to cross

The team of Billie Haywood and Cliff Allen were together for seventeen years, and their association only ended when Allen was tragically killed in an

It should come as no surprise that any music influenced by Latin American sounds is listed in the Soundies catalog as simply “Latin.” This is

I wanted an attention-grabber for today’s music clip, and it seemed to me that the title alone would probably do it best: The Puppet Who

In 1946 William D. Alexander began the production of a series of one-reel shorts, half-hour featurettes and feature films that would serve a dual purpose.