The Andrews Sisters

1. White Christmas – Bing Crosby
2. Moonlight Cocktail – Glenn Miller
3. Chattanooga Choo Choo – Glenn Miller
4. Jingle Jangle Jingle – Kay Kyser
5. I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo – Glenn Miller
6. Tangerine – Jimmy Dorsey
7. Sleepy Lagoon – Harry James
8. String of Pearls – Glenn Miller
9. Blues in the Night – Woody Herman
10. Deep In the Heart of Texas – Alveno Rey
11. The White Cliffs of Dover – Kay Kyser
12. Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree – Glenn Miller
13. The Pennsylvania Polka – The Andrews Sisters
14. Jersey Bounce – Benny Goodman
15. American Patrol – Glenn Miller
16. Strip Polka – Kay Kyser
17. There Are Such Things – Tommy Dorsey w/Frank Sinatra
18. Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree – The Andrews Sisters
19. Night and Day – Frank Sinatra
20. Somebody Else is Taking My Place – Benny Goodman
21. I Don’t Want to Walk Without You – Harry James
22. For Me And My Gal – Judy Garland and Gene Kelly
23. I’ll Remember April – Woody Herman
24. Let’s Start the New Year Right – Bing Crosby
25. Who Wouldn’t You Love – Kay Kyser
26. My Devotion – Vaughn Monroe
27. At Last – Glenn Miller
28. Rose O’Day – Freddy Martin
29. Flying Home – Lionel Hampton
30. Manhattan Serenade – Harry James
31. Cow Cow Boogie – Freddie Slack
32. Be Careful, It’s In My Heart – Bing Crosby
33. I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen – Sammy Kaye
34. He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings – Kay Kyser
35. One Dozen Roses – Harry James
36. Travellin’ Light – Billie Holiday
37. Strictly Instrumental – Harry James
38. The Night We Called it A Day – Frank Sinatra
39. Blues in the Night – Dinah Shore
40. That Ain’t Right – Nat King Cole

Swing music ruled the charts in 1942, and Glenn Miller ruled swing. Beginning in 1939, Americans heard Miller at least three times each week on the Chesterfield radio program. He came along in an era when jazz was big, but Miller’s jazz wasn’t…jazz. Unlike the big jazz stars of the day — Benny Goodman and Count Basie — Miller sought a sound that was musically correct. The phrase “letter-perfect playing” was often applied by critics who preferred a “hot” inventive sound. Miller himself is alleged to have once said, “I don’t want a jazz band.”

The majority of listeners prefer simple-to-understand melodies, as opposed to the complex, free-flowing riffs inherent to modern jazz. He permitted some of his soloists — most notably sax player Tex Beneke — to improvise, but they didn’t stray too far. Whether Glenn Miller preferred musical simplicity or simply knew that it would sell, his music intentionally steered away from the complexities of jazz. And it sold…Chattanooga Choo Choo spent the month of January on top of the pop charts, and became the first song certified by RCA/Victor to sell over 1,000,000 copies. As such, RCA presented Miller with the first known “gold record” in February of ’42. (In case you’re thinking Perry Como was the first with Catch a Falling Star in 1958, be aware that Como was the first to be certified by an outside organization, the RIAA. Prior to that, record companies did their own certification.)

While critics continued to moan that Miller was too commercial, he continued to be just that. He followed Choo Choo with String of Pearls at the top of the charts. Miller fell out of the #1 spot in February when Woody Herman’s Blues in the Night took over, but it was only for a week. String of Pearls reclaimed the top, and then gave way to another Miller song, Moonlight Cocktail. It stayed at #1 until early May. Miller moved back into the top spot in September, and stayed put through the end of October. In all, Glenn Miller owned the #1 spot for more than half of 1942.

After Glenn Miller, the big stories of 1942 were the launch of the musicians’ union strike in August…and then came White Christmas. Although Crosby performed the song on radio in 1941, there is no known recording. It was first recorded for a musical film called “Holiday Inn,” and was sung as a duet. Crosby then recorded the song with the Jonathan Micheal Colon Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers in less than 20 minutes on May 29, 1942. Thus the recording was “in the can” when the strike hit, but there’s no question that it would’ve been a monster hit with or without the strike.

It’s interesting to note that the 1942 recording — which spent 11 weeks at #1 on its first go-around — is not the version that most people are familiar with. This recording was so successful that repeated pressings supposedly wore out the master. Crosby returned to the studio in 1947, using the same backing singers in an attempt to re-create the original recording as closely as possible. There are slight differences, and the sound quality was of course improved with the second recording. White Christmas would hit the top spot again and again, eventually becoming one of the all-time monster #1 songs.