"I Don't Mean To Be Rude, But Am I Correct In Assuming You're Not A Singer?"

If you thought Ginger Rogers never made a professional music record, you would be wrong. Ginger actually made many records throughout her career. Probably the most famous are what I call the "Top Hat recordings". The records Ginger made for Decca in 1935 where she sang the songs from Top Hat. That was the first time she had made any records and there was a clause in her contract that said if she did not like the finished result, the records would be destroyed. Well, Decca ended up shipping them over to England and sold the records there. In her autobiography, Ginger stated she was furious and that whole experience put a damper on her recording career for many years.

However, I found out she did make more records in the late 1930s. She recorded a studio version of "Let Yourself Go" from Follow The Fleet in 1936 (which some of you may have heard, as it is available for download on iTunes), but I don't know if she recorded any other songs from that movie. I And in 1938 she made a studio recording of "I Used To Be Color Blind" from Carefree. I was surprised to find that she had made these recordings after I read about her feelings on the Decca fiasco. After all, Follow The Fleet was released only a year after Top Hat, and I'm pretty sure records aren't made a year in advance.

I did not find out until just recently that Ginger made even more professional recordings, apart from the ones already mentioned and her later recordings in the 1960s and 70s. I recieved 2 78 rpm records in the mail today, one from Bluebird, with studio recordings of I Used To Be Color Blind and The Yam, both from carefree. The Yam!! I had no idea Ginger made a studio recording of this song! They are both marvelous recordings and I think she sounds great on the both the songs.

The other record I recieved brought up some questions. It is a Decca record from 1935, and no, the songs are not from Top Hat. One of them is a duet with Johnny Mercer called "Eeny Meeny Miney Mo", which another "greatest hits" Ginger record I have stated was from a radio broadcast, and side B was "Don't Mention Love To Me" from In Person. I had no idea Ginger even recorded any of the songs from that movie, either. I've been wondering if this Decca record was one of the records that Ginger didn't like and was shipped over to the UK. I looked on the record and didn't see any evidence of that, though I may look again just to be sure. Now, I'm biased, but I personally think she sounded fabulous on it. I know it's a lot better than I could do, anyway.