The Boswell Sisters: My Personal Story James Von Schilling
I had written a piece on (The Boswell Sisters) for Creem magazine. This was after the Biograph album (The Boswell Sisters 1934-34) came out, and what I wrote was an extended review of it. (It was) kinda "hip" writing at the time, which they liked and so I ended up writing a couple of other pieces for them. But they weren't interested in publishing the review or a feature article on the Bozzies that I wrote a little later. I think I must've mailed the article to Connee and months later I called "out of the blue" to see if she'd received it. This was over 30 years ago, probably 1975. I do remember finding her number by looking for a Leedy with a Central Park street address in a Manhattan phone book! It was (212) 988-5273.
She was indeed straightforward and full of life. Very casual language, too, and I remember her saying something about how she'd been told she talked like a truck driver. I took some notes on an envelope, which I still have. Why wasn't I better prepared to capture her every word? I think I was hoping she'd let me stop by for a chat, but she said she had recently been interviewed by Rich Conaty and that Harry had some heart problem afterwards, so she didn't want to take another chance. In hindsight, she was maybe starting to have her own health problems at that time.
On the envelope I wrote down that she had gotten Leonard Goldstein "to watch Sinatra to sign him up"--I'm not sure what that means, but Goldstein did produce a Sinatra film in the early 50s. I also have notes about her album with the Original Memphis 5, and she said that they had been on the Ed Sullivan Show. I also remember very clearly a couple of things she said. One was that she and Bing used to talk about how their singing voices were similar in that they both had "frogs" in their throats.
So, that's what I recall of my one and only conversation with Connee.
That unpublished article continued to have a life of its own after I spoke with Connee and even after she died just a year or so later. By the late 1970s, my interest in popular music history (which had been sparked by hearing the Boswell Sisters) led me to Bowling Green State U. in Ohio, and I was now studying and teaching in their Popular Culture Department. Meanwhile, my article had made its way to Vet Boswell, and by 1979 she’d given it to Stuart Ross and Mark Hampton, the young New Yorkers who put together an off-Broadway show, “The Heebie Jeebies,” about the Boswells. They somehow tracked me down and told me that the article had been important to them—not so much for the information in it, but because it was validation that the Boswells were special and significant and “show-worthy.” (Keep in mind that back then there was next to nothing about the Boswells in print, and “on line” was simply a way you stood while waiting.)
Ross and Hampton invited me to see the show and, in particular, to come the evening of May 19th as there would be a cast party/birthday party for Vet afterwards and that Vet would be there. So, I packed my bag and headed east from Bowling Green. The show was great, of course, although I do remember thinking that, as good as the three performers were (Memrie Innerarity, Audrey Lavine, and Nancy McCall), they weren’t the Boswells! (The ticket price, by the way, was $3.00.)
Afterwards, we gathered in a lounge upstairs, and that’s when I met and chatted a bit with Vet, who was very much like the description of her on this website: dignified and reserved, but also friendly and funny. One of the highlights of that party was the showing of a couple of filmed appearances of the Boswells, which probably nobody there, except Vet, her daughter, and myself, had ever seen. Vet brought the cartoon of “Sleepytime Down South,” in which they were featured, and I brought the final reel of “The Big Broadcast.” I had purchased that 16 mm reel (this was pre-VCRs) from a drummer who was in Woody Allen’s band and collected jazz films. He’d acquired it not so much for the Boswells, but for guitarist Eddie Lang who played behind Bing Crosby in a scene or two. But if you’ve ever seen the Boswells perform “Crazy People” in that film, you can imagine the magical moment when the real sisters sang on screen that night in our impromptu movie house.
The party ended and I headed back to Ohio. I became disappointed over the years that Ross and Hampton’s show and its reincarnations never caught on with the public. Even “The Big Broadcast” seems to have become unavailable to buy or to watch on TV (I’m not sure why, but one reason might be the obvious pantomime of a drug-user that Cab Calloway does in the movie’s second-best performance.) However, that unpublished article I wrote continued making its own path in the world and found itself in the hands of David McCain, who tracked me down about 6-7 years ago. I was truly amazed to find another devoted Bozzies fan and one who’d actually ventured into them far deeper than I had.
I’m also amazed at the resurging presence of the Boswells in today’s world, as exemplified by this website and all matters Boswellian that it reports and covers for us. I hope to add something myself in the near future, as I’ve written another article on them (a mere thirty-three years after the first!) and it appears that this one will actually be published. It’s scheduled to be in a special issue on New Orleans music in Popular Music and Society that will come out next year, and--based on the travels of that unpublished article--who knows who I will be hearing from after that!
