The Ink Spots - If I Didn't Care - Extended Liner Notes
The Ink Spots - If I Didn’t Care: An Anthology
Only the Mills Brothers rivaled the across-the-board popularity of the Ink Spots among African American vocal groups of the 1940s.
Featuring Bill Kenny’s soaring sky-high tenor leads, the sentimental talking bass passages of Orville “Hoppy” Jones (born February 17, 1902 in Chicago), and the lustrous vocal contributions of baritone Charlie Fuqua (born October 20, 1910 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, he doubled on guitar) and the ebullient Ivory “Deek” (short for “Deacon”) Watson (born July 18, 1909 in Mounds, Illinois)—the classic Ink Spots lineup during the group’s wartime heyday--they defied their segregationist times by scoring an avalanche of pop hits, establishing an enduring template for the doo-wop explosion of the postwar era.
Kenny wasn’t even part of the group when they started doing musical business as the Ink Spots in 1934. Tenor Jerry Daniels (born either December 13, 1914 or December 14, 1915 in Indianapolis) originally held down the fourth spot in the group; he and Fuqua had started out as a duo, Jerry and Charlie, in 1931 in Indianapolis, where they appeared on WKBF radio. Meanwhile, Hoppy and Deek were half of a group, the Four Riff Brothers, that was a regular attraction over Cincinnati’s WLW. When they folded, Watson, Daniels, and Fuqua joined forces in 1933 when all three were together in Cleveland, adopting the name of the King, Jack and the Jester. Hoppy came aboard the following year.
Amending their moniker to the King, Jack and the Jesters because there were now four of them, the group built a following around Cincy (WLW was broadcasting at an unbelievable 500,000 watts’ worth of power at the time, so the station could basically be heard across the entire Midwest and likely quite a bit further than that). The quartet decided to parlay their growing reputation into a relocation to New York City, snagging a spot on an August 3-9, 1934 bill at Harlem’s fabled Apollo Theatre headlining bandleader Tiny Bradshaw.
But there was a little problem: hugely popular orchestra leader Paul Whiteman happened to feature a vocal group on his shows billed as the King’s Jesters. That was a trifle too close for comfort, so the newcomers’ then-manager dreamed up their new handle of the Four Ink Spots before the weeklong booking commenced. Later in the month, the group co-starred at New York’s Roxy Theater. When the quartet returned to the Apollo in November of ‘35, after the powerful Moe Gale took over their management, the 4 Ink Spots were headlining the theater alongside another of Gale’s fast-rising acts, Chick Webb’s orchestra with Ella Fitzgerald handling the vocal load.
So what happened in between to make the Ink Spots such a sensation? Well, even though it seems strange in retrospect, the 4 Ink Spots co-starred in a film short, Oh, What a Business, with white vaudeville comics Smith and Dale, extensively toured the United Kingdom from October through December of 1934, and held down a regular slot on New York’s WJZ radio-- before they ever managed to make a record! In those primordial days, the quartet’s musical approach was very different from the refined balladry that they would conquer the world with a short few years down the line.
All four original members of the Ink Spots expertly played instruments—Hoppy plucked a cello tuned down to make it sound like a bass; the others strummed four-string guitars that wound around one another like a clinging vine—and they drew upon their experience of playing for tips on the street corners of Indy to cook up a swinging stew of jumping jive that was about as far from Bill Kenny’s stately approach to ballads, complete with the occasional rolled “r,” as one could possibly imagine.
The majority of the sides that the Ink Spots (the “4” had disappeared) waxed with Daniels still on board were a delightfully frantic lot, full of frolicsome youthful energy. At their first and only session for Victor in January of 1935, they cut a playful “Your Feet’s Too Big” nearly five years before Fats Waller got around to the number and tore through its plattermate “Swinging On The Strings” like a house afire. “Swing, Gate, Swing,” from the same date, was another splendid showcase for their dexterous fretwork and delicious vocal interplay.
Daniels left the Ink Spots in 1936, complaining of ill health and subpar wages. He returned to Indiana, continuing his musical exploits there. The tall tenor replacing him would steer the group in another far more commercially astute musical direction, although it would take a while for the change to become noticeable on shellac.
Bill Kenny was born in Philadelphia on June 12, 1914, though he and his twin brother Herb mostly grew up in Baltimore with their widowed mother. Bill’s incredible tenor range and impeccable diction came as naturally to him as breathing (he idolized Irish-American tenor Morton Downey, hardly a standard role model for aspiring black singers); he took no voice lessons and began singing at age seven. Kenny was a regular attraction at his high school’s assemblies, pursuing his singing activities after finishing his studies.
While visiting Atlantic City, New Jersey, Kenny reportedly entered 22 amateur contests and emerged victorious in all but one. Milton Berle’s brother Phil briefly managed the newcomer, but that didn’t work out. Another amateur contest victory—this one at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom—was more momentous as far as Kenny’s immediate future went. In addition to his duties in artist management, Moe Gale was the dance-obsessed nightspot’s co-manager, and he was impressed enough to snare Kenny as Daniels’ replacement.
Bill didn’t play guitar the way the rest of the Ink Spots did, so it wasn’t a perfect fit, though the Ink Spots’ initial recordings for Decca in May of 1936 displayed no discernible difference in the quartet’s jumping sound. The first order of business was a fresh rendition of “Your Feet’s Too Big” before the group turning its attention to the blues standard “T’ain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do.” Decca brought the quartet back a month later to zip through “Stompin’ At The Savoy” and “Old Joe’s Hittin’ The Jug.” Their two 1937 Decca dates included the jivey titles “Alabama Barbecue,” “Yes Suh!,” “Whoa Babe,” “Swing High, Swing Low,” and “Slap That Bass.” In March of ‘38, the Ink Spots laid down a coupling of “Oh! Red” and “That Cat Is High.”
But on May 19, 1938—just before they opened at the Apollo on a bill shared with orchestra leader Don Redman (Webb and Fitzgerald were coming back into the venue the following week)—Kenny fronted the easy-going transitional theme “I Wish You The Best of Everything.” The elements for major success were all in evidence except one—Kenny’s stratospheric pipes were out front, surrounded by the group’s cushioning harmonic blend and Fuqua’s loping guitar intro (recycled on the great majority of their subsequent smashes, it served as an instant identifier on radios and jukeboxes even before Kenny’s voice floated in).
Only Hoppy’s spoken passage was absent, and that would come the very next time the Ink Spots stepped into Decca’s New York studios on January 12, 1939. Jack Lawrence’s yearning ballad “If I Didn’t Care” was the perfect vehicle for Bill’s splendidly mannered vocal delivery. Jones’ memorable middle section, earnestly intoned in a spoken section that dispensed with any need for an instrumental solo, was the ultimate counterpoint to Kenny. The struggle was instantly over as far as hits went, “If I Didn’t Care” sailing to the uppermost reaches of the pop hit parade.
Before 1939 was through, the Ink Spots scored more national smashes with “You Bring Me Down,” “Address Unknown,” “My Prayer” (the direct precursor to the Platters’ ‘56 across-the-board chart-topping version), and “Bless You.” With their hit formula basically cast in stone, the quartet wrapped their sumptuous pipes around a never-ending diet of mesmerizing, spine-tingling ballads. The public—both at home and overseas—gobbled them all up like scrumptious delicacies.
1940 was an astonishing year for the Ink Spots from both a sales and artistic perspective; they charted no less than 10 times. Among their biggest sellers were “When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano,” “Whispering Grass (Don’t Tell The Trees),” “Maybe,” “We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me),” and the clever “Java Jive.” Elvis dug their heartrending rendition of “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” that year enough to revive it, virtually verbatim, in 1957.
Seven more Ink Spots blockbusters arrived in 1941, led by “Do I Worry?,” “(It Will Have To Do) Until The Real Thing Comes Along,” “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire,” and “Somebody’s Rocking My Dreamboat.” There was also time between tours for the quartet to guest star in the 20th Century Fox musical comedy film The Great American Broadcast, cast as singing Pullman porters.
The war years were prime ones for the Ink Spots. Their aching, romantic ballads captured the era’s unsettled, nostalgic mood exquisitely, and Decca reaped some substantial monetary rewards. The quartet’s 1942 hit output included “Ev’ry Night About This Time” along with “This Is Worth Fighting For,” which charted in tandem with its plattermate “Just As Though You Were Here.” They also turned up as waiters in Pardon My Sarong, a high-grossing Universal film comedy starring madcap pair Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. The flick’s colorful poster reverted to billing them as the Four Ink Spots.
The quartet’s top-selling 78s in 1943 were a vocal interpretation of Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” as well as “I Can’t Stand Losing You.” But the year was more notable as the starting point for a seemingly unceasing series of personnel changes. The first was facilitated by Uncle Sam: Fuqua was drafted into the Army to serve in the ongoing war effort. His temporary replacement, vocalist/guitarist Bernie Mackey, originally from Miami. He nearly lasted the length of Fuqua’s two-year military hitch with the group, though Huey Long supplanted Mackey in March of ‘45.
The hits kept coming anyway—the Ink Spots were a remarkably consistent outfit. Three of the Ink Spots’ seven chart entries in 1944 were duets with incomparable jazz chanteuse Ella Fitzgerald, including the loping change-of-pace “Cow Cow Boogie (Cuma-Ti-Yi-Yi-Ay)” as well as “I’m Making Believe” and “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall.” The group’s solo hits that year included “A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening” and “I’ll Get By (As Long As I Have You).”
Overshadowing all the commercial success was the tragic death of Hoppy Jones on October 18, 1944; he’d collapsed onstage at New York’s Club Zanzibar. Jones had been in ill health for months before that, reportedly suffering several brain hemorrhages prior to his passing. It would seem to have been unwise for him to continue performing with such health woes, but he was obviously a believer in that old adage about the show having to go on.
Replacing Jones was a tough proposition. Cliff Givens came into the ranks first; the Newark, New Jersey native vacillated between sacred and secular singing situations throughout his lengthy career, coming over to the Ink Spots from the Golden Gate Quartet and later performing with the Southern Sons as well as working with Billy Ward’s Dominoes during the early ‘50s. Givens only lasted as an Ink Spot for a few months. Bill brought his brother Herb into the quartet after that, and he stuck around for awhile.
Watson was out of the Ink Spots before the end of 1944. He and Kenny didn’t get along, so Bill bought Deek out for $10,000 and sent him on his way. An unfazed Watson simply assembled a new group of his own that he called the Brown Dots (the similarity in monikers was no doubt intentional) and signed with the Manor label. Among the Brown Dots’ initial waxings the following year was “Sentimental Reasons,” which wasn’t a huge hit for the aggregation (Watson was front-billed) but subsequently became a standard under the title “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.”
Billy Bowen from Birmingham, Alabama was the perpetually extroverted Watson’s replacement with the Ink Spots. They scored big in 1946 with “The Gypsy,” “Prisoner Of Love,” and “To Each His Own.” “Ask Anyone Who Knows” was a hit for the quartet in ’47. 1948 brought a decent-sized seller with “The Best Things In Life Are Free,” and “You’re Breaking My Heart” did well for the quartet in 1949.
But the Ink Spots were encountering a great deal more competition as the end of the tumultuous decade grew near. The Ravens, Orioles, and plenty more groups were younger and appealed to a new generation of African American record buyers, even though their polished harmonies weren’t very far removed from what the Ink Spots had pioneered a scant few years earlier. Ravens bass singer Jimmy Ricks surely learned plenty from listening carefully to the innovations of Hoppy Jones.
The end of what was left of the original Ink Spots ensued when Fuqua left in 1952 to debut his own Ink Spots act. Herb Kenny split the previous year; he formed his own outfits, the Comets and the Rockets, who recorded for Federal and M-G-M respectively. Bowen exited too, fronting his own Butterball Four for M-G-M. Although Kenny managed to keep a lineup of Ink Spots together into 1954, their personnel resembled a revolving door. Tellingly, some of his Decca singles were credited to “Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots” from 1950 on. When Decca finally let him go, RCA’s “X” and Vik logos gave Kenny a recording home during the mid-‘50s. Sadly, his time had clearly passed as far as making hits—rock and roll had supplanted his pristine pipes.
Things really got confusing for record buyers after the group split up. Fuqua and Watson as well as a variety of other lesser former members and a raft of melodious singers with no legitimate connection to the franchise whatsoever all assembled their own competing Ink Spots units and hit the road. Quite a few of them found their way into recording studios, usually for budget labels eager to cash in on the Ink Spots banner as they revisited the quartet’s immortal hits in great abundance. Kenny occasionally drifted back to his glory years on record as well.
Disc one of this collection combines remakes of the Ink Spots’ greatest hits by their two leading lights. The Fuqua-led sides date from the late 1950s or early ‘60s (provenance on these sides is a mite scarce), while Bill Kenny entered a studio not too long before his March 23, 1978 death in his adopted home country of Canada to revisit an array of his beloved triumphs.
We know a lot more about the provenance of the radio airchecks constituting the second CD, underscoring how impeccable the classic Ink Spots lineup was in live performance. There’s an incredible quarter-hour-long program from July 12, 1939 spotlighting “Orville, Deek, Billy, and Charlie—the Home Cookin’ Boys from up Harlem Way,” as the announcer from Philly’s WFIL-AM introduces them--zipping through “No Wonder,” “Stairway To The Stars,” “Pork Chops And Gravy,” “It’s Funny To Everyone But Me,” and “Tiger Rag,” backed by their pianist Bob Benson.
During an August 18, 1938 broadcast from Radio City Music Hall over New York’s WJZ radio, the Ink Spots delivered a stylish reading of “I’m Feeling Like A Million” as well as three then-current goodies: Louis Armstrong’s “So Little Time (So Much To Do),” Ella Fitzgerald’s “A-Tisket A-Tasket,” and Slim and Slam’s “Flat Foot Floogee.”
Host Bing Crosby introduced the Ink Spots on a February 27, 1941 airing of NBC’s nationally aired Kraft Music Hall, Hoppy’s deep-toned monolog midway through “Do I Worry” generating a delighted buzz from the audience. The group blended flawlessly on “I’ll Get By (As Long As I Have You),” “Don’t Believe Everything You Dream,” and a swinging “Your Feet’s Too Big” on WOC in Davenport, Iowa, and teamed with Ella for a marvelous “Cow Cow Boogie” over Milwaukee’s WEMP radio.
The Ink Spots sang “Maybe” from the lobby of New York’s Paramount Theater at the premiere of Jack Benny’s 1940 film Love Thy Neighbor during a radio broadcast hosted by fellow violin-wielding comic Henny Youngman. “A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening,”
“Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me,” “Somebody I’ll Meet You Again,” and “Time Waits For No One” are culled from 1944 Armed Forces radio shows.
A rollicking “Shout, Brother, Shout” offers the rare treat of hearing the Ink Spots in front of a roaring big band with Hoppy’s opening invocation and Deek exuberantly delivering the bridge, much as they’d performed it in Pardon My Sarong (here minus Tip, Tap and Toe, who engaged in some very acrobatic dancing during the orchestral section in the movie).
Somewhere out there as you read this, there’s a wizened quartet of African American gentlemen passing themselves off as authentic Ink Spots—and pleasing their audience to the hilt in the process. That’s how enduring and vibrant the group’s massive catalog continues to be. The Ink Spots pioneered the concept of the black pop vocal group with their spine-chilling ballads, mostly culled from the best material Tin Pan Alley had to offer. A fragmented nation embraced them without reservation.
Now’s the time to embrace the Ink Spots all over again.
--Bill Dahl
SOURCES
Concerts Wiki website: https://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/The_Ink_Spots
Discography of American Historical Recordings website: https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/106451/Ink_Spots
Joel Whitburn’s Top R&B Singles 1942-1988, by Joel Whitburn (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, Inc., 1988)
Marv Goldberg’s R&B Notebooks website: http://www.uncamarvy.com/InkSpotsErrata/inkspotserrata.html
More Than Words Can Say—The Ink Spots and Their Music, by Marv Goldberg (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998)
Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ink_Spots