MORE ON THE REVELERS

My father sang with The Revelers quartet in the late 1920s.

As you may recall, back in 2015 I was contacted by Craig Phillips, who was doing his doctoral dissertation on male quartets of the 1920s. (See my post from 7/19/15.) We have been in touch over the years, and I am thrilled to report that there will be a presentation of "The Revelers Project" in  New York City, at the National Opera Center on July 11th.  For those of us who can't make it to NYC, the concert will be live streamed at 5:30 on that date, and here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/user/NatOperaCenterLIVE

Craig has also gotten some nice local press (out in Oregon, where he is a professor at Oregon University).  Here are some links:

http://www.registerguard.com/news/20180706/uo-prof-preps-for-revival-of-revelers-after-discovery-of-rare-music
 and
https://www.eugeneweekly.com/2018/05/24/resurrecting-the-revelers

And you'll find all sorts of interesting material at https://www.instagram.com/revelersproject/
Enjoy!

See also my blog post of 7/6/17.

Postscript to the Indy 500

After posting about the Indy 500 a few days ago, I received several interesting photos from John J. O'Leary IV, with whom I have been in touch in recent months. (He is writing a book about Gustav Reuter and Reuter Coachworks, the premier car restorer who handled many of my father's cars over the years. More about John and his project in a later post.)

Anyhow, I would love to know how and why Clark Gable and my father were at the Race together, and what year it might have been. I imagine my parents got to know Gable when they were living in Hollywood in the 1930s while my father made several movies.  Oh to be a fly on the wall...

Any idea who the guy in the hat might be?

Indy 500

Always around this time of year I think of the Indianapolis 500 and my father singing "Back Home in Indiana" before the start of the race. In 1946 he supplied several antique cars from his collection for a pre-race lap. There's also the story that for one race, with the cars revving furiously behind him, he got a bit flustered and started to sing "My Old Kentucky Home" instead of "Back Home in Indiana."
He did this pre-race gig for a number of years, although I am not sure how many. Does anyone out there know?  He started this tradition which was later carried on by Vic Damone, Mel Torme, Dinah Shore and Jim Nabors.

Scale Model of 1901 Curved Dash Olds

This, the 57^th anniversary of my father’s death (4/21/61), seems an appropriate place to re-start my on-again-off-again James Melton blog. (I do apologize for my laxity, the result of traveling and later recovery from hip replacement surgery.) My absence has not been for lack of material—far from it! There’s something new to talk about almost every week.

For instance, remember that half-size 1901 Curved Dash Olds my father carried on our yacht? (See blog entry July 19, 2010.) Just last week I heard from the grandson of the fellow who built it—Richard H. Francis. As his grandson, Jon, remembers it, his grandfather Dick built one to drive in the 1949 Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. My father saw it, and asked Dick to built one for him!

Thanks to Jon, who sent me photos of “Mabel,” the original car, which Dick copied for my father.