Look Who it Was Random video

Savoy Orpheans - Why Can't We Two Be Sweethearts?, 1927

3,652 views · Published 23 May 2014 · 3:01 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: 240252 · 2014 · Music

Watch on YouTube

Savoy Orpheans -- Warum können wir uns nicht lieb haben? (Why Can't We Two Be Sweethearts?) Foxtrot (Warren) Electrola 1927 (Recorded in London, German pressing)

NOTE: One of the hottest London bands of the Roaring Twenties, plays Why Can't We Two Be Sweethearts? - a less well known Harry Warren's song.  Period of 1924-1927 were the golden years for The Savoy Orpheans , when the band was led and their renditions were arranged by the Irish musician Debroy Somers. He founded the Savoy Orpheans orchestra in 1923/24, when the immense popularity of the Savoy Havana Band -- the dance orchestra led by American musician Bert Ralton, which resided at the London's Savoy Hotel - prompted the hotel's management to hire a second dance orchestra. Now, both the Savoy Havana Band and the Savoy Orpheans were feature attractions at the hotel. Early sidemen included such later famous musicians, like American clarinet & saxophone player Rudy Vallee, who had moved over from Ralton's band, Billy Thorburn and Carroll Gibbons. Interestingly, Vallee  was also eager to do the vocals, but his fellow band-members discouraged his attempts to become a vocalist.  So, he gave up his job in Europe and returned to the US, where he formed his own dance orchestra the Connectuicut Yankees, with which he not only played instruments but also sung, becoming in a short time one of the most popular American crooners of the 1920/30s. In 1927, also Debroy Somers left the Orpheans, leaving the leadership to the band's pianist Carroll Gibbons.  However, that same year, the Orpheans' association with the Savoy ended (as did that of the Havana Band). In 1929-30 the various leaders directed the band, until the Savoy Hotel's owners decided that new orchestra must be formed to play exclusively under the hotel's name and  management. Gibbons became sole leader of the new band named The Savoy Hotel Orpheans, which continued the successful career through the next decade.

More from this channel