Neil Stevens

Shall We Dance?

Shall We Dance? RKO's 1937 musical starring Astaire and Rogers was being screened worldwide when sad news 11 July 1937 told that composer George Gershwin had died aged only 39.

Enthusiasts, filmgoers, music lovers agree that Dance? Is the best of the Fred and Ginger combinations. Fred a ballet dancer meets big Broadway star Ginger in Paris - flirtations lead to a Transatlantic shipboard romance, all this aside the brilliantly interwoven George and Ira Gershwin score.

All the songs have proved they were not just 1930s pops but have endeared over 70   years   becoming   much-loved standards. British and American dance bands and vocalists, and later great singers and orchestras have made sure that Let's Call The Whole Thing Off, Slap That Bass, They All Laughed, and the absolute gem of gems They Can't Take That Away From Me are still right on the ball!

A memorable musical interlude, a sort of deck-side fashion parade for dogs, Promenade also known as Walking The Dog is terrific from the massive Andre Kostelanetz Orchestra. Where is there such a contrasting duet as Let's Call The Whole Thing Off - similar to marriage and long-term friendly arguments. Can we ever agree on anything⁹

They All Laughed is a wonderful history lesson worthy of the best-ever available philosophy, examining facts hammered for their very existence - but proving to be right in the end, hence the line "who's got the last laugh now?"  A complete analysis of the absolute perfect They Can't Take That Away From Me is a summing up of what it's like to be in love.   The music and lyric just take one's breath away, they simply cannot

Astaire and Rogers thought so much of same, it was their joint decision that the song be reprised and included in their only technicolor outing: Metro's The Barkleys of Broadway, 1949. Strange that when much that we knew has been swept clean away rising above the debris the much loved music, lyrics and fond recalls of inimitable George and Ira Gershwin.

Getting back to Songs With Strings there were Love Walked In, Embraceable You, Long Ago and Far Away; These Foolish Things; I Know Why and So Do You and Body and Soul. Carole Carr later introduced The Things We Did Last Summer and Time After Time, both made popular elsewhere by Frank Sinatra. The show itself found a regular live Saturday afternoon spot 1.30 to 2 p.m.

In October 1947 moved to Saturday night 7.15 to 8 p.m. but was often superceded by sport. 1948 saw a Thursday lunchtime spot, then it moved to silly times like 4.30 and 5.30 p.m. so often Geraldo music fans would miss it altogether. The close on 500 airings came to an end with an August Bank Holiday special, 1959, 2.25 to 3.p.m. in the BBC Home Service. Then it was gone, except it seems, in my researches, my thoughts and that precious self-made book.
 
 
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