First Hit #1: December 6, 1944
I first heard the Ink Spots in a documentary about the civil rights movement in the United States, as the song “If I Didn’t Care” underscored scenes of brutal violence in against black people in the country. It stuck with me, because the imagery was just so violent, and because the song was just so weird. Unlike a lot of songs, it didn’t seem to fit any particular era, but was quite obviously old. Also, the lead singer of the Ink Spots has a bizarre voice. The closest modern singer I can compare it to is Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. It’s perched somewhere between male and female, quite high but still rooted somewhere in masculinity. It pierces, and sticks with you, though it has a certain otherworldly quality to it.
Here, the group partners with Ella Fitzgerald – who actually has a deeper voice than the Ink Spots – which somewhat reduces the inherent oddness of the group. Fitzgerald has a powerful voice, and a fairly sensual one, which stands in contrast to the fairly androgynous Ink Spots. She also takes over the song from the moment she starts singing. I’m not sure what she was like as a person, but Fitzgerald is a completely dominant singer, which lends the song an odd sense of the male singers desperately trying to make her pay attention to them. She towers above everyone else on the track.
Personally, I like the effect, though it could work much more if the lyrics weren’t typical wartime “You’re far away please come home” fare. There is a lot of potential to a duet and this mix of voices that is perhaps under-utilized here. Still it’s a striking song, and one of the better tracks of the era.
We Are Number Ones 