- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- The album Lower Basin Street originated with an NBC radio program that was a send-up of highbrow symphonic programs in that time period.
Dinah Shore and Lena Horne – Lower Basin Street (1957): Dinah Shore was a popular vocalist beginning in the early 1940’s, and she sang for the band led by Xavier Cugat for several years. After she was unsuccessful in her auditions for Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, two of the biggest conductors of the era, Dinah Shore decided to strike out on her own, becoming the first vocalist to break the big-band format and headline shows under her own name. Dinah Shore had a string of major hit songs in the 1940’s and into the 1950’s, but she is best known today for numerous successful television shows, beginning with The Dinah Shore Show, later renamed The Dinah Shore Chevy Hour. The shows ran from 1951 to 1963 and were among the most popular programs in early broadcast television. Beginning in the 1970’s, Dinah Shore hosted a daytime talk show under various names until 1981. Lena Horne was a popular African American nightclub entertainer and recording star with a career that stretched from the 1930’s through the 1990’s. She performed in 16 feature films and several shorts and also appeared on Broadway, including a Tony-winning one-woman show called Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981 and 1982. Lena Horne won three Grammys plus a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1989. Her musical training and middle-class upbringing led Lena Horne to become a top interpreter of the mainstream popular music of her day. The album Lower Basin Street originated with an NBC radio program called Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street that was a send-up of highbrow symphonic programs in that time period. Basin Street, in New Orleans was the location of the famed Storyville red light district. Hosted by NBC announcer Gene Hamilton – using the name Dr. Gino Hamilton – Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street offered a series of mostly Dixieland-style jazz numbers. Dinah Shore was discovered on the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street after she was their first singer when the show started in 1940, while Lena Horne was the last of a total of seven contributing vocalists. RCA Victor Records released a series of albums under the name Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street beginning in 1940. RCA then re-released the albums regularly through 1969, presenting only the musical selections without the tongue-in-cheek introductions. The selections are mostly blues and jazz songs, with Side 2 being songs written or co-written by W. C. Handy. The songs on Side 1 include “Stardust”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Basin Street Blues”, and Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo”. Dinah Shore is the vocalist on four of the six songs on Side 1, while Lena Horne is the vocalist on four of the six songs on Side 2.