Biography
Veteran conductor of large ensembles Buddy Clarke began his professional path in the 1930s. His first studio work arrived in the early 1940s, during the intense weeks before the AFM recording ban took effect. Those early sides remain scarce, their availability further clouded by repeated identity mix-ups.
Confusion frequently arises with two other musicians who performed under the name Buddy Clark, themselves often interchanged because both appeared on the same Doris Day dates, one supplying vocals and the other on bass. The crooning Buddy Clark, whose surname ends without an “e,” forms a particularly persistent shadow, having entered the field in the same era and favoring comparable big-band repertoire. The bassist Clark covers a wider stylistic range, yet credit errors persistently route Clarke entries to him, as though a typesetter’s tube of glue had spilled across the logs.
The two big-band figures share one further detail: neither was born with the surname Clark or Clarke. Buddy Clark’s legal name was Buddy Goldberg; Clarke’s was Buddy Kreisberg. The latter had already directed bands at East Coast hotels such as the Montreal Mount Royal for an extended period when producer Joe Davis signed him in the summer of 1942. Those sessions, fitted into a crowded schedule ahead of the ban, were slotted between vocalist Savannah Churchill’s more elaborate dates yet still produced distinctive material.
Subterfuge marked the proceedings, suggesting some participants preferred limited involvement. Credited songwriter Leslie Beacon never existed; the name served as a pseudonym for Davis, founder of the Beacon label. Featured vocalist Jim Parsons was likewise invented; the voice belonged to seasoned singer Irving Kaufman, possibly to distance himself from the song “Why Is My Little Red Head Blue?” Session logs indicate Clarke received fifty dollars for the work. In later decades, as audiences revived interest in the music of the 1930s and 1940s, he remained active from Hampton, Virginia, leading Buddy Clarke & His Big Swing Band, frequently with vocalist Marie Elena.
Confusion frequently arises with two other musicians who performed under the name Buddy Clark, themselves often interchanged because both appeared on the same Doris Day dates, one supplying vocals and the other on bass. The crooning Buddy Clark, whose surname ends without an “e,” forms a particularly persistent shadow, having entered the field in the same era and favoring comparable big-band repertoire. The bassist Clark covers a wider stylistic range, yet credit errors persistently route Clarke entries to him, as though a typesetter’s tube of glue had spilled across the logs.
The two big-band figures share one further detail: neither was born with the surname Clark or Clarke. Buddy Clark’s legal name was Buddy Goldberg; Clarke’s was Buddy Kreisberg. The latter had already directed bands at East Coast hotels such as the Montreal Mount Royal for an extended period when producer Joe Davis signed him in the summer of 1942. Those sessions, fitted into a crowded schedule ahead of the ban, were slotted between vocalist Savannah Churchill’s more elaborate dates yet still produced distinctive material.
Subterfuge marked the proceedings, suggesting some participants preferred limited involvement. Credited songwriter Leslie Beacon never existed; the name served as a pseudonym for Davis, founder of the Beacon label. Featured vocalist Jim Parsons was likewise invented; the voice belonged to seasoned singer Irving Kaufman, possibly to distance himself from the song “Why Is My Little Red Head Blue?” Session logs indicate Clarke received fifty dollars for the work. In later decades, as audiences revived interest in the music of the 1930s and 1940s, he remained active from Hampton, Virginia, leading Buddy Clarke & His Big Swing Band, frequently with vocalist Marie Elena.