Moonlight Saving Time
LP Broadway Intermission BR-143
When I listen to Ruth Etting I try not to think about her personal life, and I don’t either want to think about the motion picture Love Me or Leave Me starring Doris Day that is based on said tragic life. No, I prefer to think about the Vitaphone Short where she sings in the 1920s and has a lot of charisma. She expresses the joy of singing, of delivering a good song, and it was made in a time when the singers were not filmed with a microphone in front of them.
She wrote some good songs herself, and she recorded about 200 by others between 1926 and 1937. Furthermore, she also took part in several early talkies, from which some of the tracks on this 1987 LP is taken.
I also like to think about that Ruth Etting, with her recordings and radio appearances, offered comfort and a bit of escapism from the bitter reality during the depression. Moonlight Saving Time was recorded in 1931. The title is of course a travesty of daylight saving time that was introduced in the US in 1918.