Imperial Dance Orchestra - Blue Skies

This appears to be a pseudonym for Adrian Schubert. Staggeringly prolific Adrian Schubert was not a bandleader in the usual sense, since he rather was a musical director, working with dozens of outfits under equally numerous pseudonyms, merely for recording purposes. He did hire many top musicians though (trumpeter Mike Mosiello, trombonist Tommy Dorsey, saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey, clarinetist Benny Goodman, multi-instrumentalist Andy Sannella, percussion virtuoso George Hamilton Green and violinist and vocalist Scrappy Lambert, etc). Arthur Fields (1888-1953, né Abraham Finkelstein) was an American baritone vocalist and songwriter, who became a professional singer as a youngster. Around 1908 he toured with Guy Brother's Minstrel Show, and helped form a vaudeville act "Weston, Fields and Carroll". His first hit as a songwriter was On The Mississippi (1912) which he wrote the music for with Harry Carroll and Ballard MacDonald supplied the lyrics. In 1914 he wrote the lyrics to Aba Daba Honeymoon, which was revived for the 1950 M.G.M. film Two Weeks With Love and thus got a renewed popularity which brought Fields large royalty incomes during his last two years. From 1914 onward he recorded with many bands and for many labels and had a varied career in the recording industry. His 1919 recordings with bandleader Ford Dabney may be the very first recordings of a white singer backed by a black band. For a period Fields also formed a vocal trio with brothers Jack and Irving Kaufman, billing themselves as "The Three Kaufields". Fields also often appeared on records under pseudonyms, for example as "Mr X." on Grey Gull Records and related labels. His last records were made in the early 1940s. Among Field's most prolific partnerships was the one with band leader and pianist Fred Hall, with whom Fields made plenty of records and co-wrote several songs (see the notes concerning Fred Hall above). Hall and Fields also broadcasted together as Rex Cole's Mountaineers. Retiring to Florida in 1946 he also worked in radio on WKAT Miami. He suffered a stroke early in 1953 and was killed in a fire at Littlefield Nursing Home in Largo a little later the same year. This wonderful record was made in 1926.