Frank Luther - After World War II

After World War II

In 1946, Luther - by now a Decca Records executive, in charge of children's, educational, and religious recordings - returned to the studios to re-record many of his pre-war albums for children and to make many others, including "The Birthday Party Record" released on Decca in the fall of 1950. He had taken college-level courses in child psychology and was now busy as an educational lecturer, also doing hundreds of personal appearances in schools each year. Recording prolifically, his tenor voice began to mellow. By the early 1950s, he was singing baritone. Some years earlier, Luther and Zora Layman had divorced. He remarried and had two children, a daughter and son, in the late 1940s. He continued to record regularly for Decca through 1954.

While planning a record album based on Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Luther began writing songs based on the book and soon found that he had enough for a full-length play for adult audiences. The show he devised did not reach Broadway, but it was turned into a network television special on the U.S. Steel Hour in 1956. Decca released an original cast album that same year. The musical was subsequently performed around the country by little theatre groups and stock companies.

Frank Luther continued to record, forming his own label and then working for a variety of educational record companies. He did a series for United Artists Records, some albums of songs adapted from the writings of various children's authors, and some narrations of children's books. These included Babar Songs and Stories, an LP of retellings of Jean de Brunhoff's Babar the Elephant series he recorded for Vocalion Records in the early 1960s. On this album he punctuated his narrations of The Story of Babar, The Travels of Babar, Babar the King, Babar and his Children, Zephir's Holiday and Babar and Father Christmas with snatches of song at various junctures in the stories.

Luther also produced albums by others. His best-known work as a producer was the million-selling original cast album of the Off-Broadway musical, The Fantasticks.