Frank Luther - Stephen Foster Melodies

Stephen Foster Melodies

While his recordings for children remained his chief claim to fame, Luther made a number of successful 78rpm album sets for Decca in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Focusing on Americana (he wrote a book, Americans and Their Songs, published in 1942), he made albums of Civil War songs from both the North and South, songs of early New York, songs of old California, Gay Nineties songs, Irish favorites, and rare Christmas carols. Many of these he and Zora Layman performed on their own radio series. Most widely-acclaimed were two albums of compositions by Stephen Foster. Performed with a sensitivity and sentimentality stylistically consistent with the famous American composer's approach, Luther's renditions were active in the Decca catalogue for some fifteen years. His interpretations of such compositions as "Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway," "The Hour For Thee and Me," "Beautiful Dreamer," "Sweetly She Sleeps, My Alice Fair," "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Comrades, Fill No Glass For Me" were acclaimed by music critics of the day.