McFarland Twins

Not well re­mem­bered today, the Mc­Far­land Twins, Art and George, led an or­ches­tra from the late 1930s into the mid-​1940s. The twins’ mu­si­cal style fo­cused on humor, nov­elty tunes, and group vo­cals, tak­ing a cue from Fred War­ing, for whom they worked as vo­cal­ists and sax­o­phone play­ers prior to form­ing their own band. The Mc­Far­lands had a brief pe­riod of pop­u­lar­ity in the early 1940s be­fore los­ing their best singers in early 1942, be­yond which their band went into quick de­cline. De­spite an at­tempt to re­vive the or­ches­tra after the war, the Mc­Far­lands qui­etly dis­ap­peared in 1946.

The Mc­Far­land Twins spent much of the late 1930s as pop­u­lar mem­bers of War­ing’s band, where they were known for their clown­ing and for their heck­ling of War­ing dur­ing shows. Near the end of 1938, the blond broth­ers broke out on their own, form­ing an eight-​piece band which fea­tured a singing trio and a glee club. Both Mc­Far­lands di­rected the or­ches­tra, one on ei­ther side of the stage, with Art han­dling swing tunes and George tak­ing sweet num­bers. Mu­si­cians out of the band pro­vided male vo­cals, with Judy Ab­bott added in Jan­u­ary 1939 as fe­male vo­cal­ist.

Pop­u­lar Years

The broth­ers’ first band failed to catch on, and in late 1939 the Mc­Far­lands formed a new twelve-​piece or­ches­tra. The up­dated out­fit re­ceived good re­views and soon earned a con­tract with Okeh Records. Using the tagline “Music That Wins by the Mc­Far­land Twins,” the band re­lied heav­ily on nov­elty tunes and fea­tured mul­ti­ple vo­cal­ists, a glee club, and a trio known as the Twin­sters Three. On com­edy num­bers, every­one in the band often par­tic­i­pated by ei­ther singing or speak­ing. Trum­pet player Bill Roberts was a vocal soloist through at least mid-​1941. Burt Ennis han­dled bal­lads until March 1941, with singer Jimmy Fos­ter tak­ing his place. Ad­di­tional vo­cal­ist Carl Denny joined by Feb­ru­ary but left by April.

The Mc­Far­land’s great­est as­sets, how­ever, came in the form of the Nor­ton Sis­ters, three young girls from Fair­field, Con­necti­cut, whom the twins dis­cov­ered dur­ing the band’s visit to nearby Bridge­port in De­cem­ber 1940. The youngest sis­ter, Betty, only thir­teen years old at the time, quickly be­came a fea­tured soloist in ad­di­tion to singing with her sib­lings. Betty han­dled jump tunes and also sang duets with the male vo­cal­ists. Older sis­ters Grace and Dorothy were 18 years old and al­most 21, re­spec­tively, when they joined.

In Oc­to­ber 1941, Fos­ter re­ceived his draft no­tice, with gui­tarist and singer Don Cor­nell join­ing the band to re­place him as male bal­ladeer. Jack Holmes also sang in De­cem­ber. The band left Okeh and signed with Blue­bird at the be­gin­ning of 1942, record­ing sev­eral sides for that label in Jan­u­ary. Those would be their only record­ings for Blue­bird. In March, both Cor­nell and the Nor­ton Sis­ters left the band, with Cor­nell join­ing Sammy Kaye and the sis­ters going to Carl Hoff. With the loss of the four singers, the band’s strongest vo­cal­ists, the or­ches­tra would never be the same again.

De­cline

Crit­ics com­plained about the qual­ity of the band’s singers from late 1942 on­ward. By Au­gust 1942, Betty En­gels had be­come fe­male vo­cal­ist, re­main­ing through at least De­cem­ber.^[1] Dick Shelby sang bal­lads in Au­gust, and trum­pet player Jack Palmer sang in De­cem­ber. Vo­cal­ist Dick Mer­rick joined in No­vem­ber, re­main­ing until May 1943. Jeff Clark­son and Anne Vin­cent also sang at some point. The band made a Para­mount short in Sep­tem­ber 1942.

Aside from their vo­cal­ist prob­lem, as the war went on the Mc­Far­lands had a hard time keep­ing qual­ity mu­si­cians, es­pe­cially those were also ca­pa­ble singers and co­me­di­ans. Dur­ing one week in April 1943, they lost seven men, more than half the or­ches­tra, to the draft. The band strug­gled on until late 1944 when it broke up, though it’s un­clear if that was by choice or sim­ply be­cause they couldn’t se­cure book­ings. The twins went to work in a war plant until Jan­u­ary 1945 when they se­cured their re­lease from book­ing agency MCA by prov­ing that they had been in­ac­tive for six weeks. This was a com­mon tac­tic for band­lead­ers who were un­happy with their agency and wanted to change.

Free of MCA, they signed with Fred­er­ick Broth­ers and or­ga­nized a new band. The new Mc­Far­land or­ches­tra seemed as if it might get off the ground, mak­ing a Co­lum­bia mu­si­cal short in Jan­u­ary 1946 and record­ing on the Mel­rose label in Feb­ru­ary. It failed to make a name for it­self how­ever. The band was still ac­tive in May, but be­yond that it and the twins dis­ap­pear into the mists of his­tory.

The Mc­Far­lands ex­pe­ri­enced a brief mo­ment of nos­tal­gic pop­u­lar­ity in 1949 when Nor­folk, Vir­ginia, disc jockey Ed Lam­bert, of WCAV radio, dusted off a record­ing of their theme song, “Dark­ness,” and played it on his show. Ac­cord­ing to Bill­board mag­a­zine, it “stirred au­di­ence re­ac­tion to the point where Co­lum­bia [who owned Okeh] reis­sued it.”

Notes