#7: I Ain’t Down Yet by Dinah Shore

City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: March 1961
Peak Position in Hull ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Cashbox Top 100 Best Sellers ~ #103
YouTube: “I Ain’t Down Yet”
Lyrics: “I Ain’t Down Yet”

Frances Rose Shore was born 1916 in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee. Her parents were Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers. At 18 months of age, she was stricken with polio. She developed a limp and a deformed foot. She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in sociology. In 1938 she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, and made her radio debut on WSM in Nashville. She moved to New York City and auditioned to appear on radio. One of the popular songs of the era was “Dinah”, first recorded by Ethel Waters in 1925, and Louis Armstrong in 1930. Shore sang “Dinah” for WNEW DJ Martin Block. When he could not remember her name, he called her the “Dinah girl”, and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name. Dinah Shore eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra. She recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a record contract with RCA Victor in 1940.

In February 1940, Shore became a featured vocalist on the NBC radio show The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. She was introduced as “Mademoiselle Dinah ‘Diva’ Shore, who starts a fire by rubbing two notes together!” She recorded with the two Basin Street bands for RCA. One of her records was the eponymous Dinah’s Blues. That year she had her first charting single, “The Breeze and I”, which peaked at #13 on the Billboard pop chart.

Shore’s singing came to the attention of Eddie Cantor. He signed her as a regular on his radio show, Time to Smile, in 1940. Shore credits him for teaching her self-confidence, comedic timing, and the ways of connecting with an audience. In 1943, Shore appeared in her first movie, Thank Your Lucky Stars, starring Cantor.

She soon went to another radio show, Paul Whiteman Presents. During this time, the United States was involved in WWII, and Shore became a favorite with the troops. She had hits, including “Jim” (#5 hit in 1941), “Blues in the Night” (#4 in 1942), “Skylark” (#5 in 1942), and two #3 hits in 1943: “Why Don’t You Fall In Love with Me?” “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To”.  In 1944, “I’ll Walk Alone” was her first number-one hit. She also appeared with Danny Kaye in the film Up in Arms, and in the morale boosting movie Follow the Boys. As well, Dinah Shore appeared in Belle of the Yukon, a comedy musical western.

In 1945, her cover of Jo Stafford’s “Candy” reached #5. 

Shore continued appearing in radio shows throughout the 1940s, including The Bird’s Eye Open House and Ford Radio Show. In early 1946, she moved to a new label, the CBS-owned Columbia Records. At Columbia, Shore enjoyed the greatest commercial success of her recording career, starting with her first Columbia single release in 1946, “Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy”, which climbed to #6. She scored two more #3 hits in 1946, “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside)”. The year also added a second number-one hit titled “The Gypsy”. She also appeared in the fictionalized biopic of the life of Jerome Kern titled Till The Clouds Roll By. 

In 1947, Dinah Shore had several #2 hits with “(I Love You) for Sentimental Reasons”, and “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So”. She added a third number-one hit that year titled “The Anniversary Song”. Her fourth number-one hit came along in 1948 titled “Buttons and Bows”, which was number one for ten weeks. A second Top Ten hit that year was “Lavender Blue”, based on a 17th century english nursery rhyme.  Shore soon became a successful singing star with her own radio show, Call for Music, which was broadcast on CBS from February 13, 1948, to April 16, 1948, and on NBC from April 20, 1948, to June 29, 1948.

Dinah Shore’s big hits in 1949 were “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and “Dear Hearts and Gentle People”. She started out the next decade with a #3 hit titled “My Heart Cries For You”. And in 1951, “Sweet Violets” was a #3 hit for Shore, her last Top Ten hit. From November 1951 to July 1957, she hosted the 15-minute The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. She also had a radio show from 1953 to 1955 titled The Dinah Shore Show.

On the pop charts, Dinah Shore was shut out of the Top Ten, though “Blue Canary” reached #11 in 1953, and “Whatever Lola Wants” climbed to #12 in 1955. In 1957, “Fascination” was her last Top 20 hit, peaking at #15.

Dinah Shore was one of many traditional pop singers swept away by the new sound of rock ‘n roll. Her final shot at the Billboard Hot 100 was in 1961 with “I Ain’t Down Yet”.

“I Ain’t Down Yet” was written by Meridith Willson who was born in Mason City, Iowa, in 1902. As a child he played bass drum in a Salvation Army Band. He later learned flute and piccolo and played in John Philip Sousa’s band from 1921 to 1924. From 1924 to 1929, Willson was with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction or Arturo Toscanini. He became a regular on radio in San Francisco on KFRC with the Blue Monday Jamboree in the late ’20s. In 1940, he scored the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. The next year he received another nomination in the same category for The Little Foxes. In 1941, Willson’s song “You And I” was a number-one hit for the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and a Top Ten hit that year for Bing Crosby. As well, “Two In Love” was a Top Ten hit that year for Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra. In 1942, Willson had a summer show on NBC radio: Meredith Willson’s Music. He hosted his own music show titled Sparkle Time on CBS radio for the 1946-47 season. From November 1950 to April 1952, Meredith Willson scored the music for NBC radio’s The Big Show, hosted by Tallulah Bankhead. Regular guests included Jimmy Durante, Mindy Carson, Fred Allen, Frankie Laine, Ethel Mermen, and Danny Thomas. For the show, Willson wrote “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You”.

In 1951, Meredith Willson’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”, became a seasonal hit for Perry Como. In 2022, the song climbed to #6 for Michael Buble on the UK Singles chart. From December 1951 to July 1953, Willson was a panelist on the game show The Name’s the Same. In 1954, “I See the Moon” was a #1 hit for the Stargazers in the UK. His 1957 tune “Till There Was You”, from The Music Man, was a Top 30 hit for Anita Bryant in 1959 and later recorded by The Beatles in 1963. The Fab Four performed the song during their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 9, 1964. Subsequently, the Beatles’ “Till There Was You” was a number-one hit in Boston and Phoenix, a Top 5 hit in Springfield (MA) and Washington DC, and a Top Ten hit in Lansing (MI). Internationally, the Beatles’ treatment of “Till There Was You” was a #11 hit in Sydney, Australia.

In 1958, he won a Tony Award for Best Musical for The Music Man, with songs that included “Seventy-Six Trombones”. In 1963, Meredith Willson adapted the 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street, into a Broadway musical titled Here’s Love. He subsequently wrote the musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown on Broadway in 1960. Willson also appeared in 1958 on the game show I’ve Got a Secret.

Willson wrote three memoirs: And There I Stood With My Piccolo (1948), Eggs I Have Laid (1955), and But He Doesn’t Know the Territory (1959). Meredith Willson died at age 82 in 1984. On June 23, 1987, Willson posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan. In 1999, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp featuring Willson. He was also awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio at 6411 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

1999 US postage stamp bearing the image of Meredith Willson

“I Ain’t Down Yet” is a song from the Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. 

The plot is a fictionalized account of the life of socialite and philanthropist Margaret Brown (1867-1932), who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 12, 1912, and her wealthy Colorado miner-husband “Leadville Johnny Brown”. After the overture in the musical, “I Ain’t Down Yet” is the opening number. It introduces the audience to Margaret Brown, who was born in Hannibal, Missouri, in a three-room cottage. At the age of 18, she moved to Leadville, Colorado, and found work sewing carpets and draperies at a dry goods store. She married for love and had two children with Jim Brown.

Photo of Jim and Molly Brown, and children Lawrence Palmer (Larry) and Catherine Ellen (Helen) (circa 1891)

While her husband worked in the mine, Molly Brown worked at a soup kitchen to assist miners’ families. In the song, “I Ain’t Down Yet”, the young woman sings about coming from “nowhere,” and is portrayed as a rag-a-muffin-tomboy. She has big dreams: “I’m gonna find a house with a golden stair. And if that house is red and has a big brass bed, I’m living there.” She vows she’s going “to learn to read and write.”

“I Ain’t Down Yet” climbed to #1 in Hull (QC), and #10 in Rochester (NY). The song stalled just beneath the Billboard Hot 100 at #103.

After it was a hit on Broadway, “I Ain’t Down Yet” became a pop standard. The Lester Lanin Orchestra made a recording of the song in 1962. Broadway performer and recording artist, John Gary, also recorded the song in 1966.

In 1964, Debbie Reynolds played the role of Molly Brown in the film adaptation of The Unsinkable Molly Brown. 

The film adaptation received six Academy Award nominations at the 37th Oscar ceremony in April 1965. This included a Best Actress nomination for Debbie Reynolds.

Between 1941 and 1979, Dinah Shore released forty studio albums. She appeared on The Ed Wynn Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Danny Thomas Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, Here’s Lucy, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Mary Hartman – Mary Hartman, The Carol Burnett Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Alice, Murder She Wrote, and others. From October 1974 to October 1980, she hosted her own TV variety talk show, Dinah!

Dinah Shore died of ovarian cancer at the age of 77 in 1994, days before her 78th birthday. In her home town in Winchester (TN) they named a street Dinah Shore Boulevard in her honor. In 1996, a Golden Palm Star was added in her honor on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.

November 8, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Dinah Shore, Homey Singer and Star of TV, dies at 76,” New York Times, February 25, 1994.
“Meredith Willson Bio,” meredithwillson.com.
“Quiet Services Held for Unsinkable Mrs. Brown,” San Bernardino County Sun, October 31, 1932.
“The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” meredithwillson.com.
A.H. Weiler, “Screen: Exploits of ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’:Debbie Reynolds Stars in M-G-M Musical,” New York Times, July 17, 1964.

CKCH 970-AM Hull (QC) Top Ten | March 1961