A Slice of American History

“V-Disc: The Songs That Went to War” is a remarkable CD set--as much for the story behind the historic recordings as for the music itself.

As outlined in the booklet accompanying the Time-Life Music/ Warner Special Products package, “V-Discs” were recordings made in the ‘40s as morale boosters for military personnel.

None of the estimated 2,000 recordings--involving such stars of the day as Perry Como and the Count Basie Orchestra--was sold commercially.

One reason for the project was that commercial recordings at the time weren’t released on cassette tapes or even vinyl recordings. They were issued on 10-inch shellac discs that were so fragile they invariably broke when mailed to military bases overseas.

Recognizing the importance of pop music in morale, a military branch lobbied the Pentagon for funding that would set up, in effect, an alternative military music system.

With approval from the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), which had prohibited its members from making commercial recordings in 1942 because of a dispute with record companies over jukebox royalties, many of the nation’s biggest pop stars volunteered for the recording sessions. The music was then put on plastic V-Discs and shipped overseas.

While many of the more than six-dozen tracks in the set will be of only marginal interest to today’s pop audience, several have a continuing value. The latter include a pre-Mary Ford version of “How High the Moon” by the Les Paul Trio, as well as such varied entries as Marian Anderson’s “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Peggy Lee’s “I Get the Blues When It Rains” and the Nat King Cole Trio’s “Candy.”

Among other artists included in the new Time-Life package: the Andrew Sisters, Louis Armstrong, Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Louis Jordan, Kay Starr and Josh White, plus the orchestras of Count Basie, the Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Harry James, Sammy Kaye, Stan Kenton and Jimmie Lunceford.

Mickey Kapp, president of Warner Special Products, spearheaded the new album project, obtaining permission from artists and publishers and bringing together original V-Discs from his and other collections.

George T. Simon, who has written extensively on the big-band era and produced many of the original V-Disc sessions, worked with Kapp in choosing titles for the series, and Lee Herschberg, head of engineering for Warner Bros. Records, helped eliminate distortion and hiss from the old discs.

The set, consisting of two two-CD boxes, can be ordered by phoning the Time-Life Customer Service, (800) 621-7026. The set costs $59.96, or the boxes can be purchased separately.