Rapture Records

Song: I’m Making Believe / Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall

Artist: Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald

Record Label: Brunswick 03573 / Decca 23356 

Recorded: August 30, 1944

Location: The Railway Cafe, The Limbo Room

This record is a bit of a doozy in more ways than one. Not only do we have two great vocal artists as a duet, but both sides of this record have been featured separately and each reached #1 on US Pop Charts.

Additionally, I’ve managed to find both the UK Brunswick pressing and the US Decca release. Oddly the A-sides and B-sides are flipped on the US and UK versions

All this has never happened before on one record so forgive me if I repeat some information.

You’ll hear this sentimental song first playing on a lonely phonograph on the counter of the burning kitchen of the Railway Cafe in the Atlantic Express Depot.

It comes up again playing on the upright record player in the abandoned Limbo Room in Pauper’s Drop. Two splicers do a slow dance to the tune on the ruined stage. Nearby is one of Eleanor’s gifts, Hypnotize, tantalizing perched on a red wagon in front of a curiously destroyed Gatherer’s Garden.

After dealing with the splicers, you’ll find in Grace Holloway’s deserted dressing room her audio diary about “Closing the Limbo Room”, the place where she first met her husband, James.

Once again we have a lovely duet with the Ink Spots and the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald. The piano lends a particular melancholy to the piece.

Both sides reached number one on music charts with the record reaching #4 for 1944 overall.

The Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald would team up for another record with “I’m Beginning to see the Light” and “That’s the Way It Is” as well as single for “Cow Cow Boogie”.

This song was nominated for an Oscar during the 17th Academy Awards for the film Sweet and Low-Down starring bandleader Benny Goodman, actress Linda Darnell, and comedian Jack Oakie. This is the only movie that Goodman did. It’s a comedy based on a fictionalized account of Benny Goodman’s life with a key plot point about a kid stealing Goodman’s famous clarinet. Goodman manages to hear the thief’s brother play the trombone and offer him a job in his band.

Critics panned the film, but the music was probably the focus of the movie. Not only do you hear Goodman’s great music (including “Jersey Bounce” and “No Love, No Nothing”, but you also hear an earlier arrangement of The Pied Pipers and jazz pianist Jess Stacey.

Here’s a clip of “I’m Making Believe” from the film sung by Lynn Bari.