Burl Ives

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Disc's archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection.

Speaker 30:15

The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library. For Wright's reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:26

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 30:31

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 30:35

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:53

On our desert island this week is the folk singer and actor Burl Ives. Burl, do you play records at home? No, I used to play records a lot. I used to be quite a fan. But I'm not I don't play many records now for the reason that there's too much music. Every place you go there there's there's music playing and I go home and the music is playing and I I make them stop it because uh there is other sounds that I would rather hear.

Presenter1:28

I'd rather hear the birds sing.

Presenter1:30

and I would rather hear the wind blowing through the trees

Presenter1:34

than to hear uh most music.

Presenter1:37

If I could choose my music, uh, then that would be different. Did you have a hard job choosing this miserable allowance of eight records for your isolation?

Presenter1:47

Uh not really uh very difficult because um I uh went back to the time when I um played records for my own pleasure, when I had time to sit down and give it the kind of attention that uh m music deserves. What's the first one? Well, I'm I'm crazy about the uh Dennis Brain uh Mozart concerto. Number four, that that famous one.

Speaker 12:04

First one.

Presenter2:13

Yes, yes. Well, I like it all. I like him. I think that he he takes that instrument and he makes it sing and I think he's the greatest player of that horn I ever heard.

Burl Ives2:33

Uh

Burl Ives2:47

Yeah.

Burl Ives2:52

Yeah.

Presenter3:25

The last movement, the rondo, from the Mozart Fourth Horn Concerto in E flat major, Dennis Brain with the Philharmonial Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carrier.

Presenter3:36

Now, Burl, you're from the Midwest, from the State of Illinois. Whereabouts exactly?

Presenter3:42

I had come from a a little town.

Presenter3:45

I was born in the country, you know, out on a farm. But the little town in our township was called Hunt. It had a hundred people in it. So finally we moved in there.

Presenter3:56

And then later I went to school at the county seat, which was uh three thousand population. You were christened Burl Ickel Ivanhoe Ives. Now Ickel's a very unusual name.

Presenter4:09

It is.

Presenter4:10

Another family name, is it?

Presenter4:12

I don't know what that name is. I asked my parents once.

Presenter4:15

And they looked at each other and laughed.

Presenter4:18

And that's as far as I got. So it's a private joke of some sort of a matter of time. I still don't know.

Speaker 14:21

I

Burl Ives4:21

Uh

Speaker 14:21

Uh

Presenter4:23

Do you come from a big family? Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters? There were seven, seven children, yes. You showed musical talent very early on. Where did that come from?

Presenter4:32

Was there a lot of music in the house? When I was very small, my father bought one of those old pump organs you know, for the family. And um my older sister learned to play it.

Presenter4:47

And of course the only thing that they played there were hymns, you know, evangelistic hymns, which I was brought up on.

Presenter4:54

and everybody gathered round the pump. Oregon to sing hymns

Presenter4:58

And I'm the the little one there and I'm piping up pretty good there.

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And I guess I must have been the only one singing on pitch.

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Because I got a lot of attention and I think is probably why we're sitting and talking today, is my

Presenter5:12

Uh the attention I got singing those hymns, I just kept going along on that. Mm-hmm. I didn't have much else. And when did you begin to learn folk songs?

Presenter5:23

Well, I can't tell because it was a gradual thing. It

Presenter5:27

My g grandmother sang and my uh father sang, my mother sang, my father not so much. But it was a part of the family uh uh goings on, you might say. This happened all day long, so uh it was something that was never done deliberately, but uh I just sort of absorbed with growing up. What did you want to be?

Presenter5:48

I really never thought about it till I got in high school and then I thought I might be uh the football coach. Yes. And then uh I saw what kind of heat they had to take.

Presenter6:01

And uh I was discouraged from that. And then I that was during the depression and I w I just took off down the down the road.

Presenter6:10

And anything, you know, to make a living in those days. Where did you learn the guitar?

Presenter6:16

Well, I I really didn't learn it. I

Presenter6:20

picked it up myself. I still play the same three chords that I I played originally.

Presenter6:27

Well, let's break off at this point for your second record. What next?

Presenter6:30

One of one of the records that I used to play.

Presenter6:33

was um

Presenter6:35

Over the Wings of a Dove and a a singer by the name of Derek Barsham, a boy soprano, sang it. And uh I was very taken with that record. And um

Presenter6:48

I couldn't locate that, but I found uh another record by uh Derek Barsham called Silent Worship, which I also liked very much, the song. I used to like that song very much because that is the most naive

Presenter7:06

song I think I ever heard.

Presenter7:09

And I'm especially taken with it because with this naïve, beautiful voice of Derek Barsham singing it, that makes it more naïve than ever. It it's it's it's it's astonishing.

Burl Ives7:27

Oh darling garden singing

Burl Ives7:33

Blackboard and Flushwood Cylon.

Burl Ives7:38

To hear the ellies ringing.

Burl Ives7:44

First of you not, my lady, Out in the garden

Burl Ives7:57

Shaming of rose and lily.

Burl Ives8:03

Was she twice as fair?

Presenter8:17

Handel's naive song Silent Worship, sung by Derek Bosham, who is billed as The Boys Brigade Boy Soprano.

Presenter8:27

So, Burle, you you quit high school, you took to the road to see the world.

Presenter8:32

The time of the depression. Were you doing it the hard way? Were you riding the rods uh under the trains? No, that that's greatly exaggerated. I did ride freight trains, but riding the rods only daredevils did that. To get down and and put boards under a train and get down there with all that soot

Presenter8:50

And uh t to fight that out. It's hard enough to get in a box car or in a coal car. It's a lousy way to travel. Whenever I could I I I went in the highway. I only got on a train when I couldn't get out any other way. And you were taking casual jobs, seasonal jobs? If I had to, but I d I didn't like to work. I um played the guitar and sang in the banjo. Where? In bars? Anyplay. In the streets. In the streets, restaurant, uh, you know, you name it.

Speaker 19:14

And a banjo.

Presenter9:23

Where did you go? Well, I'm I'm I uh traveled to forty six of the of the then forty eight states. Forty six states?

Presenter9:30

Had you any particular objective? Well, this was just uh seeing the world and making some sort of a living. Where did you want to end up?

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There is an old uh tradition among hobos

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which I learned very early.

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and that is if you have a destination in your mind

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And you start out.

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Chances are against you. You might not make it. So it's better to just go wherever the wind blows. What was your first professional jobs? I mean, apart from playing in bars, churches, streets and places that shall be nameless. When were you really hired as a person? Well, the first job that I got paid for was when I was very small, I guess around four years old. I was working in the garden with my mother.

Speaker 110:11

Well

Presenter10:20

and the road came right along beside where we were working, and an old soldier came along that's what we call them, men who fought in the in the war between the states. His name was Uncle Ira Vance.

Presenter10:33

And we were singing a hymn, and he said, Well, we'll have to have that at the old soldiers' reunion. Of course, my mother wouldn't agree to that, but uh he asked me if I would sing. I said, Sure.

Presenter10:46

He said, Will you really? I said, Yes. He said, I'll give you a dollar, if you will. I said, I will be there and I will sing. So I was there and I sang and I got a dollar for it, and that was a lot of money. Surely. I've been a pro ever since. Hate singing for nothing. Let's have another record.

Presenter11:04

Well, here's an unusual song.

Presenter11:07

Ravishing Ruby.

Presenter11:09

Tom T. Hall. He's a new uh fellow down in Nashville.

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I've never met him, actually.

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But he writes some very unusual country western songs.

Burl Ives11:21

Wherever B

Burl Ives11:23

She'd missed.

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And around Wild Rabbit Shoovie

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She what a truck stop cat.

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Born in the back of a re

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Somewhere near LA ravishing room You poured a lot of hot coffee and you were there

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Ravishing Rubin

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Tom T. Hall and Ravishing Ruby.

Presenter11:52

Right, now getting back to your story. You bummed your way through 46 out of the 48 states. You ended up in New York.

Presenter12:01

Mhm. What did you do there?

Presenter12:04

Well, I wanted to study singing and study music and uh and and and learn.

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Um well, I had to have something some money, you understand. So I um answered a ad in the New York Times for um a singer of of uh Gregorian chant.

Presenter12:26

Of course I'd never sung a chant in my life. I'm a Midwestern Protestant. But, um, you know, have a little go. So I I went down, tried out for the job.

Burl Ives12:34

Uh

Presenter12:39

And I didn't get it. They wanted four tenors to sing the responses in the a high Episcopal church called Saint Mary of the Virgin on Forty Sixth Street.

Presenter12:49

And um I didn't get the job, but one fella dropped out and I was called for the next.

Presenter12:55

So there I studied with a man by the name of Raymond Knowle, and I sang plain chant for three years.

Presenter13:01

And it was very good training and I used that a lot in my uh ballad singing because you sort of learn to float the tone there, you know. So I think it had an influence and I used it very adroitly, I think. When did you start your acting career?

Presenter13:17

Ah.

Presenter13:19

Well, I did acting when I was a little boy. When I moved into town, we had a theatrical group, believe it or not, in this little town of a hundred population. In the wintertime we did uh we did plays. They were called hometown plays, hometown productions. And then in school I did acting.

Presenter13:36

So it was natural when I went to New York that I began to sort of think in terms of

Presenter13:42

The stage

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And so I did summer stock for several years.

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My first job on Broadway was a boys from Syracuse.

Presenter13:50

Ah, yes, a musical. Uh, Rogers and Howard, wasn't it? Right.

Speaker 113:51

Rogers and Hurt, was it?

Presenter13:53

And you were keeping your guitar, your singing going. Mm-hmm. And then you had a spell in the United States Army. Was there any music tied up with that? Oh, yes. I was in Fort Dix and I got a call from Ezra Stone. Familiar name. They wanted me in the Army show. The Irving Berlin, what? The Irving Berlin. This is the Army. This is the Army.

Presenter14:15

So I um

Presenter14:17

I went to another p camp and as I walked down the camp road with my satchel toward where the show people were, you know

Presenter14:27

The soldier said, There goes another one to Petticoat Lane.

Presenter14:34

So I uh I was I was in that show until the time to make the movie and then I I moved out. What happened when the war was over?

Presenter14:43

Well, I uh went into uh Cafe Society in New York and also got a job on CBS and um, you know, so uh s things started moving in. And then you went to the west coast and started your film career?

Presenter14:59

Well, I w I first did couple Westerns.

Presenter15:02

Early, you know, it was smoky and thing where I didn't do much acting. I didn't really get a chance to do anything worthwhile until I did Big Daddy in New York, uh, with Tennessee Williams cat on a hot tin roof. Now, before we start talking about that peak in your career, let's have your fourth record. What's that?

Presenter15:20

Well, I was always a great fan of John McCormick.

Presenter15:26

I th I think that he w was a wonderful singer.

Presenter15:29

A lot of the time he was disappointing when you'd go to his concerts and he kept on singing Mother McCree and uh

Presenter15:37

the Irish songs, but he was a great classic singer.

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He sang a leader very beautifully in the old Italian anthology.

Presenter15:46

And um I like the way he he sang Panus Angelicus, uh Caesar Franck.

Burl Ives16:40

On is my journey for

Presenter16:52

John McCormack, Panisangelicus.

Presenter16:55

Now you mentioned Big Daddy. That of course was in the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. That was directed by Ilya Kazan, wasn't it? Right. He had a big influence on you.

Burl Ives17:04

Right.

Presenter17:08

Oh yes, well he gave me my first opportunity in um East of Eden. There had been a point when you were gonna give the whole thing up, hadn't? Oh yes. It was right after East of Eden as a matter of fact. Uh but I worked with Kazan earlier when I did uh a thing with the theater gill called Sing Out the Land, something like that. Sing Out Sweet Land.

Presenter17:31

And uh they got in trouble with that the show.

Presenter17:34

Because it really was not a play. It had no uh plot.

Presenter17:39

It was a pageant.

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And uh uh

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It was a story of this fellow who went from colonial times up to the present and singing the music and

Presenter17:52

within the context of the history of the country.

Presenter17:55

That was quite charming.

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and it had been done at uh George Washington University, I believe, down in Washington, sort of in an amateurish fashion.

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and was very successful.

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When it was translated into uh

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Broadway, something didn't happen. So, um, it wasn't doing very well, except I was doing great. Somebody else had to carry the load. And in each uh scene

Presenter18:27

Why, they would there would be a ballad, you know.

Presenter18:30

And uh various songs. Well, I'd sneak in there and do my song, you know, and I'd I did my own stuff and I did it pretty good, so I'd steal that scene, you know, and go on to the next one. So I was doing fine.

Presenter18:42

Except I only had one song. And Kazan came in and he said, Well, this is about the only thing you got going for you here, so he put me in all the other scenes and s that's how I managed to get uh along. Tell me some other acting highlights. You got an Oscar for one Hollywood film.

Presenter19:03

Yes, I got uh the um supporting role for a uh movie called The Big Country, which was uh directed by Willie Wyler. That was the same year that I that I did uh Big Daddy.

Presenter19:18

But they didn't put me up for Big Daddy. They wanted me to to to to run for a a supporting role. And I said, Well, I don't really think that's fair to Tennessee Williams because I don't think Big Daddy is a supporting role. I think that's that's uh that's what's your role. Well, I I think it was the best

Burl Ives19:34

Yeah.

Speaker 119:34

Bye.

Presenter19:38

role in in uh theater literature in in the States and

Presenter19:42

twenty five, thirty years, since O'Neill actually. Yeah.

Presenter19:45

And and you played quite a lot of O'Neil? Well, I p I played only one. Desire Under the Elms. Yes. But they wanted me to rant in Big Daddy as as supporting role, and I s I I refused it. I said I don't want an Oscar that bad.

Speaker 119:50

Yeah.

Speaker 119:51

But

Presenter20:00

And so, um

Presenter20:02

Then I got it for the other one. Well, nevertheless, that wasn't a bad year, was it, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and the Big Country.

Presenter20:08

That was a disastrous year because I had Big Daddy and I had uh the big country and wind across the Everglades and uh Desire under the Elms and I haven't had a decent roll since. Let's have another record. We got to number five. Record number five.

Presenter20:27

Joan Sutherland uh made uh an album with all of the great uh uh the arias.

Presenter20:34

which had been made famous by the the the famous Devas of the past, Narcella, Sembric, Gallakerchi, and so on and so forth.

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And she took all of those um arias and uh did an album and uh

Presenter20:51

Well

Presenter20:53

I heard some of them sing, but I didn't hear all of them. But if they could sing like she sang them, well, they must have been pretty good.

Burl Ives21:21

Oh, dear sio.

Burl Ives21:29

Thus come and war.

Presenter22:02

Joan Sutherland singing Caro Nome from Verdi's Regoletto.

Presenter22:08

Burl, you were running these twin careers as actor and folk singer. When did you start your big overseas tours? When did you first come to Europe?

Presenter22:17

But in nineteen fifty, the first time I came to Europe,

Presenter22:20

I went to the uh festival in Praz, hm, the Bach festival. It was when um mister Crasals came out of retirement.

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And then I came back through London.

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I didn't sing then, but two years later I came back in fifty two and did a uh concert at uh

Presenter22:46

Royal Festival Hall. About as big as they come. And you also played at the intimate Cafe de Paris in London. Oh, yeah, that was later on, yes. We had a little problem with that. What was the problem?

Presenter22:58

Well, when you were a concert singer, you're a concert singer and you're not a cafe de Paris singer or a a variety singer and I I did all of them and uh we went on a variety tour as well. And um so we had a little problem uh with a work permit, you know. Uh uh but uh they were very kind and uh it was arranged all right. But uh I guess you can crack corn any place. You were married in London, were you not? Yes. About eight years ago Dorothy and I got married at Laxon Hall. And uh well that's how this tour happened. The Chris Present tour. Yeah, we were coming through here. I d I sang um in Israel last summer. I did six concerts for.

Presenter23:45

the benefit of the uh the theater there for

Presenter23:48

Poor children. And I came back through here and, um, called Ernie, of course. He was my best man here when I got married. Mhm.

Presenter23:57

And he said, uh well why don't you come back and do a concert uh o on the occasion of uh

Presenter24:03

Your anniversary.

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And of course Dorothy, my wife, sees this fine idea.

Presenter24:08

And I said, Okay So uh that's how the whole thing started and it sort of mushroomed into I think uh about fifty or sixty concerts and and um big time, gonna have big time. But we are going to be in Royal Festival Hall on uh

Presenter24:28

My anniversary, which I've forgotten. You don't tell your answer. That's traditional. Always forget that.

Speaker 124:32

I always forgot.

Presenter24:35

Isn't it traditional to forget it? Oh, surely he's

Presenter24:39

Where do you get your songs from? Now, folk music is is something of an industry these days. How do you tell the old from the new?

Presenter24:46

Or doesn't it matter?

Burl Ives24:47

Uh

Presenter24:48

Well, it matters because, um

Presenter24:52

The new ones, you know, the um

Presenter24:55

You gotta pay somebody for for doing them. The old ones are not the copyrighted, you see. Do you write songs yourself?

Presenter25:02

Yeah.

Presenter25:03

I do a lot of editing, but I I don't write songs. Let's have another record. Well, a Mead Lux Lewis.

Presenter25:12

was around

Presenter25:14

New York City about you know, about nineteen oh

Presenter25:19

I guess thirty. A strange thing happened in New York all at once.

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For some reason

Presenter25:27

like birds, you know. All all the ballad singers

Presenter25:31

ended up in New York. Nobody knew the other guy was coming, but we all ended up there. Lead Belly, the Golden Gate Quartet, Josh White, Woody Guthrie, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. We all ended up in New York City and got under the wing of Alan Lomax who put us on the air at Columbia. And um

Presenter25:52

Uh at that time there was also a renaissance of jazz.

Presenter25:56

New Orleans in in New York, and Eddie Condon, and oh, many, many of the of the people were there. So this whole thing sort of uh the the songs and the music of the people sort of uh in quotes uh began to uh get in the in the big time, in other words. Uh

Presenter26:17

And um Mead Lux Lewis was one of the uh what they call boogie woogie pianists of the time.

Presenter26:25

And um Columbia Broadcast had had a program called uh

Presenter26:31

THE American School of the Air.

Presenter26:33

That was for schools.

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And so they did a program of American music.

Presenter26:39

On it they had a jazz singer, and a young lady walked in, who was very skinny.

Presenter26:45

And she had just made a very successful record called Atiscat Ataska. I think I know who that is. Yes. And Mead Lux Lewis was. And uh uh uh Josh White and uh the Golden Gate Quartet and uh myself and um

Presenter27:07

This was sort of a representative program of all kinds of American music. Well, I got there early.

Presenter27:14

And me deluxe Lewis was sitting at the piano going, Ti dom, ti dom, ti dom, just playing very slowly and I went over to him and I said, uh

Presenter27:23

listened a moment. I said, What's the name of that tune?

Presenter27:27

And he smiled, said You know this story about that.

Presenter27:29

said once in Kansas City I was going home late at night

Presenter27:33

I went into a saloon.

Presenter27:36

There was a woman at the bar, asleep in her hands, and the bartender was there.

Presenter27:40

I bought a beer, went to the piano, and I started playing slowly this tune.

Presenter27:46

And the girl came over, stood a moment, and said

Presenter27:50

What's the name of the tune?

Presenter27:52

And I answered four o'clock blues.

Presenter27:55

And she said, What time is it?

Presenter27:58

I said about four o'clock.

Presenter28:01

Alas, Bearl, um meet Luxler's never recorded four o'clock blues, but we've got this one which I think you'll like.

Presenter28:40

Mead Lux Lewis.

Presenter28:42

Now, you strike me as a man who can look after himself. I mean, after all, you've been a hobo. Could you look after yourself on a desert island? Could you put up a shelter?

Presenter28:51

Uh yes.

Presenter28:52

Yes.

Presenter28:53

You could cook.

Presenter28:55

I'm not a good cook. I don't like to cook. I'm an eater. Not a cooker. But if you have to cook, you don't have to. Right. Um, small boats

Speaker 129:02

You don't mind.

Presenter29:08

A hobby of yours? Yes, I have a small boat. Uh I have a uh a twenty foot sailboat. Now, could you build some kind of boat? If I wanted to get away, I probably could build something to get away in.

Presenter29:24

But I don't I might like it there if, uh, you know, if there were mangoes and uh

Presenter29:30

And some bananas and things like that. I might just uh stay. Just in case. How's your navigation?

Presenter29:36

Uh pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. Record number seven.

Presenter29:40

Record number seven. Well

Presenter29:45

I don't know what I could say about this gentleman. Everything has been said and it wasn't enough.

Presenter29:53

I met him once. I did a I did a film with him, a Graham Green uh film called uh Our Man in Havana.

Presenter30:02

I'm speaking of Noel Coward, of course. And he he was um he was so marvelous. He walked down the street in that film and um

Presenter30:14

He just took the whole show right there as as he walked down the street doing nothing. Yes, yes, it was dangerous.

Speaker 130:20

To dangerous man

Presenter30:24

He he is beautiful. And I I um

Presenter30:27

I met him here, not in not in Havana.

Presenter30:31

when we came to do s some of the interiors.

Presenter30:35

And I went in the studio and he was there. And he ran to me and he threw his arms around me and he said, he whispered in my mi my ear, he said, Oh, you are so good

Presenter30:47

And that was the nicest compliment I that I can remember.

Speaker 130:50

In a bar on the Piccolo Marina?

Speaker 130:55

Life called to Mrs. Wentworth Brewster.

Speaker 130:59

Fate beckoned her and introduced her into a rather queer, unfamiliar atmosphere. She'd just sit there propping up the bar beside a fisherman who sang to her guitar.

Speaker 131:13

When accused of having gone too far, she merely cried, Faniculi, just fancy me, Fanicula.

Presenter31:21

No old card. We've got to your last record. What's that to be? The last record is, um Bach. I like Bach.

Presenter31:32

You know, to think about that old boy having to write a new tune every Sunday.

Presenter31:36

Boy, he was busy, wasn't he? He was indeed. Oh And they're all different. This one is Yesu Joy of of Man's Desiring the Myra Hess uh arrangement.

Presenter32:46

They mire a hairs playing.

Presenter32:48

Jesio joy of man's desiring. If you could take only one disk of your aid, which would it be?

Presenter32:54

Oh, it would be the Mo the Mozart with with the uh Brother Brain playing the uh the the French horn. Brother Brain. Oh, yeah. Yes. The the Mozart horn control. Oh, yeah.'Cause that would keep me uh in good spirits.

Speaker 133:01

Uh

Speaker 133:03

Oh yeah.

Presenter33:08

And one luxury to take to the island.

Presenter33:11

Well, you know I will I will take this spirit again.

Presenter33:15

The spirit every time, but this time is spiritus fermentus. And it's Tobermori whiskey. Right. Yes, in any quantity you like. Lots. Right. And one book. You already have the Bible and Shakespeare on the island, and we don't encourage big encyclopedias. But one book. The Book of Changes, translated from the Chinese by Richard Wilhelm, and translated in English by Baines. Right. This is the book sometimes known as I Ching. Yes, it is one of the Chinese classics.

Presenter33:54

And thank you, Burl Ives, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. It is my pleasure. I'm very flattered to be on this program, and I thank you for asking me, Croy. Thank you. Thank you, Burr. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 334:14

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Speaker 334:18

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