The June 9, 1941
Salute to Canada Lee
Broadcast

supplement to
The Duke – Where and When
A Chronicle of Duke Ellington's Working Life and Travels

Who was Canada Lee?

The Show

• The Herald-Statesman announced:

  'Paul Robeson, Bill Robinson, Jack Benny's "Rochester," Hattie McDaniel, screen comedienne, and other Negro figures of the entertainment world will join tonight at 9:30 [EDT] in a salute to Canada Lee, stage star of the play, "Native Son," on WOR.'

  Similar announcements were published in newspapers across the United States on June 7 and June 9.
• RadioGOLDINdex database:

  '1474. Salute To Canada Lee. June 9, 1941. Mutual net. Sustaining. The program originates from New York and Hollywood. Canada Lee is called, "the newest American star of our race." He is appearing in, "Native Son." Alvin Josephy (preparer), Roger Bower (producer), Erskine Butterfield, Hattie McDaniel, Bill Bojangles Robinson, Duke Ellington, Herb Jeffries, Ivie Anderson (vocal), Paul Robeson (host), Eddie Anderson, W.C.Handy, Richard Wright, Canada Lee. 28:54.'

• The show was broadcast from New York, with participation from Mutual's Hollywood studio via a telephone hookup. It aired at 9:30 p.m. on WOR in New York. Listings can be found for it at 7:30 local time in Texas and 6:30 local time on the west coast, suggesting a simultaneous coast-to-coast broadcast. It appears to have been rebroadcast at 11:30 p.m. in Los Angeles.
• Steven Lasker:
  '  The west coast portion of this half-hour broadcast originated from Hollywood, probably from the radio station which transmitted it locally, KHJ, 5515 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, flagship station of the Don Lee network and a Mutual Broadcasting System affiliate.
    The program opens with Paul Robeson announcing the artists present in New York and California. Ivie Anderson is among those named at the beginning and end of the broadcast, yet she isn't heard at all. The show is turned over to "a studio on the west coast" ("Hello, Hollywood!") where Hattie McDaniel and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson perform a comedy sketch.
    Rochester and Duke Ellington banter some, then we hear Duke and Herb Jeffries, piano and vocal, perform The Brown-Skin Gal in the Calico Gown followed by more banter with Rochester, Chocolate Shake (piano solo) and then the show returns to New York.
    Bill Robinson sings and taps Let the Punishment Fit the Crime from The Hot Mikado (a take-off on Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado), then Paul Robeson sings Jim Crow accompanied by Lawrence Brown,* his regular pianist [not to be confused with Ellington's trombonist of the same name].
    Playwright Richard Wright speaks of actor Canada Lee and Native Son.
     Canada Lee performs a dramatic scene from his star-making role as Bigger Thomas in "Native Son" (written by Richard Wright and directed on Broadway by Orson Welles with scenic design by Perry Watkins).
    W.C. Handy, trumpet, and Erskine Butterfield, piano, play St. Louis Blues. Paul Robeson reads a scripted tribute to Canada Lee as the recipient gushes in suitably modest fashion. Robeson reads a complimentary telegram from Joe Louis, with whom Canada Lee sparred when he was a boxer.
    The broadcast ends with Erskine Butterfield playing St. Louis Blues and a closing announcement that you have heard a presentation of the Mutual Special Features Division prepared by Alvin Josephy and produced by Roger Bower.
    The radio listing in the 1941-06-09 L.A. Daily News (page 31) lists a half-hour "Canada Lee" program on station KHJ from 11:30 to midnight. As it was broadcast at an earlier hour in other time zones, we must presume either the performers in New York and Hollywood stuck around to repeat their performances for different time zones (which would result in alternate "takes" of the entire program), or else the show was recorded onto disks which were played back for later broadcasts.'
• While Stratemann and Vail I say it was an hour-long show, the RadioGOLDINdex database reports it ran 28 minutes and 54 seconds. This is consistent with several contemporary radio logs, and the half-hour show heard on
  • Past Daily:
    https://pastdaily.com/2018/11/10/paul-robeson-richard-wright-hattie-mcdaniel-w-c-handy-duke-ellington-a-tribute-to-canada-lee-1941-past-daily-weekend-gallimaufry/
    (courtesy C. Dyson at https://ellingtonia.com/discography/1941-1950/)
  • YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5_4_Z0YDfU&t=11275s between 2:41:05 and 3:09:55
    (courtesy Brian Koller in Duke-LYM email 2022-08-01 and Steven Lasker in Lasker/Palmquist email 2023-02-10
  .
• As Lasker says, even though host/singer/civil rights activist Paul Robeson announced Ellington, McDaniel, Rochester, Ivie Anderson and Jeffries would participate from Hollywood and some newspapers reported after-the-fact that Ivie was on the show, Ivie is not heard. It may be the reports were based on press releases and Robeson's announcment, and Robeson's announcement was likely from a script written before the show. Some confusion may also have arisen because Rochester's real name was Edmund Lncoln Anderson.
• Ellington's segment begins about four minutes in and lasts only about 5 minutes. It begins with a short dialogue between Duke and Rochester, then Duke accompanies Jeffries singing The Brown Skin Gal in the Calico Gown, and plays Chocolate Shake without a singer. These songs were to be used in Ellington's upcoming Jump for Joy musical.

Venue and Technology

• The Hollywood participants were at radio station KHJ in Hollywood.
• Lasker:

  '...Radio Daily's 1943 Radio Annual, a guide to the American radio industry in 1942...tells us that in 1942, there was only one Mutual affiliate station in L.A., and that was KHJ. The location of the Mutual Broadcasting's L.A. branch office is shown as the Don Lee Bldg. The address of the Don Lee Broadcasting System is shown as 5515 Melrose Ave, Hollywood, Calif, which was the address of KHJ. This is the only Don Lee station shown for L.A. No other Don Lee or MBS studio is listed.
    This studio was later taken over by Capitol Records, and Ellington's 1953 L.A. recordings were taped here.'

• Steven's recording of the show is on two 33-rpm, 14-inch lacquer disks dubbed professionally from an original line transcription disk. The disks have plain white labels which are actually "Western Recorders" labels pasted on backwards, an indication that the discs were cut in Hollywood where Western Recorders was an active recording studio.

Issues:

1. Did Ivie Anderson sing?
2. Was the show live, prerecorded or time delayed?
3. How long was it?

1. Did Ivie Anderson participate?
   
   
   • The Indianapolis Sunday Star reported

     'Duke Ellington, also in Hollywood, introduced several numbers from his forthcoming musical, "Jump for Joy," never before heard on the air. His soloists were Ivy [sic] Anderson and Herb Jeffries...'

   • Announcer Robeson said Ivie was on the show, but if she was, the show would have had to be longer than 30 minutes, since she is not heard in the half-hour recording heard at the above links.
   • It seems more likely Ivie was expected but did not appear, and she is named in announcements scripted before the show aired. The New York personnel would likely not have known whether or not she was present in the Hollywood studio.
   • The Sunday Star review may be sloppy reporting, based on press releases rather than hearing the show.
   • Steven Lasker suggests Ivie may have been preoccupied with opening Ivie's Chicken Shack, her new restaurant, three days later.
   • At the time of writing, there is no evidence of Ivie appearing in an extended version of the show - see "How long was it?" below.
   • A report published after the event in the Indianapolis Sunday Star says:

     'THE NEGRO AMUSEMENT field honored its newest star, Canada Lee, on a gala coast-to-coast radio program last week...Duke Ellington, also in Hollywood, introduced several numbers from his forthcoming musical "Jump for Joy," never before heard on the air. His soloists were Ivy Anderson and Herb Jeffries... '

     The radioGoldindex database has Ivie Anderson singing, but what she sang in this broadcast is undocumented. She sang Chocolate Shake in the studio recording a few days later, but New Desor's analysis of the recording from the broadcast doesn't have a vocal.
2. Was the show live, prerecorded or time delayed?
   • During this period, networks transmitted shows to affiliated stations over telephone lines. If it was necessary to transmit the show twice, it could be:
     • performed live twice (with additional payments to the performers, including the musicians)
     • pre-recorded (on a transcription disc)
     • recorded at the sending studio during the initial broadcast to allow a time-delayed feed to network affiliates for a later broadcast from those stations. This is one form of "line transcription."
     • recorded by a receiving station from the network's telephone line feed for a later local broadcast - this is also a "line transcription."
   • In 1942, reporting the American Federation of Musicians' concerns over repeated broadcasts, Variety described the five types of repeats in use by the networks as Live Repeat, Delayed Broadcast, Regional Repeat, and two types of Regional Delayed Broadcasts.
   • The 11:30 p.m. west coast broadcasts (KHJ, Los Angeles; KORE, Eugene) were five hours after the original network broadcast. It seems unlikely the network would have made two live broadcasts this far apart, especially given the need to coordinate feeds from studios on both coasts.
   • The show could have been prerecorded, but there is no evidence of this.
   • It seems most likely that the show was recorded by the originating network station during the broadcast to be fed later to the network's western affiliated stations or the initial network feed was recorded by one or more affiliated stations on the west coast. The former seems more likely, since the late broadcast was made by more than one west coast station. This is consistent with the recording media held by Mr. Lasker.
3. How long was the show and when did it air?
   • Most of the radio timetables reviewed have the show starting on the half hour. Where another show is shown on the hour, the show was definitely not more than 30 minutes.
   • In some cases, however, there is no other show listed on the hour following the start time; in those cases it is possible the show was longer, IF additional material was included in a segment of the broadcast that wasn't used by all of the network affiliates.
   • If there was such a segment, it could include Ivie's singing and explain why she is announced and reported as singing but is not heard on the Lasker copy of the recording. If this were so, however, Ellington would have appeared with her, and his second contribution would be excluded as well.
   • This table is a partial survey of radio logs listing the show, showing whether or not another show started after half an hour.

     Newspaper	Start time	Another program in the next half hour time slot?
     Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn, N.Y.(WOR)	9:30 p.m.	yes
     Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.	9:30 p.m.	yes
     Springfield Republican, Springfield, Mass.	9:30 p.m.	no (10:15 was the next listing)
     The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.(WOR)	9:30 p.m.	yes
     The Morning News, Wilmington, Del.	9:30 p.m.	yes
     Cumberland Evening Times, Cumberland, Maryland	8:30 p.m.	no
     The Daily Mail, Hagerstown, Maryland	8:30 p.m.	no
     Mount Carmel Item, Mount Carmel, Penn.	9:30 p.m	yes
     Evening News, Harrisburg, Penn.	9:30 p.m.	yes
     Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Penn.	9:30 p.m.	yes
     Record-Argus, Greenville, Penn.	8:30 p.m.	no
     Jersey Journal, Jersey City, N.J.	9:30 p.m.	no (10:15 was the next listing)
     Cincinatti Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio (WKRC)	8:30	yes
     The Republic, Columbus, Ind.	7:30 p.m. CST	no
     Rockford Register-Republic, Rockford, Ill.	7:30 p.m.	yes
     The St. Cloud Daily Times, St. Cloud, Minn.	7:30 p.m.	no (next listing is 8:30)
     The Abilene Reporter-News, Abilene, Tex. Salute to Canada Lee was only 15 minutes to allow a 7:45 political broadcast	7:30 p.m.	yes
     Argus-Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D.	7:30 p.m.	no
     Eugene Register-Guard, Eugene Ore. (KORE)	11:30 p.m.	yes
     Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Cal.(KHJ)	11:30 p.m.	no

'Further research might confirm if the broadcast was live or prerecorded. While the Indianapolis Sunday Star report was published after the event, it may be that it was written based upon press releases, rather than by a reviewer who heard the show. If Ivie actually did sing, her voice is not on the two 15-minute acetates.
     If it was broadcast a full hour, it would have required half an hour of additional material. All the artists announced by Robeson (who, being in New York, couldn't see the line-up of talent in L.A. so reading from his script which named Ivie) performed on the broadcast except for Ivie. She wasn't going to supply 30 minutes on her own. I suppose she just missed the gig, and so was unable to sing on "Chocolate Shake" which was her vocal feature, which DE played as a solo. Why did she miss the show? Was she sick? Was Ivie preoccupied with readying her Chicken Shack for its grand opening three days after the Salute to Canada Lee broadcast?
     I don't hear any obvious edits on my lacquer discs (two 33-rpm, 14-inch lacquer disks dubbed professionally from an original line transcription disk). It all sounds "of a piece."
     My conclusion is that a one-hour version is devoutly to be wished, but it would be a stretch.'

'The half-hour broadcast sounds complete to me. The small-town radio listings to me don’t really indicate the possibility of another half hour.'

'Canada Lee: {This is] A lot of work for five minutes of Ellington on-air, I agree, but the broadcast, taken as a whole was a pioneer show of black talent on network radio this early on.'

Additional references:

• New Desor DE4111
• Girvan:  Ellingtonia.com
• Timner V
• DEMS 90,2-4
• Email Lasker/Steiner/Palmquist
  • 2017-01-17
  • 2017-01-18
  • 2017-01-19
    2021-08-06
    2023-02-10
  • 2023-02-24