Week 16 - The Andrews Sisters.
I have such a love for harmonies, so of course I love the Andrews Sisters. I’ve been wanting to cover one of their songs for a long, long time and finally we were able to do it with help from one of our accordion sisters, Jennie Muoio! We were going with the beach/summer theme but didn’t realize the actual words till we really learned the song. Musically it’s such a cute song but the words are, well morally questionable to say the least! It seems like a similar thing happened to the Andrew Sisters. They recorded the song with 10 minutes to spare in their recording session. Years later, Maxine Andrews recalled, "The rhythm was what attracted the Andrews Sisters to 'Rum and Coca-Cola'. We never thought of the lyrics. The lyric was there, it was cute, but we didn't think of what it meant; but at that time, nobody else would think of it either, because we weren't as morally open as we are today and so, a lot of stuff—really, no excuses—just went over our heads.” The song was banned by network radio stations despite being a big hit, because it mentioned….an alcoholic beverage! Things were certainly different back then.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the song and if you are in NYC area, please come see us next Sunday (8/7) at Rockwood Music Hall. It’s going to be a special one because Jennie is going to make a guest appearance, yay!