Adrian Schubert & His Orchestra - Just Friends
  • 5 years ago
This is the flip side of a song I posted many years ago, but since Charles Lawman was an amazing vocalist and as he well deserves being better known, I am presently uploading this wonderful performance. Staggeringly prolific Adrian Schubert was not a bandleader in the usual sense, since he rather was a musical director, working with dozens of outfits under equally numerous pseudonyms, merely for recording purposes. He did hire many top musicians though (trumpeter Mike Mosiello, trombonist Tommy Dorsey, saxophonist Jimmy Dorsey, clarinetist Benny Goodman, multi-instrumentalist Andy Sannella, percussion virtuoso George Hamilton Green and violinist and vocalist Scrappy Lambert, etc). As for Lawman, this refined tenor (although back then he was referred to as a baritone) is largely forgotten today. Very little information is available about him. Charles Swan Lawman (1901-1955) performed on the radio in the late 1920s and early 1930s and was once billed as "The Dixie Baritone". During the same period he was quite active recording for the Columbia, Banner, Crown and Oriole labels, leaving us in total around 85 sides. On Columbia he recorded under his own name. He also appeared as vocalist with several bands including Ben Selvin, Adrian Schubert, Lou Gold, Tommy Gott, Leonard Joy and Bob Haring. A record review in Time Magazine, in 1931, referred to him in these words: "A newcomer, baritone Charlie Lawman is pleasantly old-fashioned". The most remarkable performance we are presently hearing, was made in 1931.