Annette Hanshaw

The Personality Girl of 1920s Music

The answer is: Annette Hanshaw.

All right, you say, but what is the question?

That is a very good question.

Yes, you say. But WHAT is?

All right. Don't get cross. I was coming to that. The question is "Who is the Personality Girl?"

It is bound to come up in quizzes and things, so you will be jolly glad I told you and jolly sorry you got so irritacious with me when you are walking home with your giant shocking-pink and baby-pink angora panda that you won in the quiz.

All because I told you "The Personality Girl is Annette Hanshaw".

But who IS the Personality Girl? Now don't say Annette Hanshaw all over again. What I mean is, who is Annette Hanshaw?

Legend has it she started her singing career at the age of 15 in 1926 and retired around ten years later at the ripe old age of 25. In the meantime, she was one of the most remarkable and recognizable voices of 1920s music.

The trademark of her earlier recordings was ending her songs with the words "That's all", in a little-girl voice apparently first used when she was auditioning as a teenager.

Well, it seems the legend is wrong. The Personality Girl decided to dock ten years from her age and she was actually 25 when she started. I only trust you with this information because I know you are not a Vulgar Literalist who will see it in the wrong way.

I shouldn't have mentioned it at all if it had not become fairly common knowledge. The Blonde Code of Honour says that if a girl wants to dock ten years from her age a girl should dock ten years from her age, and there are particularly severe punishments for those who go off blabbermouthing.

Anyway, it isn't me who is the blabbermouth. I think the Big Paddle is waiting for some Coke-bottle-spectacled pette at Wikipedia, not the humble self.

I mention the matter simply to underline the fact that a girl can be as cute as she dingly-well likes and any age she dingly-well likes.

The Personality Girl is in all ways a model of Blonde Supremacy. She took several screen tests for Hollywood, but never made a movie even though she passed them with colours a-flying. Why? As she explained in an interview: "I only took the screen tests for the pleasure of saying No."

Consequentiously, there is only one motion picture of the Personality Girl in action - and here it is.

What you don't get in this cliplet is the wonderful range that Anette Hanshaw brings to 1920s music. She does the most charming little-girl songs, but she performs songs like "Body and Soul", "Forgetting you" and even "If I had a Talking Picture of You" as if they were playlets - presenting their stories with the passion and skill of a classical actress, while interpreting them musically to perfection.

Musicians love to work with her. They say she is a "musician's singer" - a wonderful interpreter of 1920s jazz music.

In a number of her recordings, she imitates the voice of her friend Helen Kane - the original for the voice of Betty Boop. These records were issued under such names as Dot Dare, Gay Ellis and Patsy Young. Her imitation of Miss Kane is so perfect that Miss Kane was sued by her recording company for breach of contract - recording for other companies under false names!

As Miss Kane commented: "Annette sounds more like me than I do".

The artists who supported Annette Hanshaw read like a roster of 1920s jazz music: Red Nichols, Miff Mole, Adrian Rollini, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden and the Dorsey Brothers to name but a few.

If you don't know Annette Hanshaw yet, it really is time to introduce yourself.

I'll leave you to that delightful task, saying like the red indians, "HOW, dear readers".

And leaving you to say:

"HOW Sylli."

Sylvia M. Bell

Want to hear more 1920s music? We have selected some of the best mp3s available for you. There are samples below - so try before you buy!