THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 28, 1995 TAG: 9504260105
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Appropriately billed ``Ella and Her Fella,'' a special WFOS-FM 88.7 radio program this Sunday at 4:05 p.m. will feature Sidney C. Evans Jr., head of the Ella Fitzgerald fan club.
WFOS program director Dennis McCurdy has invited Evans to help host his weekly Sunday program ``The Music Goes Round and Round'' for a second time.
As they did last fall, Evans and McCurdy will turn their attention to Newport News native Fitzgerald, considered by many to be one of the world's best and most versatile jazz/pop singers.
In Evans, McCurdy has one of the world's top Ella Fitzgerald experts and fans. Evans delights in all things Ella - records, tapes, compact discs, photos, videos, playbills, press releases, posters, newspaper and magazine articles and books. He heads the International Ella Fitzgerald Fan Club from his modest apartment in Norfolk, near the ODU campus.
Evans co-hosted a program on Fitzgerald last October. Evans said the two got along well, had a great time and played as much quality Fitzgerald music as they could. But in three hours, they just scratched the surface.
``I had to bring him back,'' McCurdy said of Evans' stint last October. ``He had too much good music not to put on the air.''
So Ella's Fella comes back this Sunday to pick up where they left off.
``During the first show I started with the earliest records she made with Chick Webb's Orchestra in the '30s,'' Evans said. ``Then we went through the '40s, '50s and '60s, highlighting her Decca and Verve years.''
For Sunday's program, Evans said, he'll again delve into his extensive library of compact discs.
``We'll carry on through her entire recording career,'' Evans said. ``For this program we'll take a look at the '70s, '80s and '90s, primarily her Pablo Records years.''
During the 1970s, Evans said Fitzgerald moved on to Pablo, a record label begun by her manager Norman Ganz, who once owned the Verve label. It was on Pablo where Fitzgerald recorded some of her best jazz efforts.
``I think her voice sounded a little heavier when she began recording for Pablo in the '70s,'' Evans said. ``A majority of her Pablo stuff was live. She played with people like Count Basie, Tommy Flanagan, Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Louis Belson and other top players like that. I'll feature a lot of her Pablo work on Sunday.''
But for those who love Fitzgerald's pop and song standards work, fear not, Evans said. He'll bring to the WFOS studio the famous Fitzgerald ``songbook'' discs, where she recorded whole albums featuring the songs of such famous composers as Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Rodgers & Hart and others.
``That's what was so good about Ella, she was able to mix it up,'' Evans explained. ``She could do standards and then she did songs by the Beatles, Smokey Robinson and other modern composers. She was one of the very few to successfully do it.''
As an extra treat, Evans said he'll bring along two compact disc ``finds'' he recently discovered.
``I'll bring a disc of Ella live in Belgrade, with her performing at two different concerts in the '60s and '70s and another one of Ella live with Benny Goodman, recorded in 1957. Both feature good stuff.''
After his October stint on WFOS, Evans said he received many phone calls inquiring about the fan club he heads.
Evans' fan club has members from all over the country, Western and Eastern Europe, Australia and parts of Asia. For $5 a year dues to cover postage, members receive six newsletters a year with a few Ella-Grams and even T-shirt, poster, book and disc giveaways throughout the year. by CNB