Old Records On Line

My Three Suns

(9 downloads)

Saturday, Dec 22, 2007

As the original trio, The Three Suns were brothers Al Nevins on guitar, Morty Nevins on accordion (and the chimes here) and their cousin Art Dunn on the organ (and vocals). There were several incarnations of this group and its lineup expanded and contracted over the years not unlike the fluctuations of a Red Giant or pulsar. These guys were also Mamie Eisenhower’s favorite group, an interesting choice for the former first lady. She clearly understood that the space-race will need music.

The early use of the Hammond organ; the novel instrumentation; and the spare arrangements show some strong links to Milt Herth’s organ jazz group from the 30’s*. I think there's more than a little of 'jazz' accordionist, Lawrence Welk's, influence here as well. The Three Suns were a popular and long lived ensemble constantly updating their sound with a variety of instrumental configurations well into the 60’s, where we find them having evolved to full on space-age bachelor pad fare. They recorded dozens of albums over this long stretch, but their 1944 single “Twilight Time” was their first major success.

This number, “How Many Hearts Have You Broken?” was the B-side to “Twilight Time” and actually rose higher on the charts that year. It was written in 1943 by Marty Symes (lyrics) and Al Kaufman (music). Stan Kenton also got on the charts in 1944 with a version of this tune.

Here’s a pretty cool website dedicated to the Three Suns:
http://www.tothcorp.com/threesuns/HomeNav.html

Hit 7092, 1944

*http://oldrecordsonline.mypodcast.com/2007/12/The_Original_Hammond_Eggs_Milt_Herth-65314.html

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