Helen Kane - Button Up Your Overcoat 1929 video free download

Victor 21863-A - This Song Peaked At #3 On US Music Charts In 1929.

Song written by Ray Henderson, Buddy DeSylva & Lew Brown. This Is The Original Victor Version, I Also Have The Remastered One Posted As Well.

Helen Kane (August 4, 1904 - September 26, 1966) was an American popular singer; her signature song was "I Wanna Be Loved By You". Kane's voice and appearance were a likely source for Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick when creating Betty Boop, although It-girl Clara Bow is another possible influence.

Born as Helen Clare Schroeder, Kane attended St. Anselm's Parochial School in the Bronx. She was the youngest of three children. Her father, Louis Schroeder, the son of a German immigrant, was employed intermittently; her Irish immigrant mother, Ellen (Dixon) Schroeder, worked in a laundry.

Kane's mother reluctantly paid $3 for her daughter's costume as a queen in Kane's first theatrical role at school. By the time she was 15 years, Kane was onstage professionally, touring the Orpheum Circuit with the Marx Brothers in On the Balcony.

She spent the early 1920s trouping in vaudeville as a singer and kickline dancer with a theater engagement called the 'All Jazz Revue.' She played the New York Palace for the first time in 1921. Her Broadway days started there as well with the Stars of the Future (1922--24, and a brief revival in early 1927). She also sang onstage with an early singing trio, the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce, later known as The Three X Sisters.

Kane's roommate in the early 1920s was Jessie Fordyce. The singing trio act might have become the Hamilton Sisters and Schroeder, however Pearl Hamilton chose Fordyce to tour as a trio act "just to see what happens" at the end of the theatrical season.

Kane's career break came in 1927, when she appeared in a musical called A Night in Spain. It ran from May 3, 1927 through Nov 12, 1927 for a total of 174 performances, at the 44th Street Theatre in NYC. Subsequently, Paul Ash, a band conductor, put her name forward for a performance at New York's Paramount Theater.

Kane's first performance at the Paramount Theater in Times Square proved to be her career's launching point. She was singing "That's My Weakness Now", when she interpolated the scat lyrics "boop-boop-a-doop." This resonated with the flapper culture, and four days later, Helen Kane's name went up in lights.

Kane recorded 22 songs between 1928 and 1930. After 1930 and up to 1951, she recorded four sides for Columbia in addition to the "Three Little Words" soundtrack single recording of "I Wanna Be Loved by You" She also recorded four songs that comprise a 1954 MGM 45Ep entitled, "The Boop Boop a Doop Girl".

As she took on the status of a singing sensation, there were Helen Kane dolls and Helen Kane look-alike contests, appearances on radio and in nightclubs. This cult following reached its peak in late 1928 and stayed there until early 1929.

Kane's height (only 5 feet tall) and slightly plump figure attracted attention and fans. Her round face with big brown eyes was topped by black, curly hair; her voice was a baby squeak with a distinct Bronx dialect.

With the hardships of the Great Depression biting, the flamboyant world of the flapper was over, and Kane's style began to date rapidly. After 1931 she lost the favour of the movie makers, who chose other singers for their films. She appeared in a stage production called Shady Lady in 1933, and made appearances at various nightclubs and theatres during the 1930s.

Helen Kane battled breast cancer for more than a decade. She had surgery in 1956 and eventually received two hundred radiation treatments as an outpatient at Memorial Hospital.

She died on September 26, 1966 at age 62, in her apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens (New York City). Her husband of 27 years was at her bedside. Her remains were buried in the Long Island National Cemetery.