From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Fri Jul 18, 2003  1:16 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Joe "Fingers" Carr
 
JOE "FINGERS" CARR aka Lou Busch

Born Louis Ferdinand Busch, 18 July 1910, Louisville, Kentucky
Died 19 September 1979, Camarillo, California

Pianist / arranger / orchestra leader / composer.

Lou Busch is best known for his honky-tonk piano recordings under his
stage name, Joe "Fingers" Carr. He got his start early, leading his own 
band by the age of 12 and leaving home at 16 to work as a professional 
musician. He played with a number of sweet big bands--Clyde McCoy, 
Henry Busse, and George Olson--then took a short break to study at the
Cincinnati Conservatory.

After that, he went back to the sweet bands, this time joining one of the
most successful of them, Hal Kemp's. Busch stayed with Kemp for most
of the 1930s and married the first of his several wives, the band's girl singer,
Janet Blair. After the band's lead arranger, John Scott Trotter, departed in
early 1936, Busch and fellow band member Hal Mooney split most of the
arranging duties. When Kemp died in from a car crash 1940, they moved 
to Los Angeles and started working as studio musicians, but World War
Two came along and pulled Busch into the Army for a three-year stint.

When he returned to L.A. in 1945, he hooked up with Johnny Mercer's
fledgling Capitol Records label and ended up working as an A&R executive.
He continued to do occasional session work as a pianist, though, playing
behind Kay Starr, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Dean Martin and others. In 1950, 
he sold the label on the idea of recording his ragtime playing, and he made
up the name Joe "Fingers" Carr during his initial studio session. "Sam's
Song", his second single, became a # 7 hit. He also "covered" Del Wood's
piano version of "Down Yonder", which was a big country hit, and took it
to # 14 on the pop charts in late 1951.

Although Capitol played up the nostalgic caricature of Carr the honky tonk
pianist, wearing derby hat, bowtie, vest, and suspenders, Busch tried not
to let his recordings slip into mere novelty. He was a serious student of 
ragtime, writing many pieces of his own and inspiring younger players long
before the '70s rediscovery of the genre.

There were also several Capitol singles by "Lou Busch and his Orchestra".
One of these, "Zambesi", an adaptation of a South African song, was a # 2
hit in the UK in early 1956, though it peaked only at # 75 in the USA. His
only other British hit was "Portuguese Washerwoman" (# 20 UK, # 19 US),
this time credited to Joe "Fingers" Carr. 

In the late 1950s, Busch left Capitol for Warner Brothers, where again he
worked as both performer and executive, although he grew less and less
interested in the former. His most noteworthy accomplishment as an A&R
man for Warner Bros were the series of highly successful musical comedy
albums he produced with comedian Allan Sherman, including the # 2 hit 
single, "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" (1963).
Busch died in an automobile accident in 1979.

Though Busch / Carr made dozens of LP's, there are currently no CD's
available of his work. Some tracks appear on compilations. "Zambesi"
is on the 2 CD-set "Hits of the 50's" (EMI Gold, 2002, 54 tracks).