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Ramona

"Whispering" Jack Smith

Whispering Jack Smith

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Recorded in New York City in 1928 featuring "Whispering" Jack Smith piano & vocals.

*"Ramona" was composed by Mabel Wayne, with lyrics written by L. Wolfe Gilbert. It was created as the title song for the 1928 adventure motion picture-romance of the same name (based on the novel by Helen Hunt Jackson) sung in the film by Dolores del Rio. On record the song was also a popular hit performed as a romantic ballad by "Whispering" Jack Smith, and in an arrangement recorded on January 4th 1928 by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke.

Smith's distinctive style which was a combination of singing and talking in a very intimate way utilizing the microphone very effectively as opposed to "belting" the song out. His "whispering" style of singing was a result of a World War I injury from poison gas that kept him from singing at full volume. He made the "whispering" style popular and had a number of imitators. Smith took to the relatively newly invented microphone, and developed the use of this 'modern' technology paving the way for the early crooners.