Bob Eberly : Heartbreak Hotel

Bob Eberly
Heartbreak Hotel

Popular big band singer Bob Eberly spent much of his career with Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra, starting work in the spring of 1935. His younger brother, Ray Eberle, sang with Glenn Miller and later led his own band.

In his early days, Bob, who changed the spelling of his last name because the announcer of the Milton Berle radio show kept mispronouncing it, gained prominence by winning the ''Allen Amateur Hour'' on Fred Allen's radio show. He began his professional career singing in clubs around his hometown of Hoosick Falls, in upstate New York, where the Dorsey Brothers discovered him and later hired him to replaced the departing Bob Crosby.

He stayed with Jimmy for eight years and became one of the top male vocalists of his day, rivaling Bing Crosby and later Frank Sinatra for that title.

Throughout his career he was encouraged by many in the industry to strike out on his own, but he refused. He was perfectly happy earning a weekly salary with Dorsey's group.

During the early 1950s he was a regular on the television program TV's Top Tunes.

Information above (and picture) from The encyclopedia of big band, lounge, classic jazz and space-age sounds.

"Heartbreak Hotel" was just one of the hits of the day covers that Bob Eberly recorded in the fifties for Enoch Light's Waldorf and 18 Top Hits labels. subsidiary of the Waldorf Corporation from Harrison, New Jersey.

Speaking of Heartbreak Hotel, the Weekly World News issue dated November 1, 1988, inform us of the following :

Scientists say a painting of Elvis Presley weeps when the owner puts Heartbreak Hotel on the stereo and doesn’t stop until she plays Jailhouse Rock. [See the article]

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