It Isn’t Fair

Richard Himber (1899–1966); Frank Warshauer (1893–1953); Sylvester Sprigato (dates unknown)

Another song in which I’m not sure who did what, but as I found no other noteworthy compositions by the other two, I’m assuming that Himber did the heavy lifting. This song faked me out. I thought it was new when I heard it in 1950, where it was on the charts for 22 weeks, topping out at #3. But it was actually written, and was a hit, in 1933. Richard Himber turned out to be quite a guy: bandleader, magician, innovative genius hustler, and, um, obnoxious asshole. His parents owned a chain of meat stores in New Jersey, and bestowed him with violin lessons. Soon he was playing his violin in a seedy Newark dive. His outraged parents took away his violin and sent him to military school. That’ll fix him!

He escaped, bought another violin, and fled to New York City, where Sophie Tucker heard him and hired him to join her back-up band, The Five Kings of Syncopation. That’ll show them! (His parents, not the other Four Kings). He also became a booker-salesman-idea man, acquiring––hell, inventing the concept of––the first ever “vanity” telephone number, R-HIMBER in 1932. Another first: it was answered 24 hours a day. That same year he formed his own orchestra, which went on to feature, among others, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Tommy Dorsey. He worked his magic act into the band’s performances, which featured a number of tricks he invented. A number of them went on to be performed by other magicians, like The Himber Wallet, The Himber Ring, and The Himber Milk Pitcher. Once he told a friend his jacket was too loud, ripped it off his back, and tore it in two. Then he marched the friend into a clothing store where an identical replacement awaited him. His other “jokes” were often nastier, and his friends lived in fear of becoming victims. While in restaurants, he loved to roll pieces of bread into tight little balls, with which he bombarded the cleavages of any women unfortunate enough to be within range. Haw, haw, haw.