The “Golden Hits Of The 50s” 

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SUNNYSIDERS

“HEY, MR. BANJO”

(Freddy Morgan, Norman Milkin)

Kapp 113

No. 12    June 18, 1955

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“I don’t think he copied anybody,” said Sunnysider frontman Freddy Morgan’s widow to author

Jordan R. Young.  “I think he was a natural born idiot.”

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 Freddy (b. Phillip Fred Morganstein, Nov. 7, 1910, New York City) was a banjo man and a member of Spike

Jones & The City Slickers from 1947 to 1958.  Morgan also fancied himself a songwriter, and penned tunes

like “I Love You Fair Dinkum” and “Er War Ein Schoner Monsieur.”

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Freddy, who was raised in Cleveland, began picking banjo with Leo Livingston–as Morgan and

Stone–in 1924.  Three years later,they were under contract to play New York’s Paramount Theatre

for 51 consecutive weeks; followed by an elongated stay at the Palace The­atre and much European

travel.  During WWII, Fred co-started, with Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyons, the Euro­pean Theatre

Artists Group–the forerunner of the American U.S.O.  After tour time in Tokyo, Fred joined Spike

Jones’s City Slickers in 1947.  Young, author of Spike Jones: Off the Record, reports, he was to become

known for his “Chinese Mule Train” (#16, 1950) and “Poet and Peasant” routines, his appearance in

the flick Fireman, Save My Child (1932) and his stabilizing presence in Spike’s radio and TV series.

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In 1955, as an outlet for his compositional brain­ storms, he formed the Sunnysiders with Norman

Milkin, MARGIE RAYBURN, and Jad Paul; the latter later to be Fred’s replacement in the City

Slickers.  “Hey, Mr. Banjo” was reportedly the group’s first recording–Fred had previously recorded

with fellow-Slicker Mousie Garner as the Alley Singers–and was their only tangle with Top 40 success.

For the next two years, Morgan picked his brain in search of that follow-up.  Assisting him was his

occa­sional collaborator, Norman Milkin, then the spouse to lone female Sunnysider, Margie Rayburn.

Once the Sunnysiders’ days were behind them, Margie would have her lone solo success with “I’m

Available,” a sensu­ous Patti Page-like platter, and in 1962, Milkin would reappear on the charts as

the writer and producer of JACK ROSS’ “Cinderella.”

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The Sunnysiders continued to work that banjo motif with “Banjo Pickers Ball” and “The Lonesome

Banjo (In the Pawn Shop Wmdow),” but nothing fur­ther charted.  Morgan did, however, write

“Japanese Farewell Song (Sayonara)”–not the Irving Berlin number popularized by Eddie Fisher and

used in the like-titled Marlon Brando flick (1957).  Fred returned to European trekking in the early

’60s.  Liberty issued a few in a projected series of “Bunch of Banjo” albums.  When unoccupied, Fred

was a voice on ABC-TV’s “Beany and Cecil Show.”

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Jad who appeared 0n the syndicated TV show “Polka Party,” had recorded as the Banjomaniacs and

would go on to recording as a soloist for Liberty and could be heard on soundtracks, such as Doctor

Zhivago (1965) and Paint Your Wagon (1970).

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Morgan died of a heart attack on stage on Decem­ber 21,1970.  Rayburn last recorded in 1963.  Paul is

still actively picking.