Eddy Howard

by Richie UnterbergerMild romantic balladeer Eddy Howard was a huge name in the 1940s and early 50s. Reeling off a few dozen hit singles in the post-war years, he rarely went uptempo or derivated from good-natured paeans to heart-to-heart bliss. Howard left Stanford Medical School in the early 30s to join Dick Jurgens band as a vocalist, and recorded eight hits with Jurgens in 1939 and 1940. During this era, he also made some small-band jazz sides under John Hammonds auspices at Columbia; Teddy Wilson and Charlie Christian were among the musicians who supported him at these sessions. By 1941 Eddy had started his own band, and hit the jackpot with a number one single in 1946, To Each His Own. (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons, My Adobe Hacienda, I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder, Room Full of Roses, Sin (Its No Sin), and Auf Weidersehn Sweetheart were some of the biggest smashes he enjoyed prior to the mid-50s, when the emergence of rock & roll displaced him from the airwvaes. He was a fixture on the casino circuit when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1963.