She is best known for her 1954 solo recording '"Little Things Mean a Lot" — a song that stayed at the U.S. number one spot for nine consecutive weeks, charted in the U.S. for almost seven months, hit #1 on the UK singles chart, and sold more than two million copies. AllMusic called the recording a "monster hit", music historian Jonny Whiteside said the song "ably characterizes Kallen’s impressive, and graceful, transition from classic big band swing to modern post-war pop".
Voted "most popular female singer" in 1954 in both Billboard and Variety polls, Kallen lost her voice at the Palladium in 1955 at the top of her career and left singing for four years, suffering paralyzed vocal cords. After testing her voice under a pseudonym in small town venues, she ultimately returned and went on to achieve 13 top-ten career hits.
Kallen performed at numerous prominent live venues including Manhattan's Copacabana, Morris Levy's Versailles, the Capitol Theater, the Maisonette Room at the St. Regis, the Cafe Rouge at the Hotel Pennsylvania and the Plaza Hotel's Persian Room. As well, she starred on Broadway in Finian's Rainbow; in the 1955 film The Second Greatest Sex and on numerous television shows including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Big Beat with singer-host Richard Hayes, American Bandstand, and Fred Allen's Judge for Yourself. In 1951, Kallen appeared with Buster Crabbe as the Queen and King of Winter at the Lake Placid resort.
During the height of her popularity, three imposters billed themselves as "Kitty Kallen". When one of them — Genevieve Agostinello — died in 1978, it was incorrectly reported that Kallen herself had died. On February 8, 1960, Kallen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (located on the north side of Hollywood Boulevard at #7021), and in 2009 she was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
Some sources give Kallen's birth name as Katherine Kalinsky, but according to records cited by her son, the name was Katie Kallen. She was born May 25, 1921, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of seven children, to Russian Jewish immigrants Samuel and Rose Kalinsky (later Kallen). As a child, she won an amateur contest by imitating popular singers. When she returned home with her prize, a camera, her father did not believe her, and punished her for stealing the camera. Only when neighbors subsequently visited to congratulate her, did Kallen's father realize she had actually won it.
While performing with Jack Teagarden's band, she married Clint Garvin, the band's clarinet player. When Teagarden fired Garvin, Kallen left as well, later annulling the marriage. In 1948, Kallen married Bernard "Budd" Granoff, a publicist, agent, and television producer. He later became a pioneering television syndicator. The couple, married for over forty-five years until Granoff's death in 1996, had a son, Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute and Adjunct Professor of International Law at Widener University School of Law.
In 1977, Kallen sued her dermatologist, Norman Orentreich, after he prescribed an estrogen drug, Premarin, for her small facial wrinkles. She subsequently suffered blood clots in her lungs, caused directly by the drug, and won $300,000 by the court's decision.
In 2008, Kallen joined artists Patti Page, Tony Martin, Dick Hyman, Richard Hayman and the estates of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Sarah Vaughan, Woody Herman, Les Brown, the Mills Brothers, Jerry Murad, Frankie Laine, and the gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in a suit against the world's then largest music label, Universal Music Group, alleging the company had cheated them on royalties.
Kallen died on January 7, 2016 at her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico at the age of 94.
As a young girl Kallen sang on The Children's Hour, a radio program sponsored by Horn & Hardart, an automat chain. As a pre-teen, Kallen had a radio program on Philadelphia's WCAU, and sang with the big bands of Jan Savitt in 1936, Artie Shaw in 1938, and Jack Teagarden in 1940.
Shortly before her 21st birthday, on May 5, 1942, she sang the vocals for "Moonlight Becomes You" with Bobby Sherwood and His Orchestra at the second every session for what was then still called Liberty Records but would soon be renamed Capitol Records. It was her only session for the label.
Just 21, she joined the Jimmy Dorsey band, replacing Helen O'Connell. In every theater of World War II, a favorite of American servicemen, "They're Either Too Young or Too Old". In 1944, Kallen performed the vocals for Dorsey's number-one hit "Besame Mucho". Most of her singing assignments were in duets with Bob Eberly, and when Eberly left to go into the service toward the end of 1943, she joined Harry James' band.
Between January and November 1945, Kitty Kallen had two songs recorded with the Harry James Orchestra in the top twenty, six in the top ten, and two at the #1 spot—"I'm Beginning to See the Light" and "It's Been a Long, Long Time", which remains deeply associated with the end of World War II and the returning troops.
With the 1954 hit "Little Things Mean a Lot", Kallen was voted most popular female singer in Billboard and Variety polls. She followed up this song with "Chapel in the Moonlight", another million selling record, and a version of "True Love" for Decca. In 1959, she recorded "If I Give My Heart to You" for Columbia Records, and in 1963, she recorded a top-selling version of "My Coloring Book" for RCA. Her final album was Quiet Nights, a bossa nova–flavored release for 20th Century Fox Records. Subsequently, Kallen retired due to a lung ailment.
A compilation of her hits on various labels remains available on the Sony CD set The Kitty Kallen Story.
I m Beginning To See The Light
Kitty Kallen Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I never wink back at fireflies
But now that the stars are in your eyes
I'm beginning to see the light
I never went in for afterglow
Or candlelight on the mistletoe
But now when you turn the lamp down low
Used to ramble through the park
Shadowboxing in the dark
Then you came and caused a spark
That's a four-alarm fire now
I never made love by lantern-shine
I never saw rainbows in my wine
But now that your lips are burning mine
I'm beginning to see the light
In Kitty Kallen's song "I'm Beginning To See The Light", the singer expresses that they were resistant to certain aspects of romance and love, such as moonlit skies, fireflies, afterglow, and candlelight. However, with the arrival of a new love interest, symbolized by the stars in their eyes and the low lamp, everything changes. The singer's emotional landscape shifts, and they become more open to the romance and passion that their lover offers. The arrival of this lover is so transformative that it causes a "four-alarm fire" within them, an all-consuming passion that they never felt before. The singer's past resistance to romance and love is intimately linked to their previous sense of solitude as they "rambled through the park" and "shadowboxed in the dark".
Overall, the song suggests the transformative power of love, a power that can light up the darkest corners of our hearts and mind. Using evocative imagery, the song emphasizes the way in which the singer's previously monochrome world of the city begins to transform into a vibrant and colorful world filled with light, love, and passion.
Line by Line Meaning
I never cared much for moonlit skies
I wasn't much impressed with romantic notions before
I never wink back at fireflies
I've never been inclined to play along with such childish games
But now that the stars are in your eyes
But since I've been with you, I've seen things in a different way
I'm beginning to see the light
I'm slowly coming to understand what love is all about
I never went in for afterglow
I used to think that sunsets were just time to go home
Or candlelight on the mistletoe
I've let previous romantic opportunities slip by unnoticed
But now when you turn the lamp down low
But now that I'm with you, I want to create romantic moments like this
I'm beginning to see the light
I'm starting to understand how important these moments are for two people in love
Used to ramble through the park
I used to wander aimlessly through life without a clear direction
Shadowboxing in the dark
I was fighting a battle against loneliness and despair
Then you came and caused a spark
But when I met you, you ignited a flame in me
That's a four-alarm fire now
That flame has grown into a raging passion for you
I never made love by lantern-shine
I never experienced the intimate moments shared between two people in love
I never saw rainbows in my wine
I never saw the beauty in life's simple pleasures
But now that your lips are burning mine
But since I've been with you, I've found true love and passion
I'm beginning to see the light
I finally see the beauty in life that I was missing before
Lyrics © Kanjian Music, BMG Rights Management, Songtrust Ave, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Cloud9, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Edward Kennedy Ellington, Don George, Harry James, Johnny Hodges
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@jigglybones3318
I just love Kitty Kallen's voice😍 so smooth and elegant
@kathydmg
My mother loved this song.
@dauntae24
My four year son heard this on SXM today and he wants it on his playlist.
@marina3934
This song is so beautiful, brings me back to my childhood where I would play this on the stereo and sing along with it
@davegaba9091
I love, love, love this tune!
@TheSharron
Thank you...I haven’t heard this song in years.
@egmont3027
This is great quality!
@jeffcraven7376
Top of the line recording, Harry's band was one of the best, especially with his trumpet laying. Kitty Kallen was eye popping beautiful to me, but I prefer hearing Ella sing it as well as every tune she recorded. Kitty was no slouch in the singing department, it's my personal preference. I started playing 78s when I was a 3 y/o & still miss the ones I accidently broke. Glad we have CDs of the same recordings.
@EBLLC
One of the best "Big Band" songs/tunes of all time!
@meotho6672
Frank Sinatra had just as good tunes
also Doris Day died recently so Rip