Fran Frey

Fran Frey was a singer and saxophonist born on December 23, 1903, in Indiana. He died on December 1, 1962, in California, at the age of 58, from a heart attack suffered at his home.

Frey built his reputation primarily through his association with George Olsen and His Music during the 1920s and early 1930s. Over the course of that partnership, he contributed vocals to 77 recorded and radio performances with the Olsen band. Among the recordings he was associated with during this period, "Who?" sold more than one million copies. Other notable songs from his time with Olsen include "The Varsity Drag" from 1927, "Big City Blues" from 1929, and "A Garden in the Rain," also from 1929.

His stage work brought him to Broadway in 1927, where he appeared in the musical Good News. Following his years with Olsen, Frey performed with additional ensembles, among them the band led by Victor Young, though those later engagements did not replicate the prominence he had reached earlier in his career.

Frey also maintained a presence in radio broadcasting. In 1933 he was featured on the Oldsmobile Program on CBS. He was additionally the composer of "Tell The Story," which served as the early theme song for the 1940s radio program The Big Story, starring Edward G. Robinson. That composition was recorded in 1962 by Frank De Vol and his Rainbow Strings orchestra and included on their album More Radio's Great Old Themes. The piece later became the opening theme for The Big Broadcast, a radio variety program hosted by John Hickman on WAMU, a role it has continued to hold.

At the time of his death, Frey was actively composing music for the Ice Capades and for Columbia Pictures.