HERE COMES THE NAVY

Dating to 1943, this Soundie "Here Comes the Navy" features "The Song Spinners". Soundies is both a company name, and a generic name for three-minute musical films popular in the 1940s. Some were designed to be played on coin-operated 16mm movie jukeboxes called "Panorams". Considered precursors to modern music videos, soundies featured a wide variety of musical acts from the era, including jazz, big band, country, and Irish folk, and were a significant platform for Black performers who were often underrepresented in mainstream movies. Some of the various companies that made soundies included Minoco Productions and RCM Productions, which was part of the Mills Novelty Company.

The Song Spinners were a singing quartet of two men and two women which began as a folk song group on radio in the 1930s and then enjoyed a burst of popularity during the 1942–44 musicians' strike. They accompanied Dick Haymes on "You'll Never Know" and several other hits. They had a number one hit in 1943 with "Comin' In on a Wing and a Prayer".