Buttons and Bows: The Dinning Sisters, Art Van Damme, and… Bob Hope!

Buttons and Bows was the biggest hit by the Dinning Sisters, one of the greatest “sisters” close harmony groups of the 40s-50s.  They sold a million copies of this song, with jazz accordionist Art Van Damme on the buttons.  I’d been wanting to hear their version of the tune, and here it is.  According to one  lovely Cattle Records compilation (which is of early more country numbers), “A disc jockey in Washington, DC once remarked that his idea of heaven would be ‘Lying on a feather-bed with a stack of Dinning Sisters records on the changer.'”

Correct me if I’m misplacing his wild affections, but I think Woody Guthrie said he wanted to marry all of them.

I wrote more about the Dinnings last summer: Grand Ole Accordion: Country Music in Chicago and the WLS National Barn Dance

Seemingly trying to cut Van Damme at his own game, Bob Hope took a whirl at the song in the film, “The Paleface” (first half of this vid.)