Arthur Tracy (born Abba Avrom Tracovutsky; June 25, 1899 – October 5, 1997)[1] was an American vocalist and actor, billed as The Street Singer.
Late evening radio listeners tuned in to hear announcer David Ross' introduction ("Round the corner and down your way comes The Street Singer") and Tracy's familiar theme song, "Marta, Rambling Rose of the Wildwood."
Born Abba Avrom Tracovutsky in Kamenetz-Podolsky, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), he emigrated to the United States with his parents, listed as Mordeche and Fannie Trasowitzkey, and sisters, in October 1906;[2] they were steerage passengers on the SS Blücher, from Hamburg to New York.
[4] To avoid embarrassing his family if his show failed and to prevent being blackballed from future vaudeville bookings for having appeared on radio, Tracy decided to make his identity a mystery and borrowed a billing from the title of Frederick Lonsdale's musical The Street Singer (1924).
Tracy gave his romantic interpretation to such songs as "When I Grow Too Old to Dream", "I'll See You Again", "Trees", "Everything I Have Is Yours", "Red Sails in the Sunset", "Harbor Lights", "The Whistling Waltz", and "Danny Boy".
[2] This brought a favorable review in The New York Times from John Wilson, who wrote that his vocalizing had "a delightful patina of period charm", adding that Tracy was "a spellbinder, setting a mood and scene, disarming the doubters by admitting that 'I always put all the schmalz I had into my songs.'"