Morton Downey

Downey began his singing career as a member of the choir of Most Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford.

Downey's signature sound was a very creamy and very high-timbred Irish tenor, which an uninformed listener can easily mistake for a female voice.

By the mid-1930s, the style was out of fashion, and Downey reduced some of his broader mannerisms and made a transition to a somewhat more "chesty" vocal timbre.

Downey was also a songwriter whose most successful numbers include "All I Need Is Someone Like You", "California Skies", "In the Valley of the Roses", "Now You're in My Arms", "Sweeten Up Your Smile", "That's How I Spell Ireland", "There's Nothing New", and "Wabash Moon".

In 1930, Downey began making national radio broadcasts after opening his own nightclub (The Delmonico) in New York.

[3] On February 5, 1945, his transcribed program Songs by Morton Downey moved from the NBC Blue Network to the Mutual Broadcasting System.

[8] Downey died following a stroke in 1985 in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 83, and was buried in the local Catholic cemetery in his hometown of Wallingford, Connecticut.

Morton Downey (right) among the patrons of the Stork Club in New York City (November 1944)