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Buddy Clark was one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1930s and '40s, a success on radio, in movies, and on record -- had he lived longer, in the estimation of pop music scholar John P. Cooper, Clark might easily have been a rival to Perry Como or Dean Martin in post-war America. A fixture on the airwaves for his first decade-and-a-half as a singer, Clark didn't hit his commercial stride until the end of the '40s, with more than a dozen hits in scarcely two years -- when his life was tragically cut short by a plane crash. He was born Samuel Goldberg in Dorchester, MA in 1912. He initially chose law as a career, but before he was halfway done with law school, he'd started working as a singer. By 1934, under the stage name Buddy Clark, he was being featured on Benny Goodman's Let's Dance radio show, and he became a regular for two years on radio's Your Hit Parade from 1936 until 1938. Although he was never a jazz singer, and was most comfortable with pop songs, Clark was appreci...