Editing The Ink Spots (section)

==1940s==
===Recordings===
Between the years 1940 and 1949 the Ink Spots landed well over 30 hits on the US Pop Charts with 18 of them on the top 10. The group’s first Billboard #1 hit came in 1944, when they teamed up with [[Ella Fitzgerald]] to record "[[I'm Making Believe]]".<ref name=pc1b>{{Pop Chronicles 40s|1|B |url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1633222/m1/#track/3 }}</ref> This recording featured Bill Kenny.  In 1946, the Ink Spots earned another #1 spot on the US Pop Charts with "[[To Each His Own (Jay Livingston and Ray Evans song)|To Each His Own]]". The [[Billy Reid (British songwriter)|Billy Reid]] composition "[[The Gypsy (1945 song)|The Gypsy]]" was the Ink Spots' biggest chart success, staying at the #1 position on the Billboard Best Sellers chart for 10 straight weeks in 1946.

Other hits for the Ink Spots in the 1940s included "[[When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano]]", "[[Maybe (Allan Flynn and Frank Madden song)|Maybe]]", "[[We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)|We Three]]", "[[I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire]]", "[[Don't Get Around Much Anymore]]", "[[A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening]]", "[[Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall]]", and "[[I'm Beginning to See the Light]]".<ref name="Tyler2007">{{cite book|last=Tyler|first=Don|title=Hit Songs, 1900–1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hSCfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA251|year=2007|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-2946-2|page=251}}</ref>

===Films===
In 1941, the Ink Spots were featured in ''[[The Great American Broadcast]]'' starring [[John Payne (actor)|John Payne]] and [[Alice Faye]]. In the film, the Ink Spots play [[Pullman porters]] who sing during their breaks and ultimately "make it big time" and sing live on the radio during a national broadcast. The group sings a short segment of "[[If I Didn't Care]]", "Alabamy Bound", and "I've Got a Bone to Pick with You". They also provide background vocals to  Faye and Payne on a ballad entitled "Where You Are".

The following year, the Ink Spots were featured in an [[Abbott and Costello]] film, ''[[Pardon My Sarong]]''. In this film, the Ink Spots play singing waiters in a nightclub. They sing the ballad "Do I Worry?" and the swing song "Shout Brother Shout".<ref name="Goldberg, Marv 1998"/>

===Line-up changes===
[[File:Poster for The Four Inkspots and the N.B.C. Orchestra.jpg|thumb|A poster for the group promoting an appearance with the [[NBC Symphony Orchestra]] circa 1946]]
In 1943, Ink Spots baritone singer and guitarist Fuqua was drafted into the [[United States Army|US Army]]. He chose his friend Bernie Mackey to be his temporary replacement until he returned to the group. After being with the group for two years, Mackey was replaced by [[Huey Long (singer)|Huey Long]] in March 1945. Long completed the role as a "fill in" until Fuqua finally returned in October 1945.

Jones died in October 1944, after collapsing on stage at the Cafe Zanzibar in New York City, near the height of the Ink Spots' popularity. He had been having cerebral hemorrhages for a year, and had fallen ill from the condition in June 1944.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/ink_spots.htm|title=The Ink Spots|website=Rockabilly.nl|access-date=23 March 2018}}</ref> Jones was temporarily replaced by Cliff Givens, who filled in from October 1944 to March 1945,<!--Givens would later sing with Ry Cooder in his ''Paradise and Lunch'' (1974) period, although not appearing on the album --> before a permanent replacement was found in Bill Kenny's brother (and fraternal twin) Herb Kenny. Herb Kenny sang with the group from 1945 to 1951, when he began a career as a solo artist. The last bass singer in the Ink Spots was Adriel McDonald, who was with the group from 1951 to 1954. McDonald was previously the Ink Spots' personal valet, a job given to him by Herb Kenny, with whom he had sung in a group called "The Cabineers" in the early 1940s.

Due to personality clashes between Bill Kenny and Watson after Jones' death, Kenny decided he would rather carry on as the leader of the group and bought Watson's share of the group for $10,000, which gave him the power to kick Watson out of the group. Watson went on to form a group similar in style to the Ink Spots called [[the Brown Dots]] (which later became [[the Four Tunes]]), and his place was filled by Billy "Butterball" Bowen, who sang with the Ink Spots from 1944 to 1952.