Perry Como
TV Favorites Notes
RCA VICTOR LPM-3013
MONAURAL LONG PLAY
ASSEMBLED MARCH
1952
Perry Como
With Mitchell Ayres' Orchestra &
Chorus
and Sally Sweetland
It’s generally agreed in music circles that when Perry Como introduces a song, it’s a hit — and he’s had plenty of hits in the eight years he’s been in the big time. Many of them he premiered on his Chesterfield shows — the "Supper Club" radio show and now the Chesterfield "Perry Como Show," videoed three nights a week over a national network. The millions of televiewers who go for Perry’s handling of new hit tunes are just as clamorous (as Perry’s fan mail testifies) to hear him sing the old favorites, like the tunes in this collection. Perry agrees with them in liking the oldies. "There’s something about the old songs," he says, "that has an exceptional appeal. In singing a tune that was popular some years back, I find a terrific listener response. I even feel the response myself. It’s different from my reaction with a modern tune." "With an old tune you not only have a melody that has remained fresh and attractive through the years, but there’s something else — that indefinable something, nostalgia." There’s plenty of nostalgia for Perry himself in the songs he sings here. For instance, when "My Heart Stood Still" was the big hit from the 1927 Broadway show, "A Connecticut Yankee," Perry, still just a kid, was already a working barber in his native Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (next year, he had his own shop). "Black Moonlight" was new in 1933, an eventful year for Perry. He’d just started his career as a band vocalist, with Freddy Carlone’s orchestra, a barnstorming outfit. In July he married his childhood sweetheart, Roselle Belline. Four days after the wedding, he went on the road for eighteen months with the band. It was during this time, early in ’34, that William Gaxton was singing "If There Is Someone Lovelier Than You" to Libby Holman in the Broadway musical, "Revenge With Music." Next year, as Broadway cheered George Gershwin’s great "Summertime" from his popular opera, "Porgy and Bess," Perry got an offer from Ted Weems, with whom he stayed ‘till the band broke up in late ’42. "I Concentrate On You," which was featured in the hit movie, "Broadway Melody of 1940," could have been Perry’s theme song that year, for it was then that his son, Ronnie, was born. Strictly a family man, Perry has been concentrating on his family, which now includes a daughter, Terri, and another son, David, ever since. 1943, the year "While We’re Young" made its bow, saw Perry emerge as one of the nation’s top male vocalists. His first records for RCA Victor were smash hits and he played a sensational engagement at the Copacabana. In December, ’44, he formed his continuing connection with Chesterfield, and was signed to a seven-year film contract by 20th Century-Fox on the basis of his screen test alone. A pair of stars who hit the top in ’43, like Perry, followed up their initial success, "Oklahoma!," with another smash, "Carousel, " in ’45. It’s from that Rodgers and Hammerstein show that Perry has chosen the newest of the oldies in this collection: "You’ll Never Walk Alone." Original Album Notes SUPPER CLUB FAVORITES ~ RCA VICTOR LPM-3013 Copyright 1952, Radio Corporation of America |
