SO SMOOTH
Its a Good Day
As Time Goes By Ive Got the World On a
String
My Funny Valentine
For Me and My Gal I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
Breezin Along with
the Breeze Its the Talk of the Town You
Do Something to Me
It Happened in Monterey
One for My Baby In the Still of the Night
with Mitchell Ayres and His
Orchestra
and the Ray Charles Singers
There is more to Perry Como
than meets the ear, even on records. In a career not actually
of great length, though of great consistency in both
popularity and quality of vocal product, the unfrocked barber
from Canonsburg, Pa., has assumed the dimensions of a
well-behaved legend in show business. His creamy voice is
signature enough, but there are other components of the Perry
Como Legend, which add luster and reputation and respect to
the voice itself.
Psychologically, most of
his listeners look upon the voice of Perry Como as something
extra special, for it is the sound of one who has become
known in Show Business as "Mr. Nice Guy." This is a
title not bestowed capriciously. There are lots of amiable,
genial, cheerful, smiling, carefree countenances, in the
entertainment trades, but few which carry their surface
virtues home, and their finest homely virtues onto Broadway.
Perrys importance is
based first and foremost, of course, on his creamy tones, his
veteran manner with a song, his "style," now so
easily recognizable. But into that rich syrup of a voice has
been poured by his listeners or TV viewers
admiration the Complete Perry Como the fine voice plus
the fine fellow and the homebody, and the good father, the
fellow who has simplified his life while making it more
important, who has deepened the impact of his performances
while making them seem so thoroughly effortless.
We have watched Perry up
fairly close since 1943, when he came back to show business
after having been frustrated by a gypsy existence as a band
singer when he was the soothing syrup supplying solos to the
Ted Weems orchestra. We remember him vividly then, for
Perrys had been a favorite though distant sound in our
ears through his Ted Weems period. When we first interviewed
him, we didnt know he had just been retrieved from
alongside the hot towels in the now-famous barber shop in
Canonsburg.
We have been closer than
most Tin Pan Alley observers to the Perry Como Parade simply
because we had been a young fan in those Ted Weems days. We
had harkened to the soothing orchestral serenade, mostly from
Chicago, when Perry had been using the vocal formations of
one Bing Crosby to get a hold in the musical world the
way a writer utilizes the alphabet. It was Bing who made the
world attractive financially for baritones, and Perrys
timbre was not unlike Bings; and his style then was
Crosbys, unashamedly; he still openly states his
permanent admiration for Bing and what Crosbys old
records did in the form of primary vocal lessons.
But as a writer develops
from his alphabet, out of his admiration for Joyce or
Hemingway or Yeats or whomever, Perry Como improvised his
present style so distinctively his own, though always with a
willing never reluctant nod back to Bing for
his early inspiration.
Perrys selections for
an RCA Victor album entitled So Smooth contain
tasteful popular anthems to be pressed into this fine
anthology. They are exceptionally welcome pop items in each
case, but together, improved in the sauce of Perrys
rich tones, they make a specifically nifty lineup. If you
were to get a representative musical group of browsers among
the finer "standards" they likely would agree to a
memory on every one of the enclosed.
It Happened in Monterey has
been a favorite since before Billy Rose got down seriously to
publicizing his name as "Billy"; it is listed in
our early research tomes as written by Mabel Wayne and
"William" Rose. It is, like the others herein, a
fine "standard," ideal for Perrys style and
timbre. Such a stylish anthology would not be tastefully
proper without a Harold Arlen melody, so Perry has picked "I Gotta Right to Sing the
Blues", (And please note it is
"I Got . . . " and not "Ive Got .
. ."; its apparent lack of grammar can be properly laid
at the door of characterization, for it was written [lyrics
by Ted Koehler] as a semi-folk song, and a fine one.) "Ive Got the World on a String"
is included as a bonus
for Arlen-Koehler addicts. Youll naturally find a
Rodgers and Hart item "My Funny Valentine" raising
its pretty and tenderly sophisticated sound from the
never-too-distant past. "As Time Goes By", the Herman
Hupfeld song which gave a whole movie Casablanca
a mood and sentimental importance, also gets
Perrys attention, as naturally must at least one Cole
Porter sentiment, "You Do Something to Me". The late
Richard Whiting cant go ignored at such collected
moments as these, so his "Breezin Along with the
Breeze" is warmly noted, as are "Its a Good Day",
For Me and My Gal", "Its the Talk of the Town", "One for My
Baby" and "In the Still of the Night".
It naturally goes
without saying though we feel it best to say it for
the record if nothing else that Perrys voice is
raised to the accompaniment of Mitchell Ayres orchestra
and the Ray Charles Singers, which spread out to ample
voicing in the "big" numbers, meaning fully
orchestrated, and shrink to a bright and semi-impromptu
smaller group as the mood brightens and the pace increases.
The total result is Pure Perry Como, all of his niceness and
talents and taste herein supplied, and therefore, So Smooth.
Jack
OBrien
Well-known
newspaper columnist Copyright
1955, Radio Corporation of America
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