Perry Como
COMO SWINGS
~ UK album notes
RCA STARCALL HY-1035
STEREO 1976 REISSUE
with Mitchell
Ayres and His Orchestra
Barbershop quartets were
prominent at the turn of the century and before as
examples of close harmony singing in popular music, often
performing a cappella and delighting their audiences with
their mellow, unaccompanied harmonies. No evidence has
come to light to date as to whether Pierino Ronald Como
was ever a member of a barbershop quartet, but he
certainly was a barber in his early days and he did try
out his singing tones on his seated customers.
Italian by descent, Perry
was born into a traditionally large family on May 18,
1912, in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and is one of those
much-discussed and highly rated candidates for
life’s good fortune in being the seventh son of a
seventh son. He had an inward motivation and zest to
succeed that belies his now world-famous reputation for
casual relaxation, and was helping after school in a
local barbershop to earn pocket money when he was ten.
Four years later, Perry reckoned he was ready to open his
own hairdressing establishment, in line with his ambition
to become the best barber in Canonsburg; but he complied
with his father’s wishes that he should at least
complete his high school education before paying
full-time attention to other people’s heads on a
professional basis.
By 1933, the year of his
twenty-first birthday, Perry had been a barber for nearly
four years, and was in sight of achieving his ambition of
being the premier one in Canonsburg. He had also acquired
the habit of singing softly to his customers whilst
working on their hair or stubble, and they were unanimous
in telling him he ought to take up singing
professionally. This wasn’t a hopeful ploy to
encourage him to stop and give his full attention to what
he was doing with his scissors or razor; they really
meant it. Perry was planning to get married in 1933, and
realized that extra money earned by singing would prove
very useful in facilitating his matrimonial aims.
He auditioned for Freddy
Carlone, a popular local bandleader, and did so well that
Carlone offered him a substantial salary to join on a
full-time basis. Perry agreed with some reluctance,
influenced by the money and figuring that he could always
resign after the wedding and return to barbering. Fate
dictated otherwise for the seventh son of a seventh son,
however, and the next three years were spent touring the
mid-west of the USA with the Carlone band in a hard,
exacting but rewarding series of gigs that furnished the
grounding and launching pad of the Como singing career.
In 1936, whilst singing
with the Carlone band in a casino in Warren, Ohio, Perry
was heard by Ted Weems, a nationally popular and
successful bandleader, who invited him to join his
organization. With typical self-effacing modesty, Perry
later described the invitation as being due to the fact
that Weems had just won a pile on the roulette table and
had a vocal vacancy to fill anyway. Weems put the record
straight by retorting that he had instantly liked what he
had heard and so had the other paying customers, who had
demanded six encores before they would let Perry leave
the stage.
He stayed with Weems until
1942 when the bandleader went into the armed forces.
Perry decided to go solo on the night club and theatre
circuits, and steadily progressed, building upon the
reputation he had established by appearing and
broadcasting with the Weems band. In 1943, he signed a
recording contract with RCA, with whom he has remained
ever since, and in 1945 he reached the top rung of
stardom with two million-selling hits, Till the End of
Time (a pop adaptation of Chopin’s Polonaise
in A flat), and a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic from
"Carousel," If I Loved You.
The mellow, well-modulated
Como voice with its smooth, even vibrato was an ideal
vehicle for romantic ballads and more rhythmic numbers,
and, whilst Perry freely acknowledges the influence of
Bing Crosby on his own style, it is irrefutable that the
Como tones are uniquely original and in a class of their
own. So were his television shows between 1952 and 1957,
which set new high standards in warm, polished
small-screen entertainment, won virtually every award
available, and establishes a pattern which appertains
today. To cite one small example, Perry sat on a stool to
sing to us long before Andy Williams and all the others
did, and Val Doonican’s rocking chair was of direct
descent.
This album is a very
pleasant souvenir of those days with arrangements and
accompaniment in the capable hands of the late Mitchell
Ayres, who was Perry’s musical director on TV and
elsewhere for many years. It was recorded in 1959, but,
as always in Perry’s case, the date is immaterial
because the projection of the songs is timeless. Whether
they be Cole Porter classics such as I’ve Got You
Under My Skin and Begin the Beguine; jazz
standards like St. Louis Blues and Mood Indigo;
Bobby Troup’s neat travelogue Route 66, or an
inconsequential ditty such as Let a Smile Be Your
Umbrella, the Como treatment makes a song memorable and a
permanent pleasure. Canonsburg lost a good barber back in
1933, but the world gained a great singer who sounds as
good now in 1976 as he did when he made this album.
~
NIGEL HUNTER, 1976
SLEEVE
NOTES FROM UK RELEASE CIRCA 1976
RCA
LIMITED, RECORD DIVISION,
RCA HOUSE, CURZON ST.,
LONDON W1, ENGLAND
RCA
STARCALL STEREO HY-1035
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