MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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She is a small town girl, growing up in Maysville, Ky., with the majestic Ohio River. While still a school girl, she and her little sister began to make their mark in show business. In the spring of 1946 Rosemary Clooney recorded her first solo number, a song called "Sooner or Later," with her boss Tony Pastor scat-singing in the background.
She and Betty already had been veterans of radio, having launched their own show on powerful WLW Radio (which called itself "The Nation's Station") in 1945. It was there that the girls caught the attention of Pastor.
Rosemary's story had its high points and some incredible low ones, too. She married actor Jose Ferrer and five children arrived over a short period. Her hit recordings were heard in homes nationwide and filled many a juke box as well.
The marriage proved rocky, as Ferrer was a philanderer. Rosemary had her own TV show for awhile, featuring the fabulous Hi-Los as regular guests.
Her hit recordings were some of the biggest by any performer, including the novelty tune that she hated and didnt want to record, "Come On-A My House," and the gorgeous ballads, "Tenderly" and "Hey There."
A recent autobiography, "Girl Singer" (Doubleday), written with Joan Barthel, details the ups and downs of Rosemarys still triumphant career. A companion double album, "Songs from the Girl Singer" (Concord Records) should be taken home by everyone who remembers Rosemary from those old days or who just "met" her through recent TV appearances on many shows.
There are 29 tracks on the two CDs, which also comes with many photos of various stages in her life. An accompanying booklet, written by Barthel, gives the background of many of the songs, which range from her first recordings to the magnificent James Taylor ballad, "The Secret of Life," which was included on "70 - A Seventieth Birthday Celebration," released two years ago.
Rosemary's voice has changed over the years, and her ability to sustain notes has diminished somewhat with the advance of time. But she has in full measure the attribute that was always her greatest strength. That is her dead-on interpretations, getting at the essence of each song, be it a novelty number such as "Come On-A My House" or "Mambo Italiano" or the wonderful old ballad from World War II, "(They'll Be Blue Birds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover."
The 20-page insert in the album gives the background on the songs chosen to be included. Barthel writes that the Ohio River has become a metaphor for Rosemary. "A genuine metaphor, unforced--a river isn't still; a river is moving water. Rosemary Clooney's life courses through his music, and her music through her life, as naturally and inevitably as the Ohio River flows for more than two thousand miles--sometimes tranquil, sometimes turbulent."
Barthel writes that Rosemary learned strict diction in singing from Sinatra. "The singer is the conduit between the songwriter and the listener, the only instrument in the band that has the words," Barthel writes. There are only a few pop singers who have received superior ratings on that attribute, including her friend Tony Bennett.
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While Rosemary appreciated the accolades, she's never considered herself a jazz person. To her, the lyrics are the important thing, although melody certainly counts for a lot.
The selections culled from tracks recorded in the 40s to the past few years are uniformly excellent. Its rare that even a compilation album would be stuffed with such good material, some of the finest pop songs ever written.
If you are a longtime Rosemary Clooney fan, this will be an album you will treasure because of its excellent samples of high points in her long career. If you've just been introduced to Rosemary through her appearances on TV, particularly on "Live with Regis & Kathie Lee" and "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," this album will serve as a wonderful introduction to one of the finest performers of the twentieth century.
T.K. Blue, also known as Talib Kibwe, plays a sizzling alto sax and a enrapturing flute on his first album on the Arkadia label, "Another Blue." This all-acoustic album contains a superb array of entrancing tunes, performed by a tight group of players. There are some familiar standards ("You Go to My Head" and "A Night in Tunisia") that are played with soul and creativity. Two famous jazz names appear as guests, trumpeter Eddie Henderson and pianist Randy Weston.
With 13 performers contributing, "Another Blue" turns out to be one of the best albums to arrive on my front porch in several months.
Blue himself is an interesting personality. Of West Indian parentage, he began playing music in his hometown on Long Island, N.Y. While a student at NYU, he threw himself into music while living in a funky neighborhood of the East Village in New York City.
Over the years, he has played with some of the bigger names in jazz, including Weston and Abdullah Ibrahim. After touring with the latter, Blue moved to Paris in late 1981 and stayed there until 1989. Back in the U.S. for the past decade, Blue has worked in many situations, which has been important in widening his horizons. 
More than a half century has passed since those halcyon days. Betty decided to go back home, while Rosemary quickly became a major star. Over the decades, she worked with the icons of show businesses, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and many, many more. She starred in five films, including the perennial "White Christmas," with a cast including Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen.
Concord Records, which has been Rosemary's recording home since the mid-70s, began recording her with small groups composed of crackerjack jazz musicians. In this revival, which came a few years after her major breakdown following the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, she began to draw the attention of jazz critics, many of whom began to label her as a jazz singer.
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T.K. Blue Is Red Hot
One way I can tell how much I like a new album is through a simple test. If I play it four times prior to writing a review, it's good and will receive an approving review. If I play it six times, it's worth a rave. But if I've listened eight or more times without my interest flagging, it's one of the year's best.
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