PERRY COMO
“Some Enchanted
Evening” Original
1939-1949 Recordings
Ranking
among the top pop singers of the 1940s and 1950s, Perry Como held his own
throughout his 60-year career against a phalanx of rivals headed by Frank
Sinatra. The ‘man who invented casual’ crooned melodiously until well into his
eighties by which time he had sold an estimated 60 million records. Renowned
for his especially amiable, relaxed (some even said somnambulant) delivery,
like Sinatra Perry focused, at least in his earlier years, special attention on
the lyrics of his songs. The one-time star of his own $25 million TV series and
“Crooning King of the Christmas Special”, he died with an impressive collection
of Emmys and Grammys to his credit.
Pierino
Roland Como was born in Third Street (now Perry Como Avenue), Canonsburg,
Philadelphia on 18th May, 1912, the seventh of thirteen children of
first-generation immigrant Italians Pietro and Lucia Como. His father, a steel
mill-worker, was not especially well paid, and to supplement the family’s
meagre income, from the age of eleven Pierino worked as a barber’s assistant.
Having quickly learned his trade, however, at fourteen he was already a skilled
barber who serenaded his clients for amusement. Subsequently, he built up his
own hairdressing business, and was equally interested in barbershop singing
when, in 1933, he married his childhood sweetheart, Roselle Bellini.
That same
year Perry won an amateur singing contest and, reputedly at Roselle’s
instigation (and certainly with her blessing), the 21-year-old crooner
successfully auditioned for Freddy Carlone’s touring band. He always maintained
he never enjoyed touring because it took him away from his family but, as ‘Nick
Perido’, he nonetheless stuck to his new career and toured the Midwest with
Carlone until 1936, when he was heard singing in an Ohio casino by bandleader
Ted Weems (1901-1963). Born Wilfred Theodore Weymes in Pitcairn, Philadelphia,
Weems, who had formed his first band in a Philadelphia café as far back as
1922, for many years fronted a popular band in Chicago. He took his latest
‘novice’ under his wing and featured him as a soloist on radio until the band
broke up in 1942, when Ted entered the US Armed Forces. Their 1939 recording of
the 1909 ballad “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” became a US No.2 hit in
1947 when it was revived as the title-song of the 20th Century Fox Joseph E.
Howard biopic.
In 1942
Perry signed with the General Amusement Corporation and thereafter pursued a
coast-to-coast solo career in night-clubs and theatres. In 1943 he signed a
recording contract with RCA-Victor (with whom he would remain for the next 50
years) and that same year began a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox –
he partnered former night-club singer Vivian Blaine in the musicals Something
For The Boys (1944), Doll Face (1945) and If I’m Lucky (1946).
After being released at his own request from the Fox contract in 1947, he made
one last brave attempt to become a movie star in the MGM Rodgers & Hart
biopic Words And Music (1948).
His first
US charted hit recordings (1943-1944) were followed in 1945 by Marjorie
Goetschius and Edna Osser’s “I Dream Of You” (at No. 10) and a revival of the
1930 Doc Dougherty–Ellis Reynolds standard “I’m Confessin’” (at No.12). His
first No.1 “Till The End Of Time” (a parody on Chopin’s A flat polonaise,
featured in the film A Song To Remember) and the No.3 “If I Loved You”
became his first million-selling discs during the same week of 1946.
Perry’s
other hits of 1946 included Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed’s “Temptation”
(a No.21 revival of a hit first aired by Bing Crosby in the 1933 film Going
Hollywood), “If You Were The Only Girl In The World” (at No.14, this
was a revival of a Nat D. Ayer–Joseph Meyer standard originally featured in the
show Bing Boys Are Here, in 1915) and “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”
(another Chopin adaptation – and Golden Disc – at No.5) in addition to two more
No.1s (the first a million-selling revival of the 1931 Russ Columbo standard
“Prisoner Of Love”, the other Bennie Benjamin and George Weiss’s “Surrender”).
And in 1947 the ever-growing list continued with, among several others, “Two
Loves Have I” (reviving a 1931-vintage number in translation by Vincent
Scotto, at No.21), “When You Were Sweet Sixteen” (a new version of the 1898
James Thornton classic, at No.2) and, at No.1, the Mack David–Al Hoffman–Jerry
Livingston pidgin-Italian lullaby “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba”.
The
1948-1949 Como hit-list offered No.4 versions of “Because” and “Far Away
Places” plus a richer seam which included “Give Me Your Hand” at No.23,
“Bali Ha’I” at No.5, “Forever And Ever” (at No.2) No.1s with “ ‘A’ –
You’re Adorable” and “Some Enchanted Evening”, a hit-song of the Richard
Rodgers’ stage musical South Pacific. Between 1944 and the late 1960s, Perry
Como clocked up more than 40 US Top Ten hits, including 20 Golden Discs, an
achievement matched only by Bing Crosby; in the UK charts he had 26 Top 40
entries between 1953 and 1974. Dubbed “the world’s most casual singer”, by 1950
Perry was hosting a popular, thrice-weekly CBS variety show which would evolve
into The Perry Como Show and between 1952 and 1957 net him various
awards. In 1951, he recorded a million-selling revival of “If”, in 1952 his
“Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes” proved to be one of the all-time biggest
C & W-style hits and in 1954 he had two more Golden Disc hits with “Papa
Loves Mambo” and “Wanted.”
In 1958,
Perry’s hit album Catch A Falling Star won him a Grammy and in the late
’50s he also had American No.1 singles with “Ko Ko Mo”, “Hot Diggity” and
“Round And Round.” In 1960 “Magic Moments” (a US No.4) became a British No.1
hit. In 1970, “It’s Impossible” became his twentieth Golden Disc and inspired
an Indian summer of activity marked by a highly successful series of world
tours and further hits, notably “For The Good Times”, in 1973. During 1973 he
also made a rare TV appearance in the presentation Cole Porter In Paris.
A rare visitor to Great Britain (he visited for the first time in 1975, during
his sell-out first overseas tour) his Greatest Hits album nonetheless
sold a million copies there, whereas in the United States his Christmas TV
shows, which had long been a national institution, ran every year until 1992.
Although he never officially quit show-business, Perry spent most of his last
decade walking, fishing and playing golf. He died peacefully at his home in
Jupiter, Florida, on 12th May, 2001, aged 88 years.
Peter
Dempsey, 2001
1. SOME
ENCHANTED EVENING (Rodgers–Hammerstein II, from South Pacific)
With
Mitchell Ayres’ Orchestra
(Victor
D9-VB-233) Recorded March 1949 3:32
2. I
WONDER WHO’S KISSING HER NOW (Howard–Hough–Adams)
With Ted
Weems’ Orchestra
(Decca
66725) Recorded October 1939 3:16
3. I
DREAM OF YOU (Goetschius–Osser)
With Ted
Steele’s Orchestra
(Victor D4-VB-468)
Recorded December 1944 3:31
4. I’M
CONFESSIN’ (THAT I LOVE YOU) (Neiburg–Dougherty–Reynolds)
With Ted
Steele’s Orchestra
(Victor
D4-VB-470-2) Recorded December 1944 2:48
5.
SURRENDER (Benjamin–Weiss)
With Russ
Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D6-VB-1395-3) Recorded April 1946 3:18
6. I’VE
GOT A FEELING I’M FALLING (Waller–Rose–Link)
With Russ
Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D7-VB-1694-2) Recorded October 1947 2:10
7. GIRL
OF MY DREAMS (Clapp–Kallua)
With The
Satisfiers and Russ Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D6-VB-1368) Recorded March 1946 3:17
8. BLUE
SKIES (Berlin)
With The
Satisfiers and Russ Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D6-VB-1698-2) Recorded March 1946 2:19
9. WHEN
YOU WERE SWEET SIXTEEN (Thornton)
With
Lloyd Schaffer’s Orchestra
(Victor
D7-VB-248) Recorded April 1947 3:18
10. YOU
MUST HAVE BEEN A BEAUTIFUL BABY (Warren–Mercer)
With Russ
Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D6-VB-1366-2) Recorded March 1946 2:20
11. IF
YOU WERE THE ONLY GIRL IN THE WORLD (Ayer–Grey)
With Russ
Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D6-VB-1367) Recorded March 1946 3:40
12.
TEMPTATION (Brown–Freed)
With Ted
Steele’s Orchestra
(Victor
D5-VB-166) Recorded March 1945 2:45
13. TWO
LOVES HAVE I (Scotto–Murray–Trivers. French words Koger–Varna)
With Russ
Case’s Orchestra
(Victor
D7-VB-1702) Recorded October 1947 3:19
14. GIVE
ME YOUR HAND (Stewart)
With
Mitchell Ayres’ Orchestra
(Victor
D9-VB-1356) Recorded May 1949 3:01
15.
PLEASE BELIEVE ME (Walker–Merrill)
With
Mitchell Ayres’ Orchestra
(Victor
D9-VB-2472) Recorded November 1949 3:18
16. BALI
HA’I (Rogers–Hammerstein II, from South Pacific)
With
Mitchell Ayres’ Orchestra
(Victor
D9-VB-234) Recorded March 1949 3:39
17.
CHI-BABA, CHI-BABA (David–Hoffman–Livingston)
With
Lloyd Schaffer’s Orchestra
(Victor
D7-VB-247) Recorded April 1947 2:59
All
tracks recorded in New York
Transfers
and Digital Restoration by Peter Dempsey