Dolores Gray was an actress and singer who won a Tony award for her performance in the Broadway musical version of the 1936 French film Carnival in Flanders. The stage show, backed by Bing Crosby was generally hated and ran only six nights.  But Gray’s performance in the show still managed to win her the Tony Award in 1953 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical, which makes her the record-holder for shortest run of any actress to win the award. Take a listen below and find out why.

youre_my_thrill.mp3

Gray was singing in supper clubs in her early teens when she was discovered by Rudy Vallee, who made her a fixture on his radio program. From there, Gray sparked up the stage performing in, among others, 42nd Street, Annie Get Your Gun, Destry Rides Again, and Two on the Aisle. On screen, she appeared with Gene Kelly in It’s Always Fair Weather, and Howard Keel in Kismet (both 1955), the film that brought us the song, “Baubles, Bangles and Beads.” Dolores passed away in 2002 in Manhattan. The cause of death was a heart attack. She was 78 years old.

This music also works well while you’re electrocuting Korean henchmen or sneaking onto a rocket with intentions to thwart a ego-maniacal billionaire’s plans to destroy the Earth with poison orchids and re-populate it with genetically perfect human specimens bred in outer space.

You can also play card games to it.

I made this especially for my friend Laura, who is currently scuba diving off the coast of Honduras in Utila on her birthday (March 31st).  Love to you, Brassy!

Enjoy!

“I who was lost and lonely… believing love was only… a bitter tragic joke, have found with you, the meaning of existence, oh my love”

“Corcovado” (known in English as “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”) was written by Anotnio Carlos Jobim and had been recorded in the early sixties by both Sergio Mendes and Miles Davis before becoming an international success when a version included on 1964′s landmark bossa nova album Gilberto/Getz , with lyrics by Gene Lees and vocals by Astrud Gilberto.  The Gilberto version is below.  Sinatra’s 1967 version from the bossa nova album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim  follows after the jump.

“Corcovado” is named after the mountain in central Rio with the imposing “Christ the Redeemer” statue situated on top.  Anyone up for a trip?  I’ve got the perfect music for the plane ride.

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“When your lonely heart has learned its lesson… You’d be his if only he’d call… In the wee small hours of the morning… That’s the time you miss him most of all”

“In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” was composed by David Mann with lyrics by Bob Hilliard and introduced as the first track of the 1955 Sinatra album of the same name.  The album is a collection of ballads reflecting on lost loves and loneliness, reportedly inspired by Sinatra’s tumultuous relationship with actress Ava Gardner.

in-the-wee-small-hours.mp3

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“And now I think of my life as vintage wine… From fine old kegs… From the brim to the dregs… It poured sweet and clear… It was a very good year”

Arguably the most famous Frank Sinatra song of them all, the 1965 recording of “It Was a Very Good Year” was filmed by CBS Television and used for a Walter Cronkite news special celebrating Sinatra’s 50th birthday, broadcast on November 16th of that year. The footage is included below.

The song is from the the album September of My Years, winner of the 1966 Grammy for “Album of the Year,” “Best Male Vocal Performance” and “Best Instrumental Arrangement” for Arranger Gordon Jenkins.

I’m older than the ages referenced in the first three verses now. Both my mother and my father used to sing along with this song when I was a kid. It held no meaning for me then. Now, I find it to be so overwhelming I’ll only ever listen to it when I’m alone.

it_was_a_very_good_year.mp3

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“If you can use some exotic booze… there’s a bar in far Bombay.
Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away.”

Show of hands, please.

Who’s not looking forward to their upcoming annual December encounter with the airport?

Sure, it’s gonna be great to see the faces of distant loved ones and family members again. But is it really worth the humiliation of standing in line for thirty minutes for the esteemed pleasure of showing off your current sock choice to complete strangers?  Do you miss Grandma so much you’re willing to say nothing to the guy next to you in the track suit, chowing down on McDonalds straight out of the grease-stained sack as he screams into his phone at the divorce attorney who seems incapable of preventing “that vindictive bitch from taking it all!”

MG is much better at handling airport happenings than I am.  He actually chit-chats with the people he finds sitting next to him at the gate.  HE ACTUALLY PURPOSELY ENGAGES IN CONVERSATION WITH THESE PEOPLE!  Apparently, he enjoys finding things out about them. Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the other side of him, slumped down, repeatedly muttering under my breath “Stop… talking to them” while debating whether or not to extend my leg and purposely trip the unattended child who’s running in circles with a drool-soaked Red Vine hanging out of its mouth.

I always walk into the airport with the best of intentions.  But I always walk out with an upset stomach, a snarling lip, and for some reason the latest issue of Macworld, a magazine that holds absolutely no interest for me whatsoever.

Come Fly with Me was Frank Sinatra’s first collaboration with the great Billy May, who had made his name as an arranger for some of the biggest “big bands” of the 1940s and 50s, including Charlie Barnet and Glenn Miller. The two entered the studio together for the first time in the fall on 1957. The resulting album is a breezy combination of uptempo swing and pensive ballads, with a few exotic touches here and there. So successful was the pairing, that Sinatra again collaborated with May on two additional Capitol releases, 1959′s Come Dance with Me and 1961′s Come Swing with Me.

If you find yourself feeling weary and anxious this December as you suck in your gut during the full body scan or fight your way down the aisle to the last row of the 747, situated only a few nauseating steps away from the lavatory, “Come Fly with Me” could prove to be the key to maintaining your sanity.

But it’s only a stopgap measure for sure.

Next year, I suggest you look into the train.

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If you look very very carefully, you might just catch the product placement in J-Lo’s performance.

And I remember thinking how out of control it was back in 1986 when Wang Chung dared to include their own name in  ”Everybody Have Fun Tonight.” How far we’ve come.

Had the Fiat just rolled onto stage at the end and whisked her off, I don’t think I would have felt so dirty for having tuned in. But when a car that looks like a big toe on wheels comes off cooler in the performance than the person actually performing, everyone should be worried.

Video below.  And right now, somewhere in Hollywood, a network executive is sitting on their couch, working up a preliminary budget for the next big television phenomenon: Dancing with the Datsuns.

Thanks J-Lo.

Read More  - Dancing with the Stars, Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad and more

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“Stars and steel guitars… Luscious lips as red as wine… Broke somebody’s heart… and I’m afraid that it was mine”

“It Happened in Monterey” was written by lyricist Billy Rose and composer Mabel Wayne for the 1930 film revue King of Jazz starring Bing Crosby, John Boles, and Jeanette Loff.

The… shall we politely call it “dated”… version, as performed by Boles and Loff, is included below.  Clear the dance floor for great-gradma.  When she hears this coming out of your speakers, she’s gonna jump up, pop a rose between her teeth and bolero herself from one end of the living room to the other!

Sinatra’s thankfully updated take on the track appears on his Songs for Swingin’ Lovers album, originally released in 1956.  With arrangements by the great Nelson Riddle, this album is one of the most buoyant and high-spirited discs in the entire Sinatra discography. Try listening to “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “Pennies from Heaven,” or even the old show pony “Anything Goes” just once.  This is most definitely an album to accompany a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen.  Drop granny off at a WPA meeting and crank up the volume!  Your Mp3 link is below.

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Some day… he may… buy you a ring, ringa-linga. I’ve heard that’s where it leads. Wearin’ baubles, bangles, and beads…

There’s no one bigger than The Chariman of the Board.  Hop on over to the local bar where people know your name and ask just about anyone:

“Baubles, Bangles and Beads” is my third Sinatra post in a row from the 1967 Bossa Nova album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, definitely one of Frank’s best. The song is from the 1953 American musical Kismet, set in Baghdad in the times of The Arabian Nights.

The show won the 1954 Tony for Best Musical and was made into a film by MGM in 1955, starring Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, and Dolores Gray who has her own tribute post right here at Tv Food and Drink.

Take a listen to Frank’s charmingly woozy version below:

baubles_bangles_and_beads.mp3

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“Like a river that can’t find the sea… that would be me… without you, my Dindi.” 

“Dindi” is the second track off the 1967 album Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim.  The song was composed by Jobim especially for Brazilian jazz samba and bossa nova singer Silvia Telles, nicknamed “Dindi.”

Telles actually preceded Bossa Nova, beginning her professional career in the mid-1950s, but quickly became one of the emerging genre’s biggest fans and champions.  Her album, Amor De Gente Mocau, was the first to consist entirely of Jobim compositions, leading off with “Dindi.”

Telles was thirty-two years old when her life was tragically cut short by a car accident, but her influence can be heard in the line of gentle, provocative voices of the genre that followed her, and right here with Sinatra’s gorgeous take on the song.  Enjoy!

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