“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.”
Reward yourself with three minutes and nineteen seconds to let Frank Sinatra and Anonio Carlos Jobim remind you of why Sundays were invented with the woozy, relaxed swing of “The Girl from Ipanema,” embedded below.
This week, The Big W devotes his entire Podcast to the swingin’ songs of Annette Funicello, with tracks from the former Mousketeer recorded between 1958 and 1965.
Highlights (well, the highlights for me) include Annette’s version of “Blame it on the Bossa Nova” and her 1960 track “Pineapple Princess,” written by The Sherman Brothers (The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) for Annette’s 1960 album entitled… wait for it… Hawaiianette: Annette Sings Songs of Hawaii!
And most movie fans my age will probably recognize the title tracks from the Disney films “Merlin Jones” and “The Monkey’s Uncle.” Concerning the latter, there is somewhere an ex-boyfriend of mine with a video of me stoned and singing along while jumping on a mattress and scratching under my arms with my fingertips. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Here come the groovy vocal stylings of Annette Funicello, in all her double-tracked glory. Enjoy!
Click here for the Big W’s tribute to the songs of Annette Funicello
It’s 6pm on the West Coast. For most people, that’s “Cocktail Time.” But not for me. For me, it’s “Debate Whether or Not to Work Out and Celebrate Said Contemplation by Ordering a Large Pepperoni Pizza and Sitting On My Ass Watching Reruns of The Bob Newhart Show” Time.
I don’t miss cocktails as much as I used to. But damn, I do miss photographing them. I had the knack. This is my all-time favorite shot of my all-time favorite cocktail… a vodka martini. Isn’t she beautiful? I named this one Emma. Then I drank her.
I only bring up being on the wagon because our host of tonight’s podcast, The Big W, is on the wagon too (he’s under the weather, so it’s strictly soda for him tonight). But as you serve up your shaker and toast the end of the work day with that far-out cat or groovy gal of yours, he’s got the perfect Hi-Fi soundtrack for your evening’s real gone scene.
Highlights on tonight’s podcast include Jack Jones singing “Wives and Lovers,” which some of you may know as the song that runs over the credits of the film The First Wives Club.
The Big W’s also got Doris Day’s “The Glass Bottom Boat” from the 1966 film starring Day and Rod Taylor, a swingin’ version of “Won’cha Come Home, Bill Bailey” by Della Reese, and “Kookie Kookie Lend Me Your Comb,” which up until this podcast I didn’t know was actually a song. I thought it was just something 1950s kids said to each other, like “What’s Buzzin’?” and “Neeto Freeto!”
And then get ready for two very unique and very different versions of “Old McDonald” First up, it’s a radio jingle from Frank Sinatra for “Peter Epstein Pontiac.” And a little later, brace yourself for the most far-out version of the song you’ve ever heard, performed by Ellz Fitzgerald. You’ll never look at it as a kid song again.
Though you may not notice it, the lyrics to the “Moonlight in Vermont” do not rhyme. And excluding the bridge, the rest of the song is composed of haiku, the verses consisting of 17 syllables in phrases of 5, 7 and 5, respectively.
The song was originally recorded in 1944 by Margaret Whiting though it has been covered numerous times over the years by the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Jo Stafford, The Dorsey Brothers, Nat King Cole, Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz, Billie Holiday, Johnny Mathis, and Willie Nelson, whose version off the 1978 album Stardust is probably my second favorite after Sinatra’s. You also may remember it as the number Diane Keaton and Sam Shepard sway to during the town dance scene in 1987’s Baby Boom.
Sinatra’s version of the serenade to the natural beauty of our fourteenth state follows below, from the album Come Fly With Me (1958)
Released in March, 1961, Ring-a-Ding-Ding was Frank Sinatra’s first album on the Reprise label, founded by Sinatra himself one year before in an effort to allow himself more creative recording freedom after breaking with Capitol.
Solely in charge of album production for the very first time, Sinatra delivered a parade of upbeat swing numbers, without the assistance of conductors/arrangers Nelson Riddle and Billy May, who were both still under contract at Capitol. Stepping in was Johnny Mandel, who later went on to co-write the Oscar-winning song “The Shadow of Your Smile” from The Sandpiper, and “Suicide is Painless,” better known as the theme from the the film and television show, M*A*S*H.
Be sure to listen for the cowbell coming from the percussion section, a must for any song looking deliver a South American vibe.
Click through to listen:
For those of you who weren’t around in the early 1980s when daytime soaps were at their indisputable peak, The Afternoon Delights are ready to catch you up with their 1981 novelty song re-capping the happenings on the King of All Soaps, General Hospital.
My introduction to this show involved a pre-Robin Mattson Heather Webber dropping LSD into Diana Taylor’s iced tea as part of her plan to drive Diana to the mental ward and claim for her own Diana’s baby, who was actually Heather’s biological child sold months earlier on the black market. What Heather didn’t know was that the lazy susan the identical iced teas were sitting on was accidentally turned on when she wasn’t looking, and poor Heather ended up dosing herself. My mind exploded at the idea that this is what grown-ups got to do with their time. It explains a lot about my own personal life choices as an adult, but that’s a topic for another post.
The song chronicles the story lines happening in Port Charles post “Luke Rapes Laura at the Campus Disco” and pre “Remote Island Housing Evil Machine That Will Freeze the World” (as indicated by the line,“How it ends up nobody knows!”)
My favorite lyric in the song has to be “Alan was the father… of course. And he won’t give Monica… a divorce!” That’s followed closely by, “Amy Vining likes to blab… Richard Simmons helps fight flab!”
The bad rap and the slutty horn section just add to the fun.
Click through to hear the song for yourself
A good ninety percent of my time spent in the kitchen is accompanied by the music from five time Oscar winner, John Barry. In fact, as I type these words, the music from the Fort Knox raid scene in Goldfinger is pumping through my living room.
Barry’s first two Oscar wins were for Best Original Score and Best Original Song, both from the 1966 film, Born Free. That was followed by three more wins for Best Score with The Lion in Winter (1968), Out of Africa (1985) and Dances with Wolves (1990). Additionally, Barry provided the score for nearly a hundred other films, including Midnight Cowboy, Somewhere in Time, Body Heat, The Cotton Club, Peggy Sue Got Married and Chaplin.
Most importantly (to me anyway), Barry scored eleven of the James Bond films and defined the musical style that still dominates the 007 series to this day. Although Barry is not credited with wrtiting the “James Bond Theme” itself, he claims that it was he, in fact, who penned it when the producers found the original arrangement by Monty Norman unsatisfactory. And while Norman has won multiple libel suits over the years upholding his claim on the theme, no composer is more closely associated with the Bond film series than John Barry.
Continue reading “Listening To: “From Russia with Love” – John Barry” »
“Just in Time” was introduced in the 1956 musical Bells are Ringing, directed by Jerome Robbins and starring Judy Holliday, who also played the leading role of Ella the answering service operator in the 1960 film adaptation co-starring Dean Martin and directed by Vincent Minnelli (regularly airing on TCM and well worth the viewing).
Sinatra’s version of the song was recorded for the 1959 album Come Dance with Me!, which spent over two years on the Billboard album charts and became Sinatra’s most successful album of all time, though it peaked at number two. The album took Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Best Vocal Performance by a Male and Best Arrangement for Billy May. Aside from “Just in Time,” Come Dance with Me! also includes the classics, “Cheek To Cheek,” “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “Baubles, Bangles & Beads.”
Check out Sinatra’s version of “Bells” below, and happy Sunday!
The slinky voice of Dolores Gray would be the perfect soundtrack to a midnight skinny dip or an evening trapped in a snowed-in cabin. It also soothes the beastly rage brought about by Los Angeles morning gridlock or your internet service provider being totally ineffective at diagnosing your connection issues, not that I would know.
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.