And leave the rest to me

Continuing my trip back through the 1959 album charts.

30/08/59 : Frankie Vaughan At The Palladium - Frankie Vaughan


Frankie's one of those names that I know but I don't really have the faintest idea what he does - it's croony-cabaret stuff, isn't it? 

Hmmm - it's more swingy-cabaret stuff really, although it comes close to descending into pub-singalong at times. The whole thing sounds massively chaotic and the sound quality is also pretty poor - I'm guessing they hadn't really worked out how to record live stuff yet. The tracks are OK I guess but feel pretty dated, but not as dated as the "banter" - "Hey there, how old are you?" "Sixteen" "Sixteen - mmmm!" (Frankie was 31 at this time).  All in all, this wasn't a pleasant experience.

We're at #6 in the charts this week with a new entry that spent one more week in the charts and then disappeared forever. The top five this week were South Pacific, Gigi (I no longer bother checking before typing those two), My Fair Lady, Peter Sellers and Elvis Presley and there are no other new entries or named women in the chart.

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album - it's one of only two live album he released (as opposed to seventeen studio albums between '57 and '79). His entry doesn't tell us an awful lot about the man, but I did learn he also appeared in quite a few films, including Let's Make Love opposite Marilyn Monroe. He is also one of only 42 people to have appeared on This Is Your Life twice - fame indeed.

"Customers also listened to" Bing Crosby, Max Bygraves, Frankie Laine and, errrr, They Might Be Giants. The reason for TMBG's inclusion must be that both they and Frank have recorded cover versions of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" - which, as everyone knows, was originally performed by The Four Lads in '53. With regards to Frankie, I think it's safest just to label this as "of its time" and move swiftly along...

...but I can't leave without making you feel REALLY old by pointing out there was a 36 year gap between Frankie and TMBG's versions of "Istanbul (Not Constrantinople)" - and there's a 35 year gap between TMBG's version and now.

23/08/59 - Absolutely dreadful
06/09/59 - Decent enough

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