He made his home in that fish's ab-domin

Continuing my trip back through the 1959 album charts.

08/11/59 : Porgy And Bess - Original Soundtrack


I know Porgy And Bess exists and I know it's got a famous song in it, but apart from that I'm drawing a complete blank on it, so I'm looking forward to educating myself about this.

Ah - so "Summertime" is the famous song, although "It Ain't Necessarily So" is almost as well known. The rest of it is all well put together (if not exactly catchy on first listen) and well sung but it was all a lot slower and more operatic than I was expecting - I've heard much better versions of both the songs I knew. I also didn't get any real idea what the plot was - I couldn't even tell you if it had a happy or sad ending (although I'm sure Wikipedia will tell me). I also wondered whether there was an element of racial stereotyping - my suspicion is that things were just different back then, but I'm sure Wikipedia will fill me in here too. Overall, I didn't mind this, but can't say I loved it - I'd be quite interested to watch the film to see if the extra context increased my enjoyment. "It Ain't Necessarily So" really does have great lyrics though.

We're at #8 in the charts in the second week of a run of two weeks, which was the second run of four it managed in '59 and '62 with #7 being as high as it got. This weeks top five were South Pacific, Cliff (a new entry), Gigi, My Fair Lady and Peter Sellers with no further new entries or named women in the chart.

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the soundtrack, but it does tell us that the film features Sidney Poitier, whose part was sung by Robert McFerrin (Bobby "Don't Worry Be Happy" McFerrin's dad!), Dorothy Dandridge, whose part was sung by Adele Addison and Sammy Davis Jr, who did sing his part in the film - but wasn't allowed to appear on the album due to his recording contract, so it's Cab Calloway on the album. The only other names I recognise are Diahan Carroll, who achieved so much in her life including being the first African-American woman to win a Tony, but I really only know her from Dynasty and Nichelle Nichols (Lt Uhura) who made her film debut as an uncredited dancer. 

The entry for the opera tells us it was written by George and Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward and was first staged in 1935. Ira Gershwin specified that it should only ever be performed by black performers which was quite bold for the times, but there was still a reasonable amount of racial controversy around the whole thing, which only increased as time went on - the film was delayed by a couple of months due to the entire set burning down, which was rumoured to be arson in an attempt to shut the film down. However, a 1976 revival went some way to rehabilitate it in the public's eyes and it seems to generally be now thought of as having achieved more good than bad. The entry also explains the plot to me in detail and I can assure you I didn't get 90% of what went on - it's fair to say it's not a happy tale though.

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations" which seems fair enough because we've not come across much like this on our travels. I didn't mind it, but it was more a case of admiration than enjoyment - I am pleased I know at least something about it now though.

01/11/59 - A disappointing compilation
15/11/59 - Meh

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