He was born a year after Elvis, and died four years before Presley breathed his last. Although he was only 37, his death was due to natural causes. His entire show business career lasted slightly more than 15 years. But possibly no recording artist, no entertainer, ever packed as much creativity, variety, inspiration, commitment and pure joy into his work over such a short span of time as Bobby Darin did.Next month Rhino Records will release As Long As I'm Singing: The Bobby Darin Collection, a four-CD box set of nearly 100 of his most memorable recordings. Twenty-two years after it all ended sadly for the multi-talented Darin, perhaps it is high time for a reevaluation of his impressive body of work, especially his records.
True, Darin has been accorded the honor of induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Class of 1990). But that distinction arrived in spite of an all-too-common labeling of the singer during his lifetime that he was little more than a "poor man's Sinatra." To call that idea somewhat shortsighted (as well as misinformed) is more than an understatement.
Pat Boone, who was already a pop singing star when Darin emerged in the late '50s, remembered his impression of the courageous entertainer. "Like [it is] with Elvis, my hindsight is better than [my perceptions] at the time," said Boone, who starred in the 1962 Hollywood movie State Fair, which also featured Darin in a supporting role. "I knew that Bobby had made audacious statements like, 'I'm gonna be a legend by the time I'm 30.' And I knew he was a tremendous fan, and almost an imitator, of Frank Sinatra.
"And though I had been influenced by Bing Crosby, I didn't try to copy him. And I didn't make public statements about how I was ever going to get to be a Bing Crosby. But Bobby was more audacious, and more bold. And, of course, he pretty much accomplished his objectives," Boone added with a laugh. "So you couldn't argue with that! But I was made just a little uneasy by people that were so cocky."
"Now, Bobby, I think by his own admission, would say he was cocky. But he pulled it off! That was his style. I had to admire what he did with 'Mack the Knife' and 'Beyond the Sea.' Bobby, I certainly came to be aware, was an exceptionally bright, talented, gutsy guy."
The comparisons to Sinatra were something that Darin could do very little to avoid early in his spectacular career. But in fact, especially after his biggest hit record, "Mack the Knife," had established the "Darin persona" in the public's mind, he proved himself to be perhaps, the most unique artist the recording industry has ever seen. His experimentation with so many different types of music—from the big band swing of "Ol' Macky's Back," to , the raw R&B or C&W balladry of Ray Charles, to Broadway standards to his most personal, folkish late '60s work on his own label (Direction)—is something that very few recording stars have dared to approach.
Certainly before Darin, there was no one who shifted musical gears and styles so often and unpredictably. (Fellow chameleon Neil Young, of all people, has cited Darin as one of the primary influences on his own career in music.) The amazing thing, even listening to his records today, is that he mastered almost every genre he tried so convincingly, and so well.
"But Bobby, there is no one, ever, who could sing every [type of music] that he did, and do it as good as you'd ever want it," said Steve Blauner, a close friend and confidant of Darin's for many years who was also his manager. "Yes, Frank Sinatra sang better, from the standpoint of the big band stuff. Look, there is no question in the world that the greatest singer ever, pop singer, is Frank Sinatra. Hands down.
"But Frank never sang country 'n' western songs you'd believe. Frank never could sing a protest song, Frank could never sing a folk song, and so on. Bobby could. You know what I'm saying? I mean, they once put an organ in the beginning of one of Frank's songs ['That's Life'], he almost threw up from it. And it was one of the better records that he ever had.
"And that's what this [Darin boxed set] for me is," Blauner said. "I'll buy a hundred, probably, myself. But this is for the peers: present, past, who might still be alive, and future."
After his 1959 smash with "Mack the Knife," the album That's All, and Darin's move (at age 23) into the Las Vegas performance arena, the Sinatra measuring stick was inevitable. But with the benefit of several decades of reflection about this most unusual of performers, it might more appropriate now to regard the New York-born Darin as "the urban Elvis."
He didn't make as many movies, and didn't have nearly as many mega-hits, but in his relatively brief time in the spotlight Darin made his mark as an artist who refused to be pigeonholed, pre-packaged or easily categorized. And of course not remembered on a scale anywhere near approaching Elvis-worship, nonetheless the memory of Darin as a person and as a show business phenomenon held by those who knew and loved him, and loved what he did, is imbued with a devotion that is remarkable and touching.
"I'll tell you a parallel situation," said record producer Nik Venet, another close friend of Darin's throughout his career. "The parallel would be Willie Nelson. There was a time when Willie Nelson wore fringe and cowboy outfits, and played with a swing band. It's political, really. He started going toward the left. In Nashville they called it 'outlaw,' here [in Los Angeles] we called it 'to the left.'
"He did become an outcast, but he stuck to his guns. He started an entire new version of country [music]. So country wasn't just 'right,' politically. [Nelson] started a left. We've always had a right and a left in our music [too], in pop music. The blues and the folk has been the left, and the pop has been the right. It's kind of broad, but you know what I mean.
"It's interesting," Venet said. "Where Willie is today, if Darin was alive, he would have the same respected career. It's not a resurgence. He never makes a come-back. He's just always there. If Willie Nelson gets a hit single tomorrow, or a hit album, it'll be Willie Nelson who we love, You see? But if somebody else hasn't had a hit for 10 years, he'd be having a come-back.
"The same thing with Darin. He wouldn't be making comebacks," Venet said of the singer, who would have been 59 this year. "Darin would always be here, just like Willie Nelson. That's what he was doing to pop music. He was trying to find that middle ground, between what he came out of, and what was a required thing, into a new feel for pop music, similar to what Willie Nelson did to country music.
"And nobody understands that. Because he didn't get a chance to finish it. And he's not here. If he had been here, you'd have Willie Nelson and Bobby Darin, two kinds of music, but still two icons. And that's the bottom line. The guy was ahead of his time, but he was also dangerous for his time. That's an important factor. He was a dangerous person, for his time. Because he was willing to put it on the table, and throw the dice."
Venet is telling it like it was, and would've continued to be, as he witnessed first-hand every musical phase that Darin went through. Roger McGuinn (Jim McGuinn at the time), who played guitar and toured beside Darin for two years before experiencing his own big success with the Byrds, agreed that his one-time boss could do every bit of it with ease,
"Bobby was in total command of his craft," McGuinn said. "It was easy for him to combine many musical styles and keep them all credible. He had learned from the great masters of vaudeville, and carried those traditions into pop music."
But no matter how many styles Darin eventually tried his hand at, it seems that most Americans, at least, prefer to remember the brash, young, "finger popping" Bobby Darin, the guy with the devil-may-care attitude and sophistication to burn.
That's the guy we know who is pictured on the cover of his third album This Is Darin, from 1960: arm outstretched in a "come and love me, baby" pose, his tux shirt unbuttoned at the collar, the formal tie dangling from his right hand. If this was "the right," well hey, it was lookin' pretty cool. This cat was smokin'.
The sound of Darin's voice, particularly his extremely confident and mature vocal on "Mack the Knife," immediately sends people back to a time in our country's history when things looked a bit more promising, times were simpler, and the American Dream seemed more within reach to the average working person. The single was released during the summer of 1959, but to many who have never been sure exactly when the tune started seeping into the collective consciousness "Mack the Knife" just conjures up that late '50s, Eisenhower era. And just as Miles Davis was the personification of cool in the jazz world, Darin was his counterpart in the pop music world.
A prime recent example of how Darin's signature recording is typically placed in a cultural context is its use over the opening credits of the Oscar-nominated, Robert Redford-directed movie Quiz Show. The film's action, based on real life events, takes place in 1957, at which time Darin was actually still struggling to come up with his first hit record.
Director Barry Levinson, who played a role in Quiz Show, purposely used Darin's recording of "Beyond the Sea" in his own movie Diner, which takes place in 1959. The continued use of Darin's music in period pieces such as these is appropriate not only because his sound echoes a yearning for what may still be perceived as a more romantic time. Darin's music fits on the screen because during his career he aspired to be an active participant in the field of movies, acting in them, writing songs and sometimes additional music for them, even meeting his teenage bride, Sandra Dee, on the set of the first (Come September) of the three movies they starred in together.
Darin made 10 other films that were actually released, and played numerous dramatic roles on television, in addition to his dozens of musical appearances on TV, from his 1956 shot on Stage Show, a program hosted by Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, to The Bobby Darin Show, which aired in 1973, the year he died. This information and much else is contained in the outstanding book That's All: Bobby Darin On Record, Stage & Screen (1993) by Jeff Bleiel, available from Popular Culture, Ink, Ann Arbor. Michigan.
For the purposes of this article, it is intended that Bleiel's work be used only as background, and not to duplicate that data here. It is, however, the primary source of factual material gathered about Darin's show business career—-the records and all the rest of it—-so the avid Darin fan is strongly encouraged to seek it out. The book is generally not available in libraries or bookstores. (It should also be noted that Venet, who got Darin signed to Capitol in the early '60s after his contract with Atco was up, cooperated fully with Bleiel on his Darin book, as did many others close to the singer. Furthermore, it is Bleiel and Venet, along with Rhino's James Austin, who are credited as co- producers on the boxed set, due out November 21st.)
There are two other noteworthy books available on Darin, both of which are available in libraries. The first is Al DiOrio's Borrowed Time: The 37 Years of Bobby Darin (Running Press), which first appeared in 1981. Although this book does contain some reliable information on Darin's career, including an 18-page section in the back with a singles and albums discography, a list (albeit incomplete) of songs written or co-written by Darin, plus his movie credits, the tone of the book leans decidedly more towards the personal side of the entertainer, whose given name was Walden Robert Cassotto when he was born in the Bronx on May 14, 1936.
It is surely conceivable that DiOrio had a notion of turning his work into a biographical movie on Darin's life and career, a la The Buddy Holly Story, or having it picked up by Hollywood for that purpose. So far, no movie about Bobby Darin has gone into production, although lately there has been talk that actor Johnny Depp, who has a background in music and singing, is very interested in taking on the screen role of the dynamic performer. As detailed by Blauner, the Darin movie bio idea has been floating around for quite some time, and part of the (typically convoluted Tinseltown) story involves Levinson.
As to DiOrio's book, there are those who were close to Darin who preferred not to participate in its compilation and were less than pleased with its presentation of the man at issue. One of the angles of the book, in addition to the all-important factor of Darin's weak heart (a condition he battled all his life) and how his constant awareness of his gloomy medical prognosis (as a child it was deemed unlikely that he'd live long enough to finish high school) spurred him to outdo even the most single-minded overachiever, was a spiritual crisis that Darin supposedly faced when he was already in his thirties.
Never having known his father (or even so much as his real father's identity), Darin was told, after he had become a father himself, that the woman whom he knew as his mother, who died in 1959, was in actual fact his grandmother. He was further informed that his real mother was a family member whom he'd been relating to as his big sister his entire life. According to DiOrio's account, this revelation threw Darin into a tailspin, and made his final years only that much more difficult to cope with.
DiOrio's book certainly has its merits and it's a good enough rendering of his story, especially for those fascinated by anything to do with Darin. But it only succeeds up to a point in delving effectively into the psychology of the man. DiOrio is a fan, but never knew Darin personally, and it's debatable as to whether or not his book adds up to a focused picture of the real Bobby Darin.
To his credit, nonetheless, for many years Borrowed Time was the only serious work available on the singer, and it did much to help keep interest in Darin alive, especially in the period before compact discs, when virtually all of Darin's recordings were out of print, and the only place he'd show up was in one of his early hits on oldies radio. (Almost none of Darin's movies, with the exception of State Fair, are available on home video and they are seldom ever broadcast on cable or late night TV. Likewise, few of his TV appearances have been preserved for posterity.)
The other literary work that should be checked out by the serious Darin fan is Dream Lovers (subtitled The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin And Sandra Dee) by Dodd Mitchell Darin, the only child of Darin and Sandra Dee, born in 1961. Dodd's book came out last year through Time Warner (the trade paperback version due out next month also) and some of his material may very well be used in a dramatic movie bio on his dad if Warner Brothers ends up making the picture.
As for who might be the best candidate to portray his father in a movie bio, Dodd Darin believes that Depp could pull it off. "I know there were conversations with him and his people," Dodd said. "He has expressed an interest in playing it. I think Levinson looks favorably on [Depp] doing it. And Depp was quoted as saying he was interested in the Darin thing, because of how he was conflicted. 'He was externally super-cool, this master show-biz guy, but inside he was churning and he had all this conflict.' And it's true that that's a right-on take on [Darin]. For my two cents, I would love to see him play it. I think he's a great actor, and I think he could capture the complexity.
"Getting someone to play him is gonna be a huge challenge. I'm happy with Johnny Depp. If he does it, that would be great. But you gotta get not only a good actor, but you also have to get someone who can do the performing scenes: to make you believe that they're gonna belt these songs out on stage. It's not easy. And that certain edge, that certain 'it'—whatever 'it' is—that he had. And he was not good-looking, where you can get a Tom Cruise to play him. That would be sacrilegious! What made Bobby Darin great was that he overcome that he had the physical limitations."
Of course, Dodd Darin's book is highly personal, and it is about both his parents, not favoring one over the other. Understandably, he seems to have benefited from the cooperation of more people acquainted with his father than DiOrio had earlier, although it is interesting to note that 40-year music industry veteran Harriet Wasser cooperated in the writing of both Borrowed Time and Dream Lovers.
Wasser knew Darin before he had his first hit with "Splish Splash" in the spring of 1958, believed in his talent, handled his publicity for free until he could afford to pay her and introduced Darin to Blauner, who Darin prevailed upon to become his manager. Rather than repeat information from either of these books; they are also used basically as background for this piece on Darin. The books by Bleiel, DiOrio and Dodd Darin are all worthwhile for the Bobby Darin fan.
"I don't think there are many who realize the totality of his music," said Dodd, who accepted the honor of his father's induction at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony five years ago. "It's my humble opinion that that diversity, that willingness to take risks, actually kind of worked against him with the critics and the public during his life, when he was making that music.
"Because people like to be comfortable pegging you in a certain way: 'He's a Sinatra,' [or] 'He's Jerry Lee Lewis,' "He's R&B.' But when someone has the balls to try different styles—and be pretty good at them—people get offended by that. People get uncomfortable.
"And one of the things that bore that out for me was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [award]," Dodd Darin said. "When many critics, these pseudo-experts on music or art, were saying, "Well, what's Darin doing in here?' And I remember feeling like, 'This is ridiculous—-look at his early music. Look at some of the stuff he did later in his career. And the fact that he could do pop and Sinatra and standards and ballads, well, let's not penalize him.' The contributions were there.
"And I think that's one of the reasons, posthumously, he hasn't gotten the recognition that other artists have. It's that diversity. You could never pin him down. And an example is going into a record store today. In some stores you'll find his stuff in 'Oldies,' Some stores you'll find him in 'Easy Listening.' In some stores you'll find him in both. He was hard to peg, as an artist. And again, I think critics and the public had a problem with that."
So much for Darin's misunderstood image. But then, there's the records. "That's probably why we really met," Venet said about his friendship with Darin. "He knew a lot about records that had happened, and so did I. We got to be good friends over old records, from Vaughan Monroe to Louis Armstrong, going all the way back to Buddy Bolden and Frank Teschemacher and Johnny Dodds and Dixieland days. It was still unusual, even then in the '50s, the rockabilly era. And coming all the way up, and knowing what was happening currently.
"But he was very astute. He really knew his music," Venet said, "He didn't make any song, he didn't record an standard, by accident. This was one smart cookie, who knew what he was doing all the time. People (today] don't really know that. I see kids making their own records now, and everybody wants to be an associate producer or a co-producer. But he knew what he was doing. All you could do was put on your seat belt and say, 'Here comes—we're goin' for a ride. Hang in there.'
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