Bobby Darin
Beyond the Sea...Beyond the Music

Before Making A Splash

"None of us has gotten over it. I mourn him today, and it's been 20-some years," Venet said about the loss of Darin. "I mourn him to this day, and so does Steve Blauner."

Before Bobby Cassotto became Bobby Darin, he was a student of American music and show business traditions who taught himself to be a musician. He could sing, play a few rudimentary instruments and write simple tunes that rhymed as early as age six. In 1951, when he was a gifted pupil at the exclusive Bronx High School of Science, Cassotto was asked to join a group called the Eddie O'Casio Orchestra as their drummer, even though he had never played the drums before, The group, which landed an engagement at a Catskills resort in upstate New York, is notable for the fact that the trumpeter was Dick Behrke, who worked as Darin's pianist and conductor after the singer made it. (Behrke also arranged a few of the numbers on Darin's fourth album, Darin at the Copa.)

Cassotto graduated from Bronx Science in June 1952 and that fall, at age 16, enrolled at nearby Hunter College as a Theatre Arts major. His choice of study supports a theory about Darin held by some who knew him early on, that he would have been just as happy with his career if he had made it on the strength of his acting ability, rather than his singing or song writing. Of course, Darin's ambitions as an actor were partly fulfilled later, but it's generally surmised that he never went as far with it as he would've liked. Again, the theme arises that Bobby was just too short of time.

He and Behrke found an apartment on West 71st Street in Manhattan. The next year he dropped out of Hunter to join the cast of a touring children's theatre company production of the play Kit Carson. The show lasted a couple of months. Cassotto making $45 a week, but it was a paying gig and his first taste of the road, (Earlier he had played a part in a Hunter College production of the Henrik Ibsen play Hedda Gabler, requesting that he be billed as "Walden Roberts.")

In 1954 and '55 Cassotto, now 18, developed a songwriting partnership with another of his friends from Bronx Science, Donny Kirshner. (Kirshner became famous in the music business 20 years later with his syndicated TV show Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.) At first they wrote commercial jingles for radio spots, but then got more ambitious, writing pop songs and making the rounds to try and sell them. This went on for a couple of years, while Cassotto also worked at developing as a singer and musician. He would sing and play on the demos of the tunes he and Kirshner wrote. (It's not known exactly how many songs the pair penned together, but there were a couple of dozen at least. DiOrio lists 15 in his book, Bleiel lists 23 in his.)

The fledgling duo went to see if it could get a meeting wilh George Scheck, a former Vaudeville performer who was then an artist manager. He also hosted a weekly television variety show called Star Time. Scheck liked some of the songs the two kids brought in, and asked them to write a theme song for his TV show. He also felt he could place some of their songs with recording artists who were signed and/or established, which he eventually did, gaining Cassotto and Kirshner a little income. A few of the more important ones were LaVern Baker's recording of "Love Me Right," Bobby Short's recording of "Delia" and Gene Vincent's recording of "Wear My Ring." (Later the Coasters recorded their song "Wait a Minute." It was even rumored at one time that Bobby was being sized up to become the only white member of the Coasters.)

From Bobby's personal standpoint, the most significant recording of one of their songs was when Connie Francis, one of the singers managed by Scheck, recorded the tune "My First Real Love," with Bobby playing on the session. Bobby and Connie met and fell in love during this period (when they also appeared together on shows), as detailed in the Darin books, as well as in the Connie Francis autobiography Who's Sorry Now? But even though the relationship was serious, with Bobby especially thinking marriage, Connie's father, a strict Italian family man, was adamantly opposed to her involvement with this wild kid from the Bronx, and drove him away from his daughter. But they did remain friends after they both became stars.

It was some time in 1955 that Scheck realized that the Cassotto kid could sing. At 19, Bobby got Scheck to manage him. Kirshner had been acting as his friend's manager up to that point, and reacted emotionally when Bobby told him he wanted Scheck to take over. Nevertheless, their songwriting partnership and friendship continued. At this point, Scheck suggested a name change and Bobby Cassotto became Bobby Darin.

Scheck, whose recollections of Darin are featured in the Dodd Darin book (but who died before it was published last year), quickly got Darin signed to a recording contract with Decca Records. Decca executive Milt Gabler had Darin record "Rock Island Line" because the song had just been successfully done by the British skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan. The recording session took place in early March, with Darin also cutting a tune he'd written with Kirshner and Scheck, "Timber," for the B-side.

His performance of "Rock Island Line" for his March 10th appearance on Stage Show did not go over well, and neither did the record. But Bobby Darin had his first single out. He had another two years of struggling ahead before anything significant would happen for him as a recording artist. The only memorable thing about his debut on network TV was that it took place a week after Elvis appeared on the show, and exactly a week before Elvis returned for an encore performance.

Darin went on the road in 1956, with Kirshner backing him on guitar for some of his club gigs, playing places like Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis, even as far south as New Orleans and Birmingham, Alabama. These gigs didn't help sell his records of the time, but Darin slowly began evolving into the performer who, in only a few short years, would wow audiences from coast to coast. He would have two more singles released on Decca in 1956 and one more in 1957 (none of them doing anything), before the label dropped him. His second single's A-side, "Silly Willy" (credited to Darin/Kirshner/ Scheck), is the only one of his eight Decca recordings included on Rhino's compilation box. It is the collection's first track. (For anyone interested in hearing the other seven, there was a cassette called Bobby Darin: Silly Willy, now out of print, put out by MCA in 1986 which gathered together his Decca recordings.)

It was early in 1957 when Decca and Darin parted company, and this is also about the time that Venet met Darin. They first met at a restaurant called the Turf Club that was in the Brill Building in midtown Manhattan, the place where every aspiring songwriter of the day was trying to get a hearing.

"We didn't know what the #### we were doing," Venet said with a laugh. "I was born in Baltimore, but I left home early to get into that business. I worked with jukebox operators. I was trying to sell a record called 'Suzie Q' by Dale Hawkins. He was running around with some songs he had written with Donny Kirshner. He was hustling a couple of acetates.

"We didn't have cassette tapes then. You'd go up to Studio 52 or something and you'd get in front of a mike and a piano and you'd sing your song. And you'd have it cut onto an acetate, [essentially) a piece of aluminum with plastic sprayed on it. They looked like little 45s, the kind of things you got when you record your voice on a machine for a quarter. And they were called acetates. They were demos. And you'd get one of those, and you could only play it about four times before it started getting all top-end. So, you had to really call your shot. Because you'd go to a publisher's office, and he'd know you played it for three other guys, because it was so top-hot. It had no bass left on it "

Accounts differ as to whether it was Ahmet Ertegun or Herb Abramson who signed the label-less Darin to Atlantic's Atco subsidiary in 1957.  But it was Darin's demo recording of an, old Broadway tune, "I Found A Million Dollar Baby (In A Five And Ten Cent Store)" (cut at his own expense while he was in Nashville) that helped land him the deal. Around this time as well, Darin lost Scheck as his manager because having Darin as a client was complicating Scheck's handling of Connie Francis, whom he had had first, and something had to give. Connie's father had forced the issue.

Atco released "Million Dollar Baby" with another Darin/Kirshner tune, "Talk To Me Something," as the flip in the spring of 1957. This single still didn't do the trick, but Darin's new association with Atco placed him in good stead with some of the New York music scene's movers and shakers, such as top rock 'n roll DJ Murray "the K" Kaufman. Murray the K liked Darin and invited him onto the bill at his Apollo Theatre shows in Harlem, where the singer would win over the all- black audiences with his energetic performances of Fats Domino and Ray Charles songs, (As a baby, Darin had lived in Harlem at 125th Street and 2nd Avenue.)

The new friendship with Murray the K was also key, because in less than a year's time, it would be Kaufman's mother who suggested to Darin the idea for writing a little ditty called "Splish Splash." Having no manager or agent through much of 1957, Kaufman also helped Darin out in that capacity.  Atco released one other single by Darin before the end of 1957, and another at the beginning of 1958. But there was no appreciable reaction to this 21-year-old rocker who'd been kicking around the New York City scene for several years now. Darin's relationship with Atco was in danger of going down the drain when he decided to record a song about takin' a bath.

Rub-A-Dub

Hanging out in Murray the K's apartment one day, Darin wrote "Splish Splash" in the time it took the K to get showered and shaved. He brought it to Atlantic and both Abramson and Jerry Wexler, another significant executive and producer at the label, gave it a thumbs down.  But Ahmet Ertegun liked Darin as much as Kaufman did and didn't want to see him get unceremoniously dropped by the company. He couldn't argue with the fact that his previous singles had all been flops, but felt strongly that Darin had something.

"Herb wanted to release Bobby Darin from his contract," Ertegun recalled in a tribute he prepared for the Rhino box, "I convinced him not to, as I felt Darin had great talent ... Bobby would come up to our offices to see Herb. Our reception area, which was right next door to my office, had a piano in it. And while waiting for Herb, Bobby would play and sing some incredibly bluesy, wonderful songs which I could hear through my wall. And that's how we met and, among other things, became good friends."

In the narration, provided by Darin himself, that was spliced into the intro and outro sections of some of the songs that were compiled for the Atco greatest hits album The Bobby Darin Story, he called the recording of "Splish Splash" "the beginning," and in many respects it was. Ertegun supervised the session, on April 10, 1958, where Darin cut that tune, in addition to "Judy Don't Be Moody" and "Queen of the Hop."

Tom Dowd, one of the most respected engineers and producers in the history of the American recording industry, was the recording engineer on Darin's crucial 90- minute session. "When the recording date was over," Dowd wrote in his recollection of the event, "I mixed down a version of the song from the 8-track tape and, just for fun, went over to the water cooler, filled a paper cup with some water, and jostled my fingers in the cup, making a splashing sound. I recorded this onto a piece of tape and spliced it onto the front of the mix-down I made the acetate from, before I sent it over to the main office for evaluation.

"They may have played it twice before they called and said, 'It's a smash, master it right away. Pull out all the stops, make masters for all the plants, and get them out tonight!' When, I mentioned the "noise' on the front of the song, the comment was, "Don't change anything, just master it.' Bobby Darin's career was launched ... "

With its topical lyrical references to "Loliipop" (the Chordettes), Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and Little Richard's "Good Golly, Miss Molly," Darin's disposable tune (his comment to ex-roommate Behrke was, "You'll vomit when you hear it") had instant appeal for the teens it was aimed at. It shot straight into the Top 10, landing at #3, the first of a half dozen times that Darin recordings would make the U.S. Top 5. It also went to #1 on the R&B chart (!) and #17 in the U.K. Suddenly things were looking quite different for the persistent kid from the Bronx. "Overnight," he was Atco's first white star.

"I was with Bobby from almost the beginning," Blauner said. "He was [already] signed to Atco. I was an agent at General Artists Corporation in New York City. I was really a go-fer. I'd been in the business a minute and a half. We had bands and acts at GAC: in other words, singers and comedians. The only time we would have somebody that was in the movies would be if like Pat Boone got a movie deal. So we had Patti Page, Nat Cole, Perry Como, Pat Boone and so forth, who all had their own variety shows on television. I was making $75 a week, and had an office with no windows that I shared with somebody.

"I knew Harriet Wasser and she'd always be telling me about this kid Bobby Darin. If it wasn't for Harriet, there's no question, I never would have known or met Bobby Darin. She's responsible for it, and all these years, if anyone's ever asked me, I've said it. I hated rock 'n' roll. I wasn't into rock 'n' roll, I was into singers. I think Harriet was working for Ken Greengrass, who was managing Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence. I signed Darin to GAC just as the William Morris Agency was drawing up the contracts [to sign Darin].

"GAC booked him on a charity show," Blauner recalled. "He was getting paid, but it was for charity, for the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Dick Clark was the host. Bobby Darin was one of three rock 'n' roll acts opening the show, which was headlined by Steve and Eydie. I get a friend to drive me up to Bridgeport. He hit the stage, probably sang 'Splish Splash'—it was either just coming out, or just out. It made no difference, it was rock 'n' roll and I hated it. But my mouth hung open. There was something about the man, from the minute he hit that stage.

"I came back to the office the next day and walked up and down saying, 'If this kid can sing one note legit, he's gonna be one of the biggest stars of all time.' And of course almost everybody laughed at me. And I became very tight with Bobby."

Dick Clark became another believer early on. Having caught Darin in performance before the release of "Splish Splash," he appreciate the young man's gifts. "He was a more polished performer than I was used to seeing, as opposed to some of the kids who would straggle in," he said. "He looked like a real pro, and he carried himself like one, too. He was very cocky and self-assured. I think he felt confident he would make it before he had the hit ("Splish Splash"). That was his nature."

Darin had no idea that the Atlantic executives were so high on the way his recording of "Splish Splash" had turned out and, great expectations aside, there was no guarantee the public would flip over it.  He still suspected his time could be up with Atco and wanted some kind of insurance policy. He put a backup plan into action.

With the help of Murray the K, and saying nothing about it to Atco, Darin set up an independent session for himself to record a song he'd written with a new collaborator, Woody Harris, "Early in the Morning." The story behind this recording has been related numerous times, but is worth repeating because it illustrates just how much of a "wild west" aspect existed in the early days of the rock 'n roll business.

Kaufman, who paid for the recording session, sold the master to Brunswick, whose parent company was Decca, Darin's former label, which had given up on him.  A few weeks after "Splish Splash" hit, Brunswick released "Early in the Morning" under a name thought up by Kaufman, "the Ding Dongs." Ertegun knew it was Darin the minute he heard the record, but understood his singer's reasons for cutting the record behind his back. He renewed Darin's contract with Atco, and bought the master back from Brunswick, ordering them to take the Ding Dongs record off the air and out of stores.

Atco then pressed up the single itself and identified Darin as "the Rinky-Dinks" on the label. Just as it was re-releasing the single so as not to compete directly with Darin's "Splish Splash" (which was still on the charts), Brunswick (actually Decca) sent Buddy Holly in to quickly record his own version of the song. (Coincidentally, production credit on Darin's version went to Dick Jacobs. The Dick Jacobs Orchestra backed Holly on several of his later recordings, such as "Raining in My Heart" and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore.")

Some sources claim that the Holly version was released on Brunswick, but it actually came out on Coral (#62006). Holly's recordings with the Crickets came out on the Brunswick label, but his work as a solo artist was for Coral.  His version made it to #32 (#17 in Britain) while Darin's Atco version (#6121, b/w "Now We're One") did better, getting to #24 domestically. The Brunswick version of Darin's recording (the Ding Dongs, #55073) is considered to be rather rare and collectible.

Atco released the record that Darin cut with Jacobs and Murray the K two different times (neither one is valued as highly as the Ding Dongs record that was quashed), the first identified as simply "the Rinky-Dinks." Later, in the summer of 1958, after Clark officially let the cat out of the bag during a Darin appearance on his Saturday night Beechnut show (where he presented him with a gold record for "Splish Splash") that Darin was the Rinky- Dinks, Atco put the record out a second time, this one with the label ID "Bobby Darin with the Rinky-Dinks."

"I got a chance to get transferred to California," Blauner said. "I was renting a house with another guy who worked on the road with Sammy Davis, Jr. It was great.  It was like I had my own house most of the year, because Sammy worked 48 weeks a year practically, in those days, Bobby would come out to do a gig, you know, one-nighters. Not even that—sock hops in gymnasiums at four in the afternoon kind of thing, where I could get the disc jockeys, whoever they were at the time. And he wasn't makin' any money or anything. It hadn't happened for him. He'd sleep on the couch in the living room.

"Splish Splash" was about all he had then. The others hadn't come out yet. It was that early. And even though I had nothing to do with singers [at GAC], it got to a point where I was a bore, because all I ever talked about was Bobby, I still didn't know that he could sing 'legit'. I just knew there was something about him when he hit the stage, that he was born for it. There was something he had that Fabian didn't have, or Avalon, or Anka, or any of the rock 'n' rollers. There was this 'thing.' I cannot explain it.

"And I dug him," Blauner said, "as I got to know him. One day we were driving down Sunset Boulevard and he asked me to manage him. I almost crashed the car." Blauner put Darin off at first, thinking that he wasn't equipped to handle such a task.

Atco released "Queen of the Hop," cut at the "Splish Splash" session back in April, in October and the single, going Top 10 on both the pop and R&B charts (#24 in England) continued to build momentum for Darin. The song included a reference to Bandstand, endearing him even more to Clark, with whom he already had a strong friendship, one that would last the rest of his life. "Queen of the Hop" was his third hit of his break- through year, and the third of over 20 times Darin would crack the Top 40, all styles considered.

Ertegun took Darin, still lacking management, into the offices of Csida- Grean Associates, a firm that also functioned as music publishers. They signed Darin and put him on a rock 'n' roll package tour that hit the road around the same time in the fall that "Queen of the Hop" was climbing up the charts. Darin did several rock 'n' roll tours, in addition to his numerous appearances on Bandstand and other youth-oriented TV shows, sharing the stage with people like Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Duane Eddy and the Rebels, the Coasters, Frankie Avalon, Clyde McPhatter and Dion and the Belmonts. Darin became like a beloved big brother figure to Dion DiMucci, another young singer from the Bronx who had just broken through with his group.

"Bobby was one of the first real friends I had in the music business," Dion wrote in his autobiography The Wanderer.  "Someone who was on the same rung of the ladder as I was, but who took the time to give me the benefit of what he'd learned. It was Darin who taught me some fundamentals of the business side of music ... He took me under his wing, advised me to get a manager, someone who'd come up through the ranks and had drive.  He also gave me tax tips ... "

Also on one of these rock 'n' roll tours, Darin met and became very taken with a young pop singer from Florida named JoAnn Campbell, who had had the record "Come On, Baby" out on the Eldorado label the previous year, and had been featured on Alan Freed-produced shows at the Apollo and the Brooklyn Fox. It is generally agreed that this was Darin's next serious romance, after his thwarted pursuit of Connie Francis, and he and Campbell remained an item for the next couple of years. Given Darin's total dedication to his career, it's understandable that he'd once again get involved with a girl in the music business. There was no time available to try to meet a nice, "normal" girl. But Campbell's desire for her own career was one of the things that ultimately doomed the relationship.