Word: darin
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...beautiful new creature was Atlantic?s co-founder, Ahmet Ertegun. And his adopted family was a handsome one indeed. In the late ?50s he had the top of the pops: ballad group (The Drifters) and comic group (The Coasters), R&B shouter (Ray Charles) and Sinatra heir-apparent (Bobby Darin...
...Roll," an Atlantic song covered and euphemized for white folks by Billy Haley, ushered in what became known as rock ?n roll. An artistic and commercial restlessness sent agreeable tremors through the industry. As Leiber and Stoller could simultaneously produce the Coasters and the Drifters, a performer like Darin could quickly switch from rocker to saloon singer...
...Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto in 1936) had cut a few sides for Atco, the Atlantic subsidiary, with little impact. Herb Abramson, head of Atco, wanted to drop him, but Ertegun overruled the decision. Ahmet and ace engineer Tom Dowd supervised the kid?s next session, using their new Ampex eight-track recording system; out of this came two 1958 hits, "Splish Splash" and "Queen of the Hop." The first song, which Darin had written in 12 minutes, begins with water-bubble sounds, cueing its novelty nature; but it had drive and its narrator?s tough-guy befuddlement at finding...
...After three hits (the third was Doc Pomus? "Plain Jane"), Darin could have been pegged as a smarter Bronx version of Frankie Avalon and other Philadelphia Italians Clark was promoting; or maybe a less handsome relative of teen throb James Darren. But Bobby had two things they didn?t: a facility for songwriting and the old-fashioned ambition to go legit. The first hint of Darin?s staying power was "Dream Lover," a lovely potpourri of pop modes: the plinking rhythm of "Little Darlin?" (done pizzicato by violins here), the release from "This Little Girl of Mine...
...that the countrified "The Three Bells" ("Les trois cloches" by Jean Villard) or the Paul Anka "All of a Sudden My Heart Sings" (by Jean-Marie Blanvillain and Laurent Henri Herpin) or "Mack the Knife" (which had five versions in the Top 20 from 1956 to 1959, including Bobby Darin's #1) had come to Tin Pan Alley through Ellis Island. This was music they heard, liked and bought. I also doubt that the decade's record producers were trying to broaden the masses' musical palette; they probably figured that, since catchy tunes were hard to find, they might...