Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio (March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007), was one of the most
successful American singers of the twentieth century. Often billed as America's Number
One Song Stylist, his other nicknames include Mr. Rhythm, Old Leather Lungs, and Old Man Jazz. His hits
included "That's My Desire", "That
Lucky Old Sun," "Mule Train", "Cry of the Wild Goose",
"Jezebel," "High Noon", "I Believe", "Hey Joe!", "The Kid's Last Fight", "Cool Water", "Moonlight Gambler", "Love is a Golden Ring", "Rawhide", and "Lord, You Gave Me a Mountain". His career as an
entertainer spanned approximately 75 years, from 1930 (when he sang in between sets with a marathon dance company) to 2005 (when
he sang That's My Desire in a PBS special).
Style
A clarion-voiced singer with lots of style, able to fill halls without a microphone, and
one of the biggest hit-makers of late 1940s/early 1950s, Laine had
more than 70 charted records, 21 gold records, and worldwide sales of over 250 million disks.[1] Originally a rhythm and blues
influenced jazz singer, Laine excelled at virtually every music
style, eventually expanding to such varied genres as popular standards, gospel,
folk, country, western/Americana, rock 'n' roll, and the occasional novelty number. He was also known as Mr Rhythm for his driving
jazzy style.
Laine was the first and biggest of a new breed of black-influenced singers who rose to prominence in the post-WWII era. This
new, raw, emotionally charged style seemed at the time to signal the end of the previous era's singing styles; and was, indeed, a
harbinger of the rock 'n' roll music that was to come. As music historian Jonny Whiteside wrote:
In the Hollywood clubs, a new breed of black-influenced white performers laid down a baffling hip array of new sounds ...
Most important of all these, though, was Frankie Laine, a big white lad with 'steel tonsils' who belted out torch blues while
stomping his size twelve foot in joints like Billy Berg's, Club Hangover and the Bandbox. ... Laine's intense vocal style owed
nothing to Crosby, Sinatra or Dick Haymes. Instead he drew from Billy Eckstine, Joe Turner,
Jimmy Rushing, and with it Laine had sown the seeds from which an entire new perception and audience would grow. ... Frank
Sinatra represented perhaps the highest flowering of a quarter century tradition of crooning but suddenly found himself an
anachronism. First Frankie Laine, then Tony Bennett, and now Johnnie (Ray), dubbed 'the Belters' and 'the Exciters,' came along
with a brash vibrancy and vulgar beat that made the old bandstand routine which Frank meticulously perfected seem almost
invalid.[2]
In the words of Jazz critic Richard Grudens:
Frank's style was very innovative, which was why he had such difficulty with early acceptance. He would bend notes and sing
about the chordal context of a note rather than to sing the note directly, and he stressed each rhythmic downbeat, which was
different from the smooth balladeer of his time.[3]
His 1946 recording of "That's My Desire" remains a landmark record signalling the end
of both the dominance of the big bands and the crooning styles favored by contemporaries Dick
Haymes and Frank Sinatra.[4] Often called the first of the blue-eyed soul singers,[5] Laine's style cleared the way for many artists who arose in the late 40s and early 50s, including
Kay Starr, Tony Bennett, Johnnie Ray and Elvis Presley (who was initially described by critics
as "a cross between Johnnie Ray and Frankie Laine").[6]
I think that Frank probably was one of the forerunner of .... blues, of .... rock 'n' roll. A lot of singers who sing with
a passionate demeanor -- Frank was and is definitely that. I always used to love to mimic him with 'That's...my...desire.' And
then later Johnnie Ray came along that made all of those kind of movements, but Frank had already done them. -- Patti Page[7]
Throughout the 1950s, Laine enjoyed a second career singing the title songs over the opening
credits of Hollywood films and television shows, including:
Gunfight at the OK Corral, 3:10 to
Yuma, Bullwhip and Rawhide.
His rendition of the title song for Mel Brooks' 1974 hit movie
Blazing Saddles won an Oscar nomination
for Best Song, and on television, Laine's featured recording of Rawhide for
the series of the same name became a popular theme song.
You can't categorize him. He's one of those singers that's not in one track. And yet and still I think that his records had
more excitement and life into it. And I think that was his big selling point, that he was so full of energy. You know when hear
his records it was dynamite energy.-- Herb Jeffries[8]
Biography
Early years
Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913 to Giovanni and Cresenzia LoVecchio (nee Salerno). His
parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily to Chicago's "Little Italy", where his father
worked at one time as the personal barber for gangster Al Capone. His family appears to have
had several Mafia connections, and young Francesco was living with his grandfather when the latter
was hit by some members of a rival faction.
The eldest of eight children, he got his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception's elementary school. He next attended Lane Technical High School, where
he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. He realized he wanted
to be a singer when he cut school to see Al Jolson's current talking picture, "The Singing
Fool." Jolson would later visit Laine when both were filming pictures in 1949, and around this same time Jolson remarked that the
talented Laine was going to put them all (all the other singers) out of business.
Even in the 1920s, his vocal abilities were remarkable enough to get him noticed by a slightly older "in crowd" at his school,
who began inviting him to parties and to local dance clubs, including Chicago's Merry Garden
Ballroom. At 17 he sang before a crowd of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom to such enthusiastic applause that he ended
up performing five encores on his first night. But success as a singer was another 17 years away.
Some of his other early influences during this period included Enrico Caruso,
Carlo Buti, and, especially, Bessie Smith -- a record
of whose somehow wound up in his parents' collection:
I can still close my eyes and visualize its blue and purple label. It was a Bessie
Smith recording of 'The Bleeding Hearted Blues,' with 'Midnight Blues' on the other side. The first time I laid the needle
down on that record I felt cold chills and an indescribable excitement. It was my first exposure to jazz and the blues, although I had no idea at the time what to call those magical
sounds. I just knew I had to hear more of them! -- Frankie Laine[9]
One of the numerous "Greatest Hits" collections for Frankie Laine.
Another singer who influenced him at this time was falsetto crooner Gene Austin. Laine
worked after school at a drug store, which was situated across the street from a record store that continually played hit records
by Gene Austin over their loud speakers. He would swab down the windows in time to Austins songs. Many years later, Laine related
the story to Austin when both were guests on the popular television variety show, Shower of
Stars. He would also co-star in a film, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder, with
Austin's daughter, Charlotte.
Shortly after graduating high school, Laine signed on as a member of The Merry Garden's marathon dance company, and toured
with them, working dance marathons during the Great Depression (setting the world record of 3,501 hours with partner
Ruthie Smith at Atlantic City's Million Dollar Pier in 1932). Still billed as Frank LoVecchio, he would
entertain the spectators during the fifteen minute breaks the dancers were given each hour. During his marathon days, he worked
with several up-and-coming entertainers including Rose Marie, Red Skelton and a fourteen-year old Anita O'Day for whom he served as a
mentor (as noted by Laine in a 1998 interview by David Miller).
Other artists whose styles began to influence Laine at this time were Bing Crosby,
Louis Armstrong (more his trumpet playing, than his vocals), Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey and, later, Nat "King" Cole. Laine befriended Cole in Los Angeles, when the latter's career was just beginning to take
off. Cole recorded a song, It Only Happens Once, that fledgling songwriter Laine had
composed. They remained close friends throughout the remainder of Cole's life, and Laine was one of the pall bearers at Cole's
funeral. Although they have vastly different styles on the million-selling hits from the 1950s,
the two singers have surprisingly similar styles on many of their earlier (and jazzier) ballads.
His next big break came when he replaced Perry Como in the Freddy
Carlone band in Cleveland in 1937. Como was another
life-long friend of Laine's, who once leant Laine the money to travel to a possible gig. Como would never allow Laine to pay him
back, but Laine returned the favor in spades when he saved Como's son from drowning. But Laine's rhythmic style was ill-suited to
the sweet sounds of the Carlone band, and the two soon parted company. Success continued to elude Laine, and he spent the next 10
years "scuffling"; alternating between singing at small jazz clubs on both coasts, and a series of jobs including that of a
bouncer, a dance instructor, a used car salesman, an agent, a synthetic leather factory worker, and a machinist at a defense
plant. It was while working at the defense plant during the Second World War that he first began writing songs ("It Only Happens
Once" was written at the plant). Often homeless during his "scuffling" phases, he hit the lowest point of his career, when he was
sleeping on a bench in Central Park.
I would sneak into hotel rooms and sleep on floor. In fact, I was bodily thrown out of 11 different New York hotels. I
stayed in YMCAs and with anyone who would let me flop. Eventually I was down to my last four cents,
and my bed became a roughened wooden bench in Central Park. I used my four pennies to buy four tiny Baby Ruth candy bars and rationed myself to one a day. -- Frankie Laine[10]
He changed his professional name to "Frankie Laine" in 1938, upon receiving a job singing for the New York City radio station WINS. The program director, Jack Coombs, thought that "LoVecchio" was "too foreign sounding, and too much of a mouthful for the studio
announcers," so he Americanized it to "Lane." Frankie added the "i" to avoid confusion with a girl singer at the station who went
by the name of "Frances Lane." It was at this time that Laine got unknown songbird Helen
O'Connell her job with the Jimmy Dorsey band. WINS, deciding that they no longer
needed a jazz singer, dropped him. With the help of bandleader Jean Goldkette, he got a job with a sustainer (non-sponsored)
radio show at NBC. Just as he was about to start, Germany attacked England and all sustainer
broadcasts were pulled off the air in deference to the needs of the military.
Laine next found employment in a munitions plant, at what was then a whopping salary of $150.00 a week. He quit singing for
what was perhaps the fifth or sixth time of his already long (albeit unsuccessful) career. While working at the plant, he met a
trio of girl singers, and became engaged to the lead singer. The group had been noticed by Johnny
Mercer's Capitol Records, and convinced Laine to head out to Hollywood with them as their agent.
In 1943 he moved out to California where he sang in the background of several Hollywood films including The Harvey
Girls, and dubbed the singing voice for an actor in the Danny Kaye comedy The Kid From
Brooklyn. It was in Los Angeles in 1944 that he met and befriended disc jockey Al Jarvis and
composer/pianist Carl Fischer who was to be his songwriting partner, musical director and piano
accompanist until his death in 1954. Their songwriting collaborations included "I'd Give My
Life," "Baby, Just For Me," "What Could Be Sweeter?,"
"Forever More," and the jazz standard "We'll Be Together
Again."
Unfortunately, the engagement fell through, with the songstess breaking up with the loyal singer-manager when success for her
seemed just around the corner. When Al Jarvis later found out how the girl group had mistreated his friend, he pulled their
records from his show, effectively breaking their career.
When the war ended, Laine soon found himself "scuffling" again, and was eventually given a place to stay by Jarvis, who
allowed the singer the use of his apartment. Jarvis also did his best to help promote the struggling singer's career, and Laine
soon had a small, regional following. In the meantime, Laine would make the rounds of the bigger jazz clubs, hoping that the
featured band would call him up to perform a number with them. It wasn't until the end of 1946 when
Hoagy Carmichael heard him singing at Billy Berg's club
in Los Angeles that success finally arrived. Not knowing that Carmichael was in
the audience, Laine sang the Carmichael-penned standard "Rockin' Chair" when
Slim Gaillard called him up to the stage to sing. This eventually led to a contract with
the newly established Mercury records. Laine and Carmichael would later collaborate on a
song, "Put Yourself in My Place, Baby".
At Beltone and Atlas
Laine cut his first record in 1944, for a fledgling company called "Beltone Records." The
sides were "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," (an uptempo
number that's not to be confused with the moody Frank Sinatra of the same name) and a wartime propaganda tune entitled
"Brother, That's Liberty." The records failed to make much of an impression, although "Wee Small
Hours" is brilliantly executed and shows that the classic Laine style was already fairly mature at this time. The label soon
folded, and Laine was picked up by Atlas Records, a "race label"
that initially hired him to imitate his friend Nat "King" Cole. Cole would occasionally "moonlight" for other labels, under
pseudonyms, while under contract to "Capitol," and as he had previously recorded some
sides for Atlas, they figure that fans would assume that "Frankie Laine" was yet another pseudonym for "Cole."
Laine cut his first two numbers for Atlas in the King mode, backed by r&b artist
Johnny Moore's group, The Three
Blazers which featured Charles Brown and Cole's guitarist (from "The King Cole Trio"), Oscar Moore. The ruse worked and the record sold
moderately well, although limited to the "race" market. Laine cut the remainder of his songs for Atlas in his own style. These
included standards like "Roses in Picardy" and "Moonlight in Vermont."
It was also at this time that he recorded a single for Mercury Records: "Pickle in the Middle with the Mustard on Top" and "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)." He appears only as a
character actor on the first side, which features the comedic sing of Artie Auerbach (a.k.a.,
"Mr. Kitzel" who was a featured player on the Jack Benny
radio show. In it, Laine plays a peanut vendor at a ball game and can be heard shouting out lines like "It's a munchy, crunchy
bag of lunchy!" The flip side features Laine, and is a jazzy version of an old standard done in the singer's early, signature
style (i.e., as a rhythm number). It was played by Laine's friend, disc jockey Al Jarvis, and
gained the singer a small West Coast following.
"That's My Desire"
Even after Carmichael's discovering him, Laine still was considered to be only an intermission act at Billy Berg's. His next
big break came when he dusted off a fifteen-year old song that few people remembered in 1946: "That's My Desire." Laine had
picked up the song from songstress June Hart a half a dozen years earlier, when he sang at the
College Inn in Cleveland. He introduced "Desire" as a "new" song -- meaning new to his repertoire at Berg's -- but the audience
mistook it for a new song that had just been written. He ended up singing it five times that night. After that, Frankie Laine
quickly became the star attraction at Berg's, and the record company executives took note.
Laine soon had patrons lining up around the block to hear him sing Desire. Among them was R&B artist Hadda Brooks, known
for her boogie woogie piano playing. She went to listen to him every night, and
eventually cut her own version of the song, which became a big-hit on the "harlem" charts. "I liked the way he did it" Brooks
recalls, "he sings with soul, he sings the way he feels."[11]
He was soon recording for the fledgling Mercury label, and "That's My Desire" was one of the songs cut in his first recording
session there. It quickly took the number one spot on the R&B charts, where Laine was initially mistaken for being black; and
made it to the #4 spot on the Mainstream charts. Although it was quickly covered by many other artists, including
Sammy Kaye who took it to the #2 spot, it was Laine's version that became the standard.
"Desire" became Frankie Laine's first Gold Record, and established him as a force in the music world. He had been over
$7,000.00 in debt, on the day before he recorded this song.."[12] His first paycheck for royalties was over five times this amount. Laine paid off all of his debts
except one -- fellow singer Perry Como refused to let Laine pay him back, and would kid him
about the money owed for years to come. A series of hit singles quickly followed, including "Black and Blue," "Mam'selle," "Two Loves Have
I," "Shine," "On the Sunny Side of the
Street," "Monday Again," and many others.
At Mercury
Frankie Laine's name was synonymous with jazz in the late 40s[13] when, accompanied by Carl Fischer (with whom he wrote the great standard "We'll Be Together Again") and some of the best jazz men in the business, he was swinging standards like
"By the River Sainte Marie," "Black and Blue,"
"Rockin' Chair," "West End Blues" "At the End of the Road," "Ain't That Just Like a Woman," "That Ain't Right," "Exactly Like You," and
"Sleepy Ol' River" on the Mercury label.
Jazz purists, will often point to Laine's early recordings as evidence of his having had the potential to become a great jazz
singer, ignoring the fact that he continued to alternate jazz and popular recordings throughout the remainder of his career --
culminating in his "Old Man Jazz" album of 2005. But Laine had his greatest success after
impresario Mitch Miller, who became the A&R man at Mercury in 1948, recognized a
universal quality in Laine's voice which he began to exploit via a succession of chart-topping popular songs often with a folk or
western flavor.
Laine and Miller became a formidable hit-making team whose first collaboration, "That
Lucky Old Sun", became the number one song in the country three weeks after its release. It was also Laine's fifth Gold
Record. "That Lucky Old Sun" was something brand new to the musical scene in 1949: a folk spiritual which, as interpreted by
Laine, became both an affirmation of faith and a working man's wish to bring his earthly sufferings to an end. With lines like
"Fuss with my woman/Toil for my kids/Sweat till I'm wrinkled and gray," it's the existential lamentation of the modern,
blue-collar "Everyman." And the voice of the "Everyman" was, what to a large degree, what
Frankie Laine would come to represent over the years.
The song was knocked down to the number two position by Laine and Miller's second collaboration, "Mule Train" which proved to be an even bigger hit, making Frankie Laine the first artist to ever
simultaneously hold the Number One and Two positions on the charts.) "Mule Train", with its whip
cracks and echo, has been cited as the first song to utilize an "aural texture" that
"set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock."[14]
"Mule Train" represents a second direction in which Laine's music would be simultaneously heading under the guidance of Mitch
Miller: as the voice of the great outdoors and/or of the American West. "Mule Train" is a slice of life in the mid-19th century
West, wherein the contents of the packages being delivered by the mule train provide a snapshot into frontier life: "There's some
cotton, thread and needles for the folks a-way up yonder/A shovel for a miner who left his home to wander/Some rheumatism pills
for the settlers in the hills." The mule train itself, comes to symbolize the indefatigable nature of The American Spirit.
The Laine/Miller collaboration was one of the most fruitful in the history of popular music, producing a seemingly endless run
of top forty hits that lasted into the early years of the rock 'n' roll era. Other Laine/Miller Mercury hits included
"Shine," "On the Sunny Side of the
Street," "Mam'selle," "Two Loves Have I,"
"Dream a Little Dream of Me," "All of Me,"
"Georgia on My Mind," "Blue Turning Grey Over You,"
"Stars and Stripes Forever," "Nevertheless,"
"The Cry of the Wild Goose," "Swamp Girl," "Satan Wears a Satin Gown," and "Music, Maestro
Please."
"Shine" took advantage of the early confusion regarding Laine's race (many fans initially mistaking him for an African
American artist), in a song which strikes an early blow for racial equality. Written in 1910 by Cecil Mack (R.C. McPherson), a ground-breaking African-American songwriter and publisher, it is believed to
be based on a real-life friend of vaudevillian George Walker, who with him during the New York City race riots of 1900. The song
takes what was then an ethnic slur, "shine," and turns it into what is essentially a badge of honor. It had been a hit for
Laine's idol Louis Armstrong, who would cover several of Laine's hits as well.
"Satan Wears a Satin Gown" is the prototype of yet another recurring motif in Laine's oeuvre,
the "Loreli" or "Jezebel" song (both of which would be the titles of later Laine records). The song, which has a loosely
structured melody that switches, almost jarringly, in tone and rhythm throughout, is years ahead of its time. It was pitched to
Laine by a young song plugger who would later go on to achieve success as "Tony Bennett."
Laine recognized the younger singer's talent, and gave him words of encouragement, which he sorely needed at the time.
"Swamp Girl" is another entry in the "Loreli"/"Jezebel" in the Laine songbook, that was years
ahead of its time as well. In this decidedly gothic tale of a ghostly female spirit who inhabits a more or less metaphorical
"swamp," the title femme fatale attempts to lure the singer to his death, calling "Come to the deep where your sleep is without a
dream." The swamp girl is voiced (in an obligato) by coloratura Loolie Jean Norman, who would later go on to provide a similar
vocal for the theme song of the television series, "Star Trek." The coloratura contrasts well
with Laine's rough, masculine voice, and disembodied female voices would continue to appear in the background of many of his
records, to great effect.
"Cry of the Wild Goose" would be Laine's last number one hit (on the American charts). It was
written by folksinger Terry Gilkyson, of The Easy
Riders fame. Gilkyson would write many more songs for Laine over the next decade, and he and The Easy Riders would back
him on the hit single, "Love is a Golden Ring." "Cry of the Wild Goose" falls into the voice of
the great outdoors category of Laine songs, with the opening line of its chorus, "My heart knows what the wild goose knows,"
becoming a part of the American lexicon.
Laine's influence on today's music can be clearly evidenced in his rendition of the Hoagy
Carmichael standard, "Georgia on My Mind." Laine's slow, soulful version is an obvious model for the iconic remake by
Ray Charles a decade later. Charles would follow-up "Georgia" with remakes of other Frankie
Laine hits, including "Your Cheatin' Heart," and "That
Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)." (Elvis Presley also remade
several of Laine's hits, and his early influence on The Beatles has been well
documented.)
In a recent interview, Mitch Miller described the basis of Laine's appeal:
He was my kind of guy. He was very dramatic in his singing ... and you must remember that in those days there were no
videos so you had to depend on the image that the record made in the listener's ears. And that's why many fine artists were not
good record sellers. For instance, Lena Horne. Fabulous artist but she never sold many
records till that last album of hers. But she would always sell out the house no matter where she was. And there were others who
sold a lot of records but couldn't get to first base in personal appearances, but Frankie had it both. -- Mitch Miller[15]
But the biggest label of all was Columbia Records, and in 1950 Mitch Miller left
Mercury to embark upon his phenomenally successful career as the A&R man there. Laine's contract at Mercury would be up for
renewal the following year, and Miller soon brought Laine to Columbia as well. Laine's contract with Columbia was the most
lucrative in the industry until RCA bought Elvis Presley's
contract five years later.[16]
At Columbia
Laine began recording for Columbia Records in 1951, where he immediately scored a
double-sided hit with the single "Jezebel"/"Rose, Rose, I Love You," confirming his reputation as the premiere hitmaker of the early 50s.
Other Laine hits from this period include "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me),"
"Jealousy (Jalousie)," "The Girl in the Woods," "When You're in Love," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (with Jo Stafford), "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Granada," "Hey Joe!," "The
Kid's Last Fight," "Cool Water," "Some
Day," "A Woman in Love," "Love is a Golden Ring"
(with The Easy Riders), and "Moonlight Gambler."
One of the signature songs of the early 50s, "Jezebel" takes the "loreli" motif to its ultimate end, with Laine shouting
"Jezebel!" (read "Whore!") at the woman has destroyed him. In Laine's words, the song uses "flamenco rhythms to whip up an
atmosphere of sexual frustration and hatred while a guy berated the woman who'd done him wrong."[17]
"High Noon" was the theme song from the highly popular western motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Grace
Kelly. It had been sung by cowboy star Tex Ritter in
the film, but it was Laine's recording that became the big hit. From this point on, Laine would be the one to sing the theme
songs over the opening credits of many Hollywood and television
westerns. He would become so thoroughly identified with these title songs that Mel Brooks
would hire him to sing the theme song for his classic-cult film western spoof, "Blazing
Saddles."
At this time, Laine's popularity in the United Kingdom surpassed that of his
popularity in the States (and he was still a perennial Top Forty hitmaker stateside. Many of his hit records in the UK were only
minor hits in his native country. Songs like "The Gandy Dancer's Ball," "The Rock of Gibraltar," and "Answer Me, O Lord" were much bigger hits for
him abroad. "Answer Me" would later provide the inspiration for Paul McCartney's
composition "Yesterday." It was also there that he broke attendance records when appearing at
the legendary Palladium, and where he launched his first successful television series (with
songstress Connie Haines.
A consummate duettist, Mitch Miller teamed him up with many of Mercury and Columbia's biggest artists. He scored hits with
Patti Page ("I Love You for That") at Mercury, Doris Day
("Sugarbush"), Jo Stafford ("Hey, Good
Lookin'," "Gambella (The Gambling Lady)," "Hambone,"
"Floatin' Down to Cotton Town," "Settin' the Woods on Fire," and
many others), Jimmy Boyd ("Tell Me a Story,"
"The Little Boy and the Old Man"), the Four Lads
("Rain, Rain, Rain") and Johnnie Ray ("Up Above My Head (I Hear Music in the Air"). Although he certainly had the vocal prowess to overwhelm his
singing partners, Laine never attempts to compete with them; choosing, instead, to complement their styles. This gracious
approach to collaborations carried over to his film career as well, where he would offer to sing duets in the key of his lesser
known co-stars.
Frankie scored a total of 39 hit records on the charts while at Columbia,[18] and it is many of his songs from this period that are most readily associated with him. His
Greatest Hits album, released in 1957, has been a perennial best seller that has never gone out of print. His songs at
Columbia included everything from pop and jazz standards, novelties, gospel, spirituals, r&b numbers, country, western, folk,
rock 'n' roll, calypso, foreign language, children's music, film and television themes, tangos, light operetta, and some that
defy characterization. His vocal style could range anywhere from shouting out lines from rhythm numbers to soft, intimate
romantic ballads. And, although his recordings were always immediately recognizable as "Frankie Laine songs," his virsatility
appears to have worked against him. Modern critics tend to pigeonhole singers into one or two styles, and have tagged Laine as a
"cowboy" or "novelty" singer, while ignoring the larger body of his work.
Both in collaboration with Jo Stafford and as a solo artist, Laine was one of the earliest, and most frequent, Columbia
artists to bring country numbers into the mainstream. While these early country crossovers were arranged and recorded as much in
the pop tradition as that of country, Laine's records were much closer in spirit to the originals than the more traditional
adaptations used by fellow Columbia artists like Rosemary Clooney and Tony Bennett.
Late in his career, Laine would go on to record two straight country albums ("A Country Laine"
and "The Nashville Connection") that would fully demonstrate his ability to inflect multiple
levels of emotional nuances into a line or word, proving him to be a true master of this genre as well. Many of his pop-country
hits from the early 1950s featured the steel guitar playing of "Speedy" West (who played a custom built, 3-neck, 4-pedal model)
and sounded surprisingly close to rock 'n' roll.
His duets with Doris Day are interesting in that they were folk-pop adaptations of traditional South African folk songs,
translated by folk singer Josef Marais. Marais would also provide Laine and Jo Stafford
with a similar translation of a song which Stafford seems to have particularly disliked called "Chow
Willy." The Laine-Day duets are marked by a barely hidden sexual context that seems to have put one over on the censors.
The sexual double-entendre of "Sugarbush" is, today, blatantly apparent from its title, and one doubts that the phrase went over
the heads of many listeners even during the time of its release (the song was released during the Korean War, and as was the case with World War II, the censors tended
to be more lenient for the duration. The flip-side, "How Lovely Cooks the Meat" is equally
blatant in its thinly disguised sexual content. Although "Sugarbush" brought Laine & Day a gold record, they would never team
up again -- possibly because Day's husband-manager, Marty Melcher was jealous of Laine who had
been romantically linked to Day by the tabloids in 1949.
In 1953 he set two more records (this time on the UK
charts): weeks at No 1 for a song ("I Believe," which held the number one spot for
18 weeks), and weeks at No 1 for an artist in a single year (27 weeks: a little over half the year, when "Hey Joe!" and "Answer
Me, O Lord" became number one hits as well). In spite of the popularity of rock 'n' roll artists like Elvis Presley and The Beatles, fifty-plus years later, both of
Laine's records still hold.[19]
Laine with his most frequent duet partner,
Jo Stafford.
In 1954, Laine gave a Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II
which he cites as one of the highlights of his career. By the end of the decade he remained far ahead of Elvis Presley as the most successful artist on the British charts. See the "Chart of All Time" for details. "I
Believe" is listed as the second most popular song of all time on the British charts as well.[20]
"I Believe" marked yet another direction for Laine's music: that of the spiritual. A devout Roman Catholic from childhood, Laine would continue to record songs of faith and inspiration
throughout his career; beginning with his rocking gospel album with the Four Lads, which, along
with the hit song "Rain, Rain, Rain," included classic renditions of such soul-stirring songs as "Remember Me," "Didn't He Moan," "I Feel Like My Time Ain't Long," and "I Hear the Angels Singing." Other Laine
spirituals would include "My Friend," "In the
Beginning," "Make Me a Child Again," "My God and I," and
"Hey! Hey! Jesus."
Mr. Rhythm
1953 was also the year that Laine recorded his first long playing album that was released, domestically, solely as an album
(prior to this his albums had been compiled from previously released singles). The album was titled "Mr.
Rhythm," as Laine was often referred to at that time, and featured many jazz-flavored, rhythm numbers similar in style to
the work he'd been doing at Mercury. The album's songlist was made up of "Great
American Songbook" standards, each of which could lay a strong claim for being the "definitive" version. The tracks were
"Some Day, Sweetheart," "A Hundred Years from
Today," "Laughing at Life," "Lullaby in Rhythm,"
"Willow, Weep for Me," "My Ohio Home," "Judy" and "After You've Gone." The final number features a rare vocal
duet with his accompanist/musical director, Carl Fischer. Paul Weston's orchestra provided
the music.
Portrait of New Orleans
Released as a 10" in 1953, and a 12" in 1954, this album features the talents of both Mr. Laine, Jo Stafford and bandleader
Paul Weston, a Tommy Dorsey alumnus who lead one of the top bands of the 1950s -- and just
happened to be married to Jo Stafford. An album of New Orleans styled tunes was probably Weston's idea, as he was heavily into
the New Orleans sound at the time. The album was a mix of both solo recordings and duets by the two stars, and of new and
previously released material including Stafford's hits single, "Make Love to Me,"
"Shrimp Boats," and "Jambalaya." Laine and Stafford
duetted on "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," "Floatin' Down to Cotton
Town," and "Basin Street Blues"; and Laine soloed on "New Orleans" (not to be confused with "New
Orleans" a.k.a. "The House of the Rising Sun" which Laine later
recorded), "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans," and "When
It's Sleepy Time Down South," along with a pair of cuts taken from his "Mr. Rhythm" album.
Jazz Spectacular
No album was ever more appropriately named. This one featured not only exhilarating jazz vocals by Laine, who seems to be
thoroughly enjoying himself, but classic jazz licks on trumpet by a former featured player in the Count Basie orchestra, Wilbur "Buck" Clayton, and trombonists
J. J. Johnson and Kai Windling, and piano by
Andre Previn. The tracks included several songs that had long been a standard part of the
Laine repertoire over the years: "Sposin'," "Baby, Baby, All the
Time," and "Roses of Picardy" along with great jazz standards like "Stars Fell on Alabama," "That Old Feeling," and
"Taking a Chance on Love." The album proved to be popular with both jazz and popular music fans,
and was often cited by Laine as his personal favorite as well. An improvised tone is apparent throughout, with Laine at one point
reminiscing with one of the musicians about the days they performed together at Billy Berg's.
Frankie Laine and the Four Lads
The Four Lads (Bernie Toorish, Jimmy Arnold, Frank Busseri and Connie Codarini) had started out as a Canadian-based gospel group, who first gained fame as the backup singer on Johnnie
Ray's early chart-bussters ("Cry," "The Little
White Cloud that Cried," but had since begun to garther a following on their own with songs like "The Mocking Bird," and "Istanbul (Not
Constantinople)." Several of their collaborations with Laine out-rock even their famed Johnnie Ray numbers. The album
produced one big hit, "Rain! Rain! Rain1," but tracks like "Remember
Me,", "I Feel That My Time Ain't Long," and "Didn't He
Moan." These are soul-stirring gospel-revivalist songs of faith, and clearly illustrate the complicated interrelationships
between pop, country & western and blues/rhythm and blues which would eventually morph into rock 'n' roll. The last four
tracks were recorded at a slightly later session (after rock 'n' roll had just begun to make its presence felt), and could easily
be looked at as rock 'n' roll songs with religious themes.
Rockin'
One of Laine's most popular albums, this album reset several of his former hits in a driving, brassy orchestration by Paul
Weston and his orchestra, calculated to serve as a classic pop variant of/forerunner to rock 'n' roll. A couple of the remakes
("That Lucky Old Sun," and "We'll Be Together
Again,") have since gone on to become the best known (and consequently best remembered) versions of the songs (supplanting
the original hit versions). Other songs on this album include: "Rockin' Chair,"
"By the River Sainte Marie," "Black and Blue,"
"Blue Turning Grey Over You," "Shine," and "West End Blues." The album's title is less a reference to rock and roll (although Columbia executives
surely did nothing to discourage it), as a reference to the Duke Ellington song of that
same name. Unlike Mitch Miller, Laine liked the new musical form known as "rock 'n' roll," and was anxious to try his hand at it.
And, although they were never hits, due more to his age than to the quality of the recordings themselves, they remain some of the
most fascinating rock performances of the decade.
With Michel Legrand
French composer/arranger Michel Legrand teamed up with Laine to record a pair of
albums in 1958. The first album, "Foreign Affair," was built around the concept of
recording the tracks in different languages: English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. Unfortunately the international
air of the albums didn't carry over to the fans who, regardless of country, only wanted records in their own language. Legrand's
arrangements were well-suited to Laine's stylings, and the songs still come across regardless of any language barriers. The album
did produce a pair of international hits: "La Paloma" in Argentina, and "Nao tem solucao" in Brazil.
Other tracks included "Mona Lisa," "Mam'selle,"
"Torna a Sorriento," "Besame Mucho," and "Autumn Leaves."
Laine and Legrand teamed up for a second album of jazz standards, appropriately titled "Reunion in
Rhythm," with the vocals limiting themselves to English (and an occasional segue into French). The resulting album proved
to be much more popular with fans. Laine sang the complete lyrics (including the rarely reprised introductions) to such favorites
as "Blue Moon," "Lover, Come Back to
Me," "Marie," "September in the Rain,"
"Dream a Little Dream of Me" "I Would Do Most
Anything for You," "Too Marvelous for Words," and "I Forget the Time." Legrand's arrangements are ear-catching and original, and perfectly complement Laine's
equally inventive, high-octane vocals.
With Frank Comstock
Laine wrote the lyrics for the title song on another 1958 album, "Torchin'," which was also
his first recorded in stereo. He was backed by trombonist Frank Comstock's orchestra, on a dozen
classic torch songs including: "A Cottage for Sale," "
