Leave It to RCA! 1057 "Dream Along With Me" Album cover

" Leave it to RCA! "
~ Perry Como circa 1957

An Ed Marshall anecdote
as told to me September, 1999:

" It was 1957 New York City. I was 17 years old. I bought an RCA Camden album and noticed that Perry's hair and his wrist watch were on the opposite side.

I walked up to the balcony of the Zigfield Theater on Sixth Avenue and found Perry in a red sweater rehearsing with the Mitch Ayers' Orchestra where they ran through the songs on the balcony lobby Friday afternoons.

I walked up to Perry and showed him the reversed photo on the album cover. He got very angry as he studied the photo. He called Mickey Glass over to look at the photo and said "leave it to RCA!"

Como looked at the album for about 5 minutes. I thought he wasn't going to return it to me. Finally, he gave the album back to me and I got him to sign it.

Years later Mickey Glass told me that Perry raised hell with RCA and had them reprint the rest of the albums with the picture printed in the right perspective. I still have that album with Perry's autograph on it. "

Things haven't changed much within the past forty-three years since Ed Marshall noticed this production error on Perry's first RCA Camden album! BMG continues the fine tradition of printing Perry's picture mirror image with two recent releases, "Greatest Christmas Songs" ( 1999 ) and their "Best of" compilation "The Very Best of Perry Como" ( 2000 ) where both pictures are printed in reverse! BMG can't quite see the forest for the trees!

Adding insult to injury, the latest Christmas CD, "A Perry Como Christmas" ( 2001 ) compiled and sequenced by the webmaster of this site was also released with a mirror image photo despite warnings which were obviously unheeded. Leave it to Bertelsmann!