Album Notes ~
Gene
Lees When music-business
conversation turns to the subject of the great singers of
popular music, certain names invariably come up: Sinatra,
Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday. Perry Como is rarely
mentioned; and this puzzles me.
Not that Mr. Como
has lacked for success. Few singers in the history of popular
music have reached the pinnacle he has. The public loves him.
Even the profession loves him. In my ten years in the music
business, first as a critic and then as a songwriter, I have never
heard a word spoken against this man. In
a business shot through with jealousy, gossip, intrigue and
animosities, both petty and major, this is remarkable.
Despite his immense
popularity, Como is rarely given credit for what, once you
stop and think of it, he so clearly is: one of the great
singers and one of the great artists of our time.
Perhaps the reason
people rarely talk about his formidable attributes as a
singer is that he makes so little fuss about them. That
celebrated ease of his has been too little understood. Ease
in any art is the result of mastery over the details of the
craft. You get them together to the point where you can
forget about how you do things and concentrate on what
you are doing. Como got them together so completely that the
muscles dont even show. It seems effortless, but a good
deal of effort has gone into making it seem so. Como is known
to be meticulous about rehearsal of the material for an
album. He tries things out in different keys, gives the song
thought, makes suggestions, tries it again, and again, until
he is satisfied. The hidden work makes him look like Mr.
Casual, and too many people are taken in by it but
happily so.
I have of necessity
given a good deal of thought and study to the art of singing,
and Comos work consistently astonishes me. He is a
fantastic technician. Listen in this album to the perfection
of his intonation, the beauty of the sound he produces, the
constant comfortable breath control. And take notice of his
high notes. Layman are often impressed by the high note you
can hear for five blocks. Professionals know that it is far
more difficult to hit a high note quietly. Como lights on a C
or D at the top of a tune as softly as a bird on a branch,
not even shaking it.
And then
theres his phrasing. A number of our best singers
phrase well. The usual technique is to rethink the lyrics of
a song to see how they would come out if you were saying
them, and then approximate in singing the normal speech
inflections and rhythms. This often involves altering the
melody, but it is a legitimate practice and when done well
can be quite striking. But Como is beyond that. He apparently
does not find it necessary to change the melodic line in
order to infuse a song with emotion. A great jazz trumpeter
once told me, "After fifteen years of playing, Ive
come to the conclusion that the hardest thing to do is to
play melody, play it straight and get feeling into it."
Como has been doing this from the beginning.
Stylistically, he
comes out of the Bing Crosby-Russ Colombo school. That was
all a long time ago. Como has been his own man for many years
now. He sounds like nobody else. And nobody sounds like him,
either. He is hard to imitate precisely because his work is
so free of tricks and gimmicks. There are no mannerisms for
another singer to pick up from him. All one can do is try to
sing as well and as honestly as Como, and any singer who does
that will end up sounding like himself, not Como.
I dont say
these things out of friendship or loyalty. I dont even
know Perry Como. As a matter of fact, hes probably the
only singer in the business I dont know. I saw him
once, though. It was evening, and he was standing with a
couple of friends or business associates on Sixth Avenue in
front of Rockefeller Center laughing at something, his hair
grayer than I had expected it would be, his face deeply
tanned, a strikingly handsome man with a smile that lit up
the street. I wanted to rush up and say something about how
much I dug his work. But that would have been uncool. Right?
And besides, think how many times hes heard it all
before. The stoplight turned green and Perry Como crossed the
street in that wintry sunset, and that was that.
So I dont
know him from the proverbial hole in the ground.
I just listen to
him.
Appreciatively.
Very
appreciatively.
Gene
Lees
Perry
Como with the Ray Charles Singers
Arranged
and Conducted by Nick Perito
Produced
by Andy Wiswell
RCA
Victor LSP-4052
Recorded
in Webster Hall, New York City in 1968
Recording
Engineer: Bob Simpson
DYNAGROOVE
Dynagroove records are the
product of RCA Victor’s newly developed system of recording
which provides a spectacular improvement in the
sound quality. |