CYRIL STAPLETON
Column
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1958.
The soothing stuff is getting stronger!
TAKE MANTOVANI AND - IN ANOTHER GROOVE-PAT BOONE
H
E never gets the teenage squeals. Coffee bar high society gives him the cold shoulder. The kids in jeans wouldn't put threepence in a juke- box to hear one of his LPs.
Yet not even wriggling Elvis has sold more hours of recorded music than a dapper baton- waver from St John's Wood by the name of
Mantovani.
Mantovani most the
He is pitbably the stevenslut recording artist in the world Certainly the Beressful orchestra leader
"Charmaine'"
Now most
24is sh string settings may be too syrupy for some tusten, But where Mantovaal is con- crned the Americans have a very, very sweet tooth.
DA he
cor do
of
по
recording
Internation hit. Wrong.
Whatever he records, sells. Latest Mantovani yehturs will cash-in on the world fame he has achieved, His series of TV Alms hus already been sold across the Atlantic.
Över there the trade has long been agapL
Ed ut the prodigious recordselling feats of our Man- tovani Now they are calling bim Mr Stereo
The Canadiens are even cus ung the famed
Sullivan
are released hi January,
Show by half 111 hour T accommodate the Mantovani tims. In America they will get His sterco albums have ala peal viewing the when they ready autched up 108,000 cash customers-which is fantastic with stereo-sound only just out of the laboratory.
Few
record buyers are equipped To hear it but those that are som to be buying nothing but Mantovani.
His knack
Stick u pin in an atles and you're bound to hit on a spot where the name of Mantovani is synonymous with stringy.
To bola a song title. "Ho's Cut The World On His Strings."
Boone croon
And
like
Mantovani, Fai leone has also found that being Ma soothing sells and keeps to that
leisurely style,
His average sales for ordinary IP's, 200.000 And has Luvant has made 28 of them, he cun gertally afford to look his Lank mager straight in the
This teenage idol, booked for this year's Royal Variety Show, tivesn't look the part of an
delight, Mantovani has discovered the adolescents"
doesn't
eye.
Paride.
His Intest offering, "I Dreams Came True," is about tʊ
make its entry
Fame, In fact, took the quiet Mr Boone by surprise. It was a little Inconvenient too. Mr Boone was studying to be
schoolteacher and had to take time off from bls books to make couple et ilms and play the
a
2'llanm
Το this
has Gay
the he bcmused air of u man who muspects that fate is meddling with his private plans,
Obstinately he decided to take his graduation course and work part-time at being a star-just 13 case the whole thing turned out to be a mirage.
It didn't.
It seems that we haven't yet muved out of the era of the eno-record stars. Over here we have Cif Richard, now a bili topper in variety on the strength of "Move It."
In the States Tummy Edwards gets the big-time treatment for. his best-selling "It's All Game."
The
There ព plotis to bring Edwards over here and he must be hoping that he will enjoy greater acclaim than was given to some recent importations
The Kalin Twing failed to live
to their disc reputation and Marvin Rainwater-the "Whole Lolla Woman" man-didn't exactly set the Thames on fire, At Past Edwards can claim to Since he have started a trend.
In "It's AB
The rehashed Game" to a rock 'n' cull rhythm sued singers over there are all rushing round re-recording their old hits and misses.
Jifficult knack of dragging sound it. American mothers and fathers Unlike some of the crop of opped when it was first away from their TV sets. They "raves" who have rocketed to are even willing to leave their fame over the past couple of centrally heated homes to listen years, Pat Boone hus ao delin Lo Mantovani or д bleak quent mannerisms. He in the and roul evening in n concert hall.
respectability American concert promoters sobriety-a pillar of the Metno- don't waste time hoping when dist Church and a stald family "Monly" is around They get map.
oui the red carpet usually His singing is roothing and reserved for visiting royalty, tuneful rather than dynomi, book the largcal hull available and he doesn't shaite his chassis then stand by to rake in the to emphasise the best. dollars.
And, like Edwards, they stress the bulldozing beat.
SMART SALES glumikk: The Columbia Record Club *** America is urging disc-cure, du members.
Dssault yout "You wouldn't favourite composer with a blunt **Su strument," they reason why use a
worn needle." Needless to say, the Columbia concern offers repincements for Hit znie,
tu
Yet Cacts prove that Pat a BooDe is the musical answer What is the sterol? Just
a' muldon's jirayer. simple scoring gimmick-which any
Σαντ consistency
save the world those character- recordings
Istle cascading strings that made pushed their way into the
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
HAIR MUSSER.
COAT FOLDER.
COER THE IN SERIKAL FRATURER
CORE, THEWILDO BUGIST) HASLAVIA
TOP TEN
| STUPID CUPID
`CONNIE FRANCIS
CAROLINA MOON
Connie
Goes Native
TAVE you noticed how the Latins are moving in? No fewer than five artists in this week's best-sellers are Italians or of Italian ancestry.
Latiria (M.G.M.) (1)
2 COME PRIMA
MARINO MARINI
(Durlar) (2)
3 BIRD DOG.
EVERLY BROTHERS
(London) (5)
4 MOVE IT
CLIFF RICHARD
(Columbia) (2)
5 A CERTAIN SMILE
JOHNNY MATINS
(Fomena) (7)
ALL
IN THE
6 IT'S
GAME TOMMY EDWARDS
(M.G.M.) (8) 7 KING UREOLE
ELVIS PRESLEY
(R.C.A.) (4)
8 BORN TOO LATE
PONI TAILS
(H.M.V.) (7)
9 HOOTS MON
LORD
are
inatio their mark in Alms ana tashion, and in cars tou.
A
FRESH LOOK AT FITZGERALD
By George Malcolm Thomson
1
THE BODLEY HEAD SCOTT FITZGERALD. Introduction
by J. B. Priestley. 20s.
AFTERNOON OF AN AUTHOR. By F. Scott Fitxgorold.
The Bodley Head. 161.
FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD
Was
д
success; then he was a failure. Now that he has been dead for 18 years he is a success again. People read his novels; they write seriously about his significance. Fitzgerald would have liked that; he was a serious man,
4
Haye you noticed how the enn't understand a word he's
He was born in 1890 in 51 the bootleg gin, the pelling' in moving in? No nging!
Paui, Minnesota fewer than Ove artists in this
father, the car park. You have to keep an eye on Southern gentleman; mother, week's best-sellera are Italians these shrewd Italians. They've cecentric Irish-educated ni
What had the Lost Genera- or of Italian ancestry,
Roman And eight records in the top
Catholle boarding tion" lost? Its way. It could Su are connected with the land
school and Presbyterian Prince- not replace lost illusions with It would be ironic it they took
ton.
adult philosophy. Fitzgerald of song.
control of the pop world right
wrote that failure into his looks. Onc of the songs-"More out of the bands of the people
Fitz- Than Ever has become who organised the whole busi¦gerald joined up, but did not go Here is the last part graphs of Anglelsed, 11 graced the Italian wess and turned it into a major to France,
bold, his best novel, The Great Come the Hit Parade as "Come Prima." industry-the Americans.
bright eyes of Zelda Sayre, he Gatsby; married her,
Some of the singers are not
so easy to spot. Cornie Francis DIANE GOES
was known in the family circlu
45 Miss Franceroni, Dean
Martin WOR once known to WEST.
Intimates as Dino Croecciu.
Other Italian songsters who DIANE TODD, bright singing are right up in the world of discovery of the B.B.C.'s "Six- pop-music are our old friends Five Special," has been booked Perino Como and that romantic for the lead part in an American escort Francis Sinatra.
tourbig production of 'My Fair Lady,
li was Diane's recording of an M.F.L. hit. "Could Have anced All Night," that got her
Then there's Marino Marin, He's a newcomer, but is already doing pretty well at number two even though 90% per cent of the people who buy his recorits the break,
THE NEW DISCS
SUMI
Como the 1914-18 wor.
"Gatsby believed in the orgi← But they were too like one another dazzled,, exhilarated, astic future that year by year fond of the bottle. Lite was recedes before us, It cluded us that's no matter--- gaudy, whether you lived in then but
we will run frater, Paris or New York, and Fitz tomorrow gerald was hult taken-la by It, stretch out our arms farther
And one fine morning-So we beat on, boats against the 'cur- rent, borne back copselosoly; into the past."
Wild life
"The rich," he said, enthusi- asically, "re very different from you and me." "Yes," said Ernest Hemingway, who was trying to write like Fitzgerald |thén, “they have more money." in' the Later, life got wilder. end Zelda was found to be a
The Great Gatsby reads better a second time. There is time to enjoy the exact writing, "to savour the hard comedy and the underlying inclancholy. A laut, thin novel, with an effect of shrillness and distinction, the work” of a_young man. Fitz- gerald was 28.
Gatsby, It's hero, is a duwed romantic who has made money by dubious means and tells lles about his past. He lives on Long
ПIG BILL BROON ZY: new numbers, recorded in 1955, schizophrenie. By that time ~Tribute to Big BO" (Nixo
| Fitzgerald was written off as are a worthy memorial, Eleven NJL.16; 12łn, LP.).
ERROLL GARNER:
Hollywood "Seren- drunken playboy. partby blues
by the ade to Laura" (London LTZ C took him up, gave him a last Mississippi-born Broonzy, one 15125; 12in. LP.). Some of the chance, fie lost it on a wild of the authentie singers of his better Garner from the 1945 spree, kind, who dled earlier this vintage, more florld than his Read the story in Budd Island in great and vulgar state, tho year at the age of 65. His was later recordings but a friendly, Schulberg's The Disenchanted, hoping that he may meet the votes and the spirit of the relaxing assortment af 14 mum-that sad, funny, biographical girl he has 'loved' and lost. · blues tradition unadorned by hers with bass and drums,
novel.
"Once
The teton is brief." Catsby a beautiful talent, Baby," said Fitzgerald to meets his girl, still loves her but Schulberg. "It used to be a now seen through her. wonderful feeling to know it
anything except the untaught gift of a natural artist. There
NOEL GOODWIN
(Decca) (13)
PICK OF THE POPS
ROCKINGHAM'S XI
10 VOLARE DEAN MARTIN
(Capitol) (9)
FIGURES IN BRACKETS INDICATE LAST WEEK'S RATINGS PUBLISHED IN CO-OPERATION WITH NEW MUSICAL EX. PRESS.
ť
had
was there." It was there to the end, gone a little soft at the
Shady
'**** "LITTLE JIMMY RUSH- Á kot gospel song might not core. ING AND THE DIG BRABS" seem perfect pop material; but Tho Ufc and soul of every Through her husband's malice, (Philips). Although he was the this one has a barrelhouse beat) wild party, Fitzgerald had a he is killed. Only two friends origin of "Mr Five ‘by Five," that is amusing and authentic. Puritan Inside him;
to his funeral. His “añco knew, as go Rushing is a fairly new intent Mix Jackson, as a singer, is on every real writer knows, that gorgeous, rowdy house stands here. Re la ofle worth cultivat- a par with Ella Fitzgerald.. human conduct matters.
empty by the sea. And the 1. Els - big, ·· braksy volée *** 'DEAN 'MARTIN: "Once What are novels about? The source of Gatsby's money looks bounces through some of, the Upon a Time" (Capitol), Martin knowledge of good and evil shadler than ever; fon swiar tunde of three decades, seema to have gained much more | Wandering through the Jazz yet keeps a vintage Jazz feeling, confidence with his come back to Age, Fitzgerald kept that know- with Fitzgerald's masterpiece-ja Bound Into the simu book The orchestrations have a good hit-parade status. ' It is reflected ledge intact. dent of vervo too.
in his easy handling of his **** MAHALIA JACKSON: slight but smooth love-soXX. *My Good Fortune" (Philips).
JOHN LAMBERT.
Theater Goers
AISLE FIGHTERS.
NOT ONLY THE WRONG SEATS
- IT'S THE WRONG THEATER.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ~ THE DRAMA. LOVERS WHO ARRIVE LATE
BANAND THE CRITICS WHO DEPART EARLY.
WATER
BOY
He became
the chosen bord his unfinished novel, The Leat
Tycoon. of the "Losi ·Generation”—the Americans of the twentien, of
By Harry Weinert
IT'S ALL
SO
REAL..
THE TIMETABLE SLAVES WHO HAVE TO
MISS THE ELEVEN TEN OR, THER
LAST ACT.
Scent: Hollywood in its great- ness.
"At the worst. 'I accepted Hollywood with the resignation of a' ghost assigned to a haunted house."
Theme: A movie magnate who goes down with a bad bout of conscience,
evo
Atmosphere; America on the of Roosevell, believing it was on the brinic of the revolu... tion. "I typists were seen eat- Ing together more than once in a single week, they were hauled feared mob rule."
It is unfair to judge the incomplete, yet The Last Tycoòn. gives the impression of a 'talent that did not develop. And the sentiment is a little sicklfer, y
Afternoon of an Author is a collection of slighter pieces
Fitzgerald remains the man. of the twenties, pressed between the 1914-18 war and the New Deal, like a butterfly in a book.
THE WORK OF THE QUEEN: By Dermot Morrah, Kims ber. 21.
Working life of the first' serL vant of the State, described with authority and breadth of out- look. A most useful and enlightening study.
--(London Express Service).
THE TOP SIX
WHAT LONDON
IS READING UR MAN IN HAVANA was closely challenged by the offelst biography of King George V for top place in the Evening Stan- dard list of bead sellerp in London during last week.
Previous week's aliond In brackets; novels marked with an asterisk.
I-Our Man in Havana.. Graham Greene (1), « 2-King George, VÍ, J. W.,
Wheeler-Barinatt,
a-Dr Zhivago." Borla
Pasternak (4), 4-The King Mun" be*% Mary Renault (2), 2 BiElizabeth -- the. Gront, Ellasbath Jenkins, (B).. d-itusalan tevorútlán, "Alan Mooreheaded Comptied with the co« operation of Army and Nay Blore, Bumpus, Fouler, tiar vodi... fiutchards; W. J. Amith and, tha z Zipole-shop. :-