THE CHINA, MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1969,
Is Sinatra Past His Peak?
by
ROBIN DOUGLAS HOME
In fact, in hla latest "Come Lance With Me," although
e
He sings 12 top dancing favourites like "Cheek to Cheek," "Just in Time,” and "Too Close for orchestral arrangements and Comfort," to a swingy, brassy backing by Billy May and his Orchestra, the man Bing Crosby christened "the Rabelais of the rolling bass.”
Has Billy May replaced Riddle permanently? Leonard Feather cables from New York;—
THE NEW-LF FROM AMERICA
FRANE SINTRA
the
DANCE
ME
"Ever since he started
with Capitol five or six
ke his fre years ago quently used conductors other than Riddle.
The ROBERT PITMAN Book Page PRESENTING THE ASTONISHING balance sheeT OF A BEST-SELLER
MONEY DOES NOT ALWAYS
GO
WITH FAME
I PRESENT, from a cashier's-eye-view, the anatomy of a novel. And with it I bring a warning to anyone who hopes to spear a fortune with his pen.
A warning to the man who doodles a novel's plot across the blotting paper on an office desk; to the woman who hides her first secret passionate chapter at the back of a drawer in the dressing table.
or two of the numbers are superbly handled, as only he can handle them, in others he sounds almost lapdash, Ila "According to Capi- enunciates carelessly, his phras- tol records and all ing is slovenly and, for one line,
who havo followed HE latest Frank Sinatra LP album to land on he even sounda off-key! THE
Frankie's career In American disc-counters is called "Come Dance. This recording raiso recent
years With Me."
the second vital question. answer is a straight- Why, when he soomed to forward "No." hava found the perfect backing as supplied by Nal son Riddle, has he switched to Billy May's loss subtle, loss relaxed, less sophistic- Although this LP will, un- Compare his "Oh! Look Al ølad, and seemingly less "Riddle is 14 bugy
I do not blame such would Take the case of John Petty, doubtedly, I bought with Me Now," recorded with Dorsey suitable treatment for two that there are times when he is presence on the scene during be authors for their hopes, the working-class novelist from enthusiastic adulation by in 1940, with his recording of
unavailable last threo LP
simply
for an an nge" "that has „produced | Think of Alfstale MacLean, who Walsall, Once Petty had a scries millions of Sinatra fans, It the same song with Nelson. Out of his
assigrument. Even for Frank" so much insensitive, "Laste- | siot long ago was a schoolteacher of jobs In factories albums?
But whoever he chooses to less, charmless noise that is no living in furnished rooms and foundries. Then, put out of work Jddie's technique is regarded back him, and whatever the more music than a metronome
now lives in the Alpe, away by bad health," he scavenged as the last word in orchestration, let us all he supremely is a little man travelling by the from huge tax abilluce.
ubbish heapa for scrap Iron. of this type. He has recently thankful for Frank Sinatra's Parls underground,
How tempting to wish that Back in his small room at night been voted top leader-arranger
you too had huge tax liabilities he scribbled at the books which in the world. His arrangements
to avoid,
he was certain would enable behind Sinatra on "Only for
him to succeed, the Lonely," where he has retained the mood of the songs But given them an entirely new frons, are some of the most brilliant ever recorded.
The
two roisca
important qura- Kiddle in 1950. tions. First, has Voice" passed Jals peak?
There is no doubt thot neither his phrasing nor his Interweaving fusion with the orchestrations is up to the brilliant standard of "Songs for Swinging Lovers" or "A Swingin' Affair.”
vocal An extreme ceze, perhaps. But the difference is more than Just a maturing of the volce.
COARSER
IN HARMONY
Of course, it may well be that. it is this increasing bitter-
sweetness of tone, so in har- mony with the feelings of Today's young generation, that has given Sinatra on appeal Bad embraces both the square and the oblique. But there can have be no doubt that technically and musically his voice 1x now "Roing off."
Sinatra is said to learned hits highly individual anch sophisticated style phrasing by Hatening to Tommy Dorsey's trumbonu Phrases when he was Dorsey's singer in the early 'teriles.
11 is easy, of course, to criti- else someone whose previous performances have reached the incredible peak of perfection that Sinatra's have done.
One day slip and the crities Fis more profotiteed with are on him like vultures round each new record he makes. a wounded buffalo,
But the roundness uf his votee of those early days seems to have given way recently to a hursher, courser tone Chat
JACKY'S DIARY
BY
JACKY MENDELSOHN).
AGE 32
Wally Sloit, Britain's top orchestratur, says, "The thing about Nelson Riddle is the superb fulsn of his arrange- ments. It is the height of sophisticated beat-so relaxed, Be mature,
BOOKSHELF.
BRIEFS.
CONE OF SILENCE, David immensely Beaty. Secker and Warburg, 10s. novel. Absorbing story, with authentic aviation background, of the teething troubles of a new Jet arliner, and the night to clear the name of a pilot who crashed through obeying instructions.
Impressive first
LEOPARD WITH A THIN SKIN, John Walney. Cape. 15. This gives glimpses of the Lon- don Zoo from unexpected angles, but as a satire on.the ineptness and Inhumanity of bureaucracy is unconvincing.
"Although Riddle would be • AT FEVER PITCH. David Caule, Deutsch, 16s An African brilliant becking for any singer,
• THE HEALING VOICE. Dr Sunstra is so artistic and colony in the first throes of in-
A. Philip Magonet, Heinemann, musicianly himself that he com-dependence, the Army reluctant 180. Most nervous disorders pletely complements tho to pull out, complicated personal
can be successfully treated by orchestra. He feels just relationships
05
African and hypnosis, claims Dr Magonet, Riddle does and knows exactly white, military and clvillan, and quotes his Own patients' what to do because they think senior and junior-are the in- ease historica to prove it. the same way.
gredients of an overloaded but
-London Express Service).
ON FRY DAY WE LEARNED THE STORY OF WASHINGTON GOT BORN ON FEBUARY HOW CEO WASHINGTON CHOPPED DOWN 20-SECOND 1732 WHICH CAME THE CHERRY TREE GOT HIS PICT-OUT XACTLY ON HIS BIRTH DAY URE ON A
MOST PRESIDENTS ARE VERY POOR WHEN THEY RE SMALL BUT WASHINGTON WAS RICHE WHICH MADE HIS PARENTS VERY HAPPY AS THEY NEE DED THE MONEY
OF THESE
+2 OF THOSE
THEN DAY IT WAS GEOS BIRTH DAY SO HIS DADDY GAVE HIM THE AX®
SO WASHINGTON SPOKE UPWARDS + SAID DID
IT FATHER WITH MY
LITTLE HATCH IT
察
CANDY
bo
RP
LETS CALL HIM GEOX
*GEO, MEANS THE SAME THING AS GEORGE
HIS PARENTS OWNED A BIG PLANTATION IN VIRGINIA WHERE THEY GRUESOME TOBACKO LITTLE CEO. LIKED ANIMALS HE WOULD ORPHAN TAKE HIS HORSE OUT FOR A RIDEO
SO HE TRIED OUT THE AX ON A CHERRY TREE WHICH THEY KEPT IN THE BACK YARD. IT WORKED FINES
HIS DADDY WAS SO HAPPY WHEN GEO, TOLD THE TRUTH
THAT HE DIDNT EVEN SPANK HIM BUT JUST HOLLERED A LITTLE
WHEN HIS DADDY SAW THE BROKE TREE HE GOT FURIOUS I WANTED TO KNOW
(WHO DID)
© 1959, King Features Syndicate, Inc., World rights reserved.
LATER ON ADD VICE FOR WASHINGTON
CHILDREN: GOT MARRYED
+BECAME THE HE LESSON IN THIS FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY STORY IS THAT MONESTY BUT THATS IS THE BEST POLLY SEED A DIFFRENT
STORY YOUR FRIEND
JACK
Or think of John Braine, All right, then, think of him. For two years John Braine has been the symbol of sudden riches.
For two years the legend nakers have been telling how just with the old of a ball point pen John Braine turned himself from a 'sick, penniless patient in a TB sanatorium into the prosperous-looking fellow he Is today.
INSPIRING
and
Well so it suddenly seemed. Pelly did succeed. After six attempts he had
book accepted. Its title: Flue Fags a Day. Soon afterwards his novel, A Flame in My Heart, was accepted too, Both were widely reviewod.
But the end to this Walsali success story is pathetic. For izom its two books published by a well-known London fem- Kelly has
a corned total of £200.
many
Britain's novelists linger in poverty liko. Petty..
How do they manage?
Not
of
It's the sort of story to inspire your son with as he scrawls out an essay for English' homework. A story it for Samuel Smiles, not depend on their royalties,
The answer is that they do
Yet let us look the ledger The reputation they build with
necount behind it.
Here are their books enables them to
THE CAD WHO
ALWAYS GOT
INTO THE ACT
by George Malcolm Thomson
THE POET AS SUPERMAN: D'ANNUNZIO. By An- thony Rhodes. Woldenfold and Nicolson. 25.
THE poet as superman, nothing! The poet as cad. The poet as mounte-
John Braine's proceeds from And work as journalists, as bank. The mountebank
Room at the Top.
Film rights.......... Royalties hard-cover edition (nearly 40,000 sold)
Book Club payment Likely poper-back
earnings Foreign righin Newspaper serialization
£
script-writera.
Do Jou remember Alar
as not very very good
5,000 Itackney? His book Private's poet. The cad who knew Prooro cuabled the Boulting one trick; he could
Brothers to mako one of
14,000 Britain's nost. notable Am always get into the act. 1,000 succesIES Jince the war. It Fiat, D'Annunzio got into the mude D fortune for the fact as a decadent, writing stories 600 Boultings but it did not make and plays with flamboyant 1.000 much money for Hackney. themos-incest, rape, murder-
840 Nor, in terms of royalties, did in supercharged prose.
Hackney's two suoceeding D'Annunzio's prose! It is ko £12,440 comic novels, All You Young listening to bad Wagner played Ladies and Private Life, But on a steam organ. Lice watching A nice total, But from it the name these books made for man trying to make a statuo subtract about 10 per cent for 11ockney has had its value, Haout of bubble gum. agent'a tecs. Then subtract, how gets lavishly paid for writ-
Great lover say, £5,000 in tax.
demo
ing film scripts, ("Even if they Next D'Annunzi emerges na Then remember that John never get on the screen, olda Futurist, aping his fellow- Braine, who writes slowly, has man," he told me),
Italian, Marinotti, in werks that had to Hye on it for two years. He has written for televisionlorited speed, brutality, watį
You will see that writing one tou, I estimate that his work on funde dieparaged women," of the decade's most phono- one instalment of Robin Hood cracy and the past. monally successful first novels earned him £350. Which is To one role D'Annunzio was La not a satisfactory alternative just £50 more than entire steadfast in his fidelity, the to winning the treble chance. royalties earned by his second ever-popular Latin male role of
Yet haw about other novel. novelists? The success of men like John Braine and Alistair MacLean is utterly exceptional. Let us turn from them to the ledger of the novelist with aver- age success,
WHO ELSE?
the great lover. D'Annunzio, whose manstrous father had conzbited with the daughters of earlier mistressca, filled the role of lover better than any of his fellow-countrymen since C
nova.
of
amorous
He was the natural prey neglected wives and duchesser, Shert, bald, thick-
A final question, then, arises. if a novel by a talented author can sometimes bring in no more His account is starts and than single script for Robin simple. Even if ho gets glitter- Hood, who else is getting the ing reviews in the heavy cash? weeklies, even if he is quite a Well, let us return to the Lipped, hideous--na nympho. Mon at iterary parties, his Agures for a year's work will probably look like this:---
£ Royalties (3,000 copies sald) 430 Less agent's commission...
modestly successful novel which manise in Europe
him!
sells 5,000 copies. Suppose Its price is 159.; here is how the
could realst
Eleanora Duse, the actress
money yous after being paldaval of Sarah Bernhardt, hr 1oved for a time and paid off over the bookshop counter:
with 4 novel of appalling cruetly. Her ege, ugliness and sexual appetite
freesly depicted while he appeared in Kodiike youth. He was micet, six years hor Juntor.
2405
Bookseller's margin ... Salca costs (130. 76, nd-
n. d. BU
verilsing)
3
Printing, binding
Publisher's overheads
and profit
2
That is all. No film rights. No seriallantion, no book club Ices. Yet this sort of author is not a fallure us for as novels He does better than most novelists, in sales he is not for behind an author of such fame as C. P. Snow.
go.
Author's royalties
3
תם פנת
were
pages CH 2
0 D'Annunzio's appearance as a
111 politician was one of his less
inccessful 'adventures,
15 0 While he addressed the votery
of Morence on the splendours of
sodomy,
canibalism.
Those figures were given to Dante, the Renaistance And Deservedly Snow's reputation. n by a notably efficient pub-himself, his opponent, concen. has spread wide. He is not isher, I do not believe they trated on D'Annunzio's private Caly invited to lecture abroad, can be altered in the author's Ute. This, he alleged, we dis- People abroad lecture about favour
Unguished" by adultery, poly=" him.
Exccpt, of course, in one way.my, theft, incest,
and Yet from each novel, packed By more of his books being sold, mimony swith-months of brilliant work le-you-are-saddened by the D'Annunzio lost the
favourito the famous Show cars perhaps thought that your
War hero £1,000.
author may not earn as much Abead lay finer things. Bank- Little wonder that lesser men as he deserves, why not make a ruptcy--after an expensive love who have staked the dreams of little gesture, Why not walk affair with a' marchcas who allfotime on a novel sometimes, pust the brary and actually wore a man's riding habit and
themselves. In despair. BUY one of his books imleadf
And
The Books You Are Buying
took cocaine. Fullest to Parks from his creditors. Then the Great Wer brought him back to luly.
This was an cet he could not bunexpected to miss. He new. Ho become a war hero. One or two of the countless medals on
chest were truly earned. But even the best of were-
TERE, based છં reports 4. THE BEST OF EVERY
from teading bookshops in THING, by Rone Jute, How even a war which a poet could London, Birmingham, Manches passions run high and low,
1.
оп
ter and Glasgow, is my list of among New York's secretaries pend half In Venice with the mistress, Countem current best-sellers among books and their married
boasensors
Morpalna, halt in the air, drop- published since 1959 began:- (Cape, 168.)
manifestos
the 5. THE BREAKING
of ring
Austrian-ayat come to an end. FICTION
BUMBO, by Andrew Sinclair,
D'Annunzio was not at a loss The novel about a nico, off-beat for long While Europe's states- Guardee which is currently the men, paculysed by conflicting debs' (literary) delight, (Faber, promires, chattered in Paris, bu 163.)
grabbed Fumo for Italy. He had 6. CHEZ PAVAN, by Richard got into the best of all his acta. Llewellyn. The author who ones Ho governed the city by! Wrote How Green Was My orutions from a balcony, granted Valley about poverty in Wales it a constitution in which musto now wraps an elaborate story was declared to be the religion around life and love in a luxury of the new state and when the hotel lo Paris. Meticulous Italian army blockaded Fruno-~- details about hotel routing, he supplied it by acts of piracy. (Michael Joseph, 181.)
At last, the Italian navy swtved und opened fire.
1. NO LOVE FOR JOHNNIE, by Wilfred Flenburgh. This story of love and politics all receives twice as many voles from the booksellers as any other novel. (Hutchinson, 158.) 2. THE LOST FRONTIER, by Allslair MacLean. The ILMS. Ulysses man cuts inlond from his sea stories to a tale of spies and secret, police in, Hun- gary, MacLean may not piesse ibe intellectuni erllics, but he -stlil pleases those who like a book sizzling boyiahly with paca and action. (Collins, 15%.) BACK SEAT, by Marguerite illustrated guide to homes and
* THE WOMAN IN THE by
NON-FICTION
1. HERE OF ALL PLACES, Osbert Lancaster Witty,
Stoen. The problems of a home making through widow who loves and marries a ages.
(MUTTOU, 218.):
the
D'Annunzio left Thune.
interlude of splendid polition die had given post-war Europe
nonsense—and he had shown the way to more dangerous and
dianstrous ̈znosi · follow.
Frendzman. Her problems: (a) · 1. THE BLEEPWALKERS, bý Rhoder glue The French. (b) The fact that
who were to
ber own daughter gets on rather Arthur Koestler. Massivo survey wall-written account of this pic
of astronomers like Kepler and tucesque deure. He does not too well with rep-papada Galileo--and of their confice Lake D'Annunzio quite wertostaty salving them author steel with religion. (Hutchinson, 2503 R, A Doet. But what out an absorbing story (Collina,
Englabras could!".
—(London Krpresa:Kerato0),
[250]
-----(London : Ezprem Bervici),