REASON EIGHT

Bobby Darin evolved into the greatest American performer of all time. He may share this exalted position with Sammy Davis, Jr. as he shares a similarly exalted position of singer who can stand shoulder to shoulder with any great vocalist from any era. For those of us not privileged to have seen Bobby give a live performance, we must turn to what is available to us, both commercial and bootleg, to witness the panache that he brought to his audience. In doing so we have visual clues as to how Darin evolved into the consummate performer he became and remained so throughout his life. To keep the facts as accurate as we can, once again we turn to Jeff Bleiel's indispensable Darin reference book "That's All: Bobby Darin on Record, Stage, and Screen."

Becoming Bobby Darin

On March 10, 1956, the Dorsey Brothers introduced Bobby Darin to television audiences for the first time. Bobby himself has described this foray into the big time as a failure. He was overshadowed by the introduction of Elvis to the mainstream audience a few weeks before. But to be fair, Rock Island Line was not material made to showcase Bobby Darin's talent either. One look at that performance today and you can see that the Darin energy is in place, but not much else.

In December of 1957, Bobby made his first appearance on American Bandstand. In one of these early appearances Darin sang Don't Call My Name. The jacket is flashy. The arm movements are plentiful. His road experience is beginning to show. The confidence that was lacking on the Dorsey Show is fully present on Bandstand. Bobby relies on hand movements. There are probably too many of them. There are no trademark expressions yet and the singular Darin footwork has yet to appear.

The Big Splash

Bobby Darin had to compose his way into the big time. Splish Splash was his ticket to stardom. One of the notable performances of the song can be seen in segments on the A&E Biography Darin program. It shows Bobby singing in a bathtub while scrubbing his back with a brush. He is relaxed. He is comfortable. He is in charge. The audience is his. Darin's tremendous sense of humor can be seen as he emerges from the tub wrapped in a bathrobe while teasing the audience at the same time. He is laughing at the song. He is laughing at himself. He is having a ball and so are we. Now Darin is dancing while singing. He shrugs his shoulders in rhythm with the song and interjects the yo's and ho's so enjoyable to his fans. The Darin Effect has begun as he hits his stride as a performer. Sandra Dee said her husband had great legs. Get a look at them here. She is right.

Mack The Knife

How many subtle and not-so-subtle differences did Bobby bring to his masterwork performances of Mack The Knife? I don't know. I cannot count that high. Every single performance is slightly different. Different emphasis. Different tempo. Different phrasing. Different ending. Only the stage movements remain the same. When Darin comes to the Sullivan show to sing Mack, he revels in its success. The brashness and bravado absent from previous interpretations is present here in spades. Finger-snapping has taken center stage. Head-bobbing accentuates the rhythm. Bobby prowls the stage like a panther king, taking no prisoners from his audience. He slays them one and all. By the time he sings the last word, his head is thrown back, his arms thrown wide, and his hands beat the rhythm as he speaks his first tag line: "Look out ol' Mackie is back." His diamond-hard brilliance is impossible to deny. The standards have enfolded the rocker.

My personal favorite Mack is his March 19, 1972 performance on the David Frost Show. It is as astonishing a performance as you will ever see. First of all, he is in tough shape healthwise. He can barely walk from the wings to the stage. He is very slow. He asks for a different tempo, then grabs hold of that audience and will not let them go until he is done. You can feel the holding-in of people's breaths. They applaud in the middle of the song when Bobby begins to lay out the names. They applaud when he begins his side shuffles. They applaud the ending. It was like that for the rest of his life, every time he sang Mack. It is one of the great performance benchmarks of the twentieth century. Oh, heck, let's face it. It is THE greatest. Bobby Darin, the performer, had hit his peak. It was long and lasting and a comfort zone forever. From then on the arrangements emerged as co-stars to the performances.

Television Guest Appearances

From 1959 until his last appearance on the Bobby Darin Show on April 27, 1973 and beyond, Bobby Darin was valued as an in-person performer. By the tender age of 24, he was master of the art of entertaining an audience. Whether it be on television or on stage in a nightclub, he was acknowledged as a royal within the house of the highest echelon of entertainers. He was an equal to Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis and the like, comparing favorably whether it be in song, in dance, as an impressionist, as a raconteur, or in reading an audience. He did it all as no one else could. People talk of his energy, his perfectionism, his recognition of musicians, his giving his all to the work at hand, and his success in bringing in the big spenders. Some of his biggest fans were to be found amongst his peers. Even more than the audience knew, his peers knew just how greatly talented this man was. They gave way to him.

On television he played straight man to Bob Hope who exclaimed, "He has a little Bing in him!" From a distance, he could look and sound exactly like Jimmy Durante. He sang a brilliant Blue Skies on the Dinah Shore Show. His 1963 appearance on the Judy Garland Show (taped the week that President Kennedy was assassinated) showed him at his moving best in his solo performances followed by the unforgettable Railroad duet with the show's star.

Some of his most electrifying guest work was done with Andy Williams. Bobby's solo performances stole the show and he was very funny to boot. As the years went by, Darin showed that he could sing contemporary material. In November of 1972, he sang an outstanding version of Randy Newman's Sail Away on the Sonny and Cher Show. On the Flip Wilson show, the old-time American songbook came into play through excellent duets and trios.

The power that Darin had as a performer struck me early in the development of my interest in him. I purchased a videotape that included an extended performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The set begins with This Could Be The Start Of Something Big. The excitement he brings to the audience is palpable. The performance builds and builds from there taking you through You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You to Toot-Toot-Tootsie to Don't Worry 'Bout Me and on to I've Got A Woman and When The Saints Go Marching In. The songs come at you like waves, bowling you over with their magnificence. Then, the host tells you that Bobby is sick with a fever, and you are left wondering what this guy could do when in good health! Unbelievable. I had a similar gut-level response to his London show. I had to look up the pedigree of A Quarter To Nine. Fabulous, fabulous performance. He brought rock sexuality to an Al Jolson tune! Who else, I ask you, can do that?

In the late 60's, Bobby Darin hosted several music specials. His voice had that Darin ring and zing to it on the Rodgers and Hart special from 1967. Diamond-dust Darin sang a steely great I Wish I Were In Love Again with Count Basie's swinging band behind him. The special, titled "Sounds Of The Sixties," from 1969, finds Darin stomping a swinging If I Were A Carpenter with Stevie Wonder and then giving an intense reading of his topical song Long Line Rider. Finally, a transcendent and sublime reading of his own antiwar anthem Simple Song Of Freedom capped off a 1970 performance DVD called DARIN INVASION, filmed at a time of critical illness for the artist.

Nightclub Triumphs

Four CDs are all we have of Bobby Darin performing in a nightclub. Each is a masterwork: Darin At The Copa, The Curtain Falls (Live At The Flamingo), Live At The Desert Inn, and Rare Performances. Each will stand forever as testimony to his claim as greatest performer of all time. They demonstrate all that he learned from the masters who came before him—Jolson, Crosby, Sinatra—and they demonstrate the diversity that Darin brought to his art by showing how well he could sing it all. Rock, blues, standards, gospel, country and folk—he was the culmination of a performance art that had lasted close to a hundred years. Probably no one knew that, when Bobby Darin left us, the curtain fell on a performance style as well as on a performer. Bobby was one of the last solo performers up there on stage in front of hundreds of people with nothing between the performer and his audience except charisma, talent, and guts. The curtain fell on an era, too, as popular music became the lynchpin for expressing political stance and social discontent rather than solely pure entertainment. The times were changing. Songwriter groups took over. Interpretation was not an issue. It all became plugged in. It was as much about politics and youth as it was about music. Suddenly, nightclubs were passe.

Mastery of Form Preserved on DVD

Unfortunately, this laudatory, celebratory praise of Bobby Darin must come to an end. Preserved on DVD are two recommendations of performances I could never be without. One is from a DVD titled Singing At His Best in the middle of which can be found an incredibly sexual, staggeringly controlled live television performance of Hello, Young Lovers and Some Of These Days on a Jerry Lewis Show from (maybe) 1963. The other is a DVD titled MACK IS BACK. There is nothing I can say about this that has not already been said. It is prime evidence of the power, the talent, the intelligence, the wit, the genius and the versatility of Bobby Darin as a live performer. It captures his quicksilver, mercurial qualities.

Oh, how he is missed. There has never been another like him. Nor will there be. Ed Sullivan got it right when he said, "Here he is . . . Bobby Darin . . . the greatest!" The greatest. That is what he was, is, and forever will be.