*
1. Bobby Darin (1958)
As with many artists of the period, Bobby Darin’s first album was self-titled and little more than a compilation of previously-released single sides and tracks that had been left in the vaults. The main selling point for most buyers was the inclusion of both sides of the Splish Splash single, but this remains a good summation of Bobby’s first year with ATCO, and other standouts include Talk To Me Something, Actions Speak Louder Than Words, and the under-rated Brand New House, which is as good as anything on the album. 6/10.
2. That’s All (1959)
Darin’s sophomore album is also arguably his best. This was the album that catapulted Bobby to a whole new level of stardom, and brought with it the respect of many of those in the business that he looked up to. The album will forever be remembered for Mack the Knife and Beyond the Sea, but Bobby was canny in mostly choosing standards that had not been over-recorded during the previous decades. This saw him reaching back to the 1910s for the Sophie Tucker signature song Some of These Days, and the 1920s for Softly as in a Morning Sunrise from the operetta The New Moon, as well as digging up a moving obscure ballad like Through a Long and Sleepless Night. This remains a raw and exciting album and, despite everything that came after it, it is probably still the best representation of what Darin could bring to the table in an album of standards. 10/10.
3. This is Darin (1960)
It was inevitable that That’s All would be followed by more of the same, with Darin recording another dozen standards (mostly) under the baton of arranger Richard Wess. The opening Clementine was very much modelled as Mack the Knife part 2, even if the lyrics haven’t aged too well in the near-sixty years since it was recorded. Elsewhere, the formula was the same, even if the results seemed that little bit more polished this time around. Well-known standards sat alongside jazz classics, with a couple of obscurities thrown in for good measure. As a whole, it might not quite have hit the dizzy heights of its predecessor, but Caravan and All Nite Long easily rank among the best things that Darin ever recorded. 9/10.
4. Darin at the Copa (1960)
Considering how much praise Bobby was getting for his on-stage performances, it was perhaps inevitable that a live album would soon follow. However, there are a number of problems here. Firstly, the sound quality is not good in general. The mono edition of the album is better in this respect (although still not great), but has not been reissued on CD. Secondly, the editing together of various songs from various shows is not done particularly well, with the joins all too apparent in many cases. The other main issue here is Bobby himself. While his asides and jokes during and between songs might have been hilarious to the audience, they often make little sense on record, especially nearly sixty years after the event. There are some decent performances scattered through the album, mostly of the songs that Bobby didn’t record at any point in the studio, but there is a feeling that this could have been a whole lot better, and one can only wish that the master tapes are one day found, remixed, remastered, and a CD put together with more skill than the original LP. 6/10
5. For Teenagers Only (1960)
Just in case Bobby’s rock ‘n’ roll fans were feeling left out after three “adult” albums on the bounce, ATCO reached back into the archives to pull out a dozen tracks that were supposedly aimed at the teen audience. Sadly, most of these were leftovers, and the album has the same cobbled-together feel of Darin’s first, although no better or worse other than the fact it didn’t have a stand-out track like Splish Splash. Darin tries hard with I Want You With Me, but Elvis Presley would show him how to really rock it when he recorded it in 1961. Elsewhere, That Lucky Old Sun, All the Way Home, and Somebody to Love are the best of the rest. 5/10
6. The 25th Day of December (1960)
Bobby’s fourth album of the year remains one of the most unusual Christmas albums ever recorded by a mainstream pop artist. Here are a mix of carols, gospel songs, folk songs and even a version of Ave Maria. It was an early sign that Darin had more in his sights than simply doing his own versions of the types of albums that other people had done. The 25th Day of December is certainly not the lightest of Christmas albums, and one has to wish that he had recorded a more traditional one further down the line, but you have to admire his ambition and willingness to stray from the well-trodden path of others. 7/10.
7. Two of a Kind (1961)
Darin’s first album of 1961 was an LP of duets with the great Johnny Mercer. Rather than concentrating on Mercer’s wonderful catalogue of compositions, the pair of them worked their way through a series of mostly Tin Pan Alley songs from the early part of the 20th Century. The success of the album depends on how much you enjoy the banter between the two performers, who obviously had great chemistry together, but sometimes the talk somewhat side-lines the music itself. Both men are in great form, though, although the real star is arguably Billy May’s sparkling arrangements. An extended version of the album has been released on CD, including a batch of alternate takes as well as three songs not included on the original LP, and this is the recommended version for anyone looking to add this to their collections. 7/10.
8. The Bobby Darin Story (1961)
Just three years after his first hit with Splish Splash, Bobby Darin released his first greatest hits album. Superseded by any number of compilations released over the years, this one still has interest as a good place to find an alternate take of Clementine and for Bobby’s spoken commentary between some of the tracks. In hindsight, perhaps ATCO should have held back on this kind of disc until Darin left the label the following year, but one can’t blame them for striking while the iron was hot. 8/10.
9. Love Swings (1961)
This album saw Bobby returning to the standard repertoire that had made up the bulk of the That’s All and This is Darin LPs. This time around, however, he chose to put together a dozen songs that told the story of a love affair from the beginning through to the break-up. It’s an ambitious project, and the arrangements aren’t as dynamic as on the earlier albums, but it still works well enough, even if it isn’t quite as memorable as some of Bobby’s other LPs. Highlights include It Had to Be You and a stellar version of How About You which also features some fun newly-written lyrics in which Bobby gets to sing about “Mrs Darin’s looks” giving him a thrill. 7/10.
10. Twist with Bobby Darin (1961)
Bobby’s final album of the year was another reminder to the teenaged audience that neither Darin or the record label had forgotten about them. This is a more enjoyable collection than For Teenagers Only, but a number of the songs had already been released on album, some of them only seven months earlier, meaning that there wasn’t much of interest here for Bobby’s most hardcore fans. Still, it’s good to see the wonderful Bullmoose kicking off an LP, and many fans were no doubt pleased to get the likes of Multiplication, Irresistable You, and You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby on a long-player. Conversely, some must have been annoyed at finding Somebody to Love on an album for the third time in just over a year. 6/10.
11. Bobby Darin Sings Ray Charles (1962)
“He may not have lived it, but he sure has loved it” say the liner notes on the back of the album, and there is no denying that. Darin’s tribute to Ray Charles is a wonderfully entertaining album, but the disappointment is that he sticks so closely to the original arrangements. It would have been more interesting if this was less an attempt of recreating the original records, and more of an effort to create something new from these wonderful songs. And yet, even here, Bobby takes chances. I Got a Woman, for example, runs over six minutes. Does it need to? That’s up for debate, but no-one can deny that, once again, there is a pushing of boundaries here. Drown in My Own Tears would be resurrected in live shows in 1967, with the tempo slowed down, and Bobby giving a powerhouse performance. Sadly, that arrangement never made it to record. 7/10.
12. Things and Other Things (1962)
The title makes no attempt to hide the fact that this is a collection of single sides and whatever was kicking around in the vaults. On the plus side, the album provides a home for such fine tracks as Things, Lost Love, and I’ll Be There, but Bobby should have been recording a new album built around the latest hit single – and probably would have done had he not been moving to a new label. Enjoyable enough, but a collection with little substance. 5/10.
13. Oh! Look at Me Now (1962)
Bobby’s first album for Capitol paired him once again with arranger Billy May. This is the closest Darin came to attempting a Sinatra album. All of the songs are well-known standards. What should have been a classic, though, only works in part. The upbeat numbers are great, but the ballads are held back by the rather saccharine-sounding choir heard behind Bobby, that tends to dominate the arrangements. I, for one, would love a deluxe edition of this album, with the original version on one disc, complete with the other tracks recorded at the sessions, and a remixed version on the second where the choir is erased from the mix. 7/10.
14. You’re the Reason I’m Living (1963)
This time when Bobby had a hit single, he did record an entire album around it – now moving into country music. The album suffers the same fate as the previous one, however: the choir/chorus is too dominant. Also a problem here is that Bobby seems to have gained some vocal mannerisms that do him no favours. Combine the two, and you get an occasional complete clunker like Release Me. Again, though, the good tracks here are really good, most notably Sally Was a Good Old Girl and Who Can I Count On. 6/10.
15. It’s You Or No One (1963)
This may have been released in 1963, but it was recorded in 1960. This was one of Bobby’s real misfires, as he plays around with the instrumentation on this set of standards, with half the album not even having a rhythm section. It’s a valiant effort at trying something new, but it doesn’t really work, especially when the album is heard as a whole (individually, the tracks work better). Darin singing Don’t Get Around Much Anymore should be a classic, but unfortunately this is more likely to send people to sleep. 4/10.
16. 18 Yellow Roses and 11 Other Hits (1963)
Those 11 Other Hits aren’t Bobby’s though. Here, he takes his latest hit and surrounds it by his covers of other singer’s recent successes. It’s a relatively unambitious effort that doesn’t tax Bobby much, although the droning vocal of The Reverend Mr. Black might tax the listener. End of the World is quite beautiful, and tracks such as Walk Right In, Not For Me, and Rhythm of the Rain come off well. However, this was released at a time when a far superior album of standards was still in the vaults (and was shelved for good), and that is a shame. 6/10.
17. Earthy! (1963)
Earthy! has begun to get something of a cult status – one of those Darin albums that even non-fans seem to like a great deal (rather like Sinatra’s Watertown). Earthy! wasn’t just a folk album from Bobby, but one which brings together songs from around the world rather than just a collection of songs by Dylan and his contemporaries. Everything works here, and this may well be Bobby’s best album. The musicianship is superb, and the choice of songs themselves complement each other wonderfully. Essential. 10/10
18. Golden Folk Hits (1963)
This follow-up to Earthy! is a much more conservative affair, this time a collection of covers of Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, and the Kingston Trio. The performances are all good, but it just pales into comparison when heard alongside its predecessor. 7/10.
19. Winners (1964)
Another album from 1960 that was held back from release. This time, this is quite a classic, pulling together a recent single as well a collection of performances utilising a jazz combo. This is the nearest Bobby got to straight-ahead jazz, and much of the album is wonderful, most notably I’ve Found a New Baby, What a Difference a Day Made, and Easy Living. A couple of tracks, such as Anything Goes, don’t quite work, but this LP really does deserve a wider audience, and a reissue including the other tracks from these sessions (Minnie the Moocher, Bill Bailey, Swing Low Sweet Chariot) would be most welcome. 8/10.
20. From Hello Dolly to Goodbye Charlie (1964)
After a hiatus from recording for various reasons, Bobby’s “comeback” album saw him paired again with Richard Wess (That’s All). Here, the album is made up of songs from recent shows and films (mostly films), and the result is his best swing album for Capitol. But that extra bit of fun and rawness, so evident on his earlier pairing with Wess, just isn’t here, and despite the fine singing, this is often professional rather than exciting. Bobby’s popularity was not what it had been a couple of years earlier, and while his version of Hello Dolly was cleverly, and knowingly, modelled on his own Mack the Knife, it had also been recorded by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra at the same time, and the single therefore got lost in the milieu, failing to give Darin the career lift he was looking for. 8/10.
21. Venice Blue (aka: I Wanna Be Around) (1965)
Venice Blue tends to position Bobby firmly in easy listening/MOR territory. He is said to have thought that the title song would be a big hit for him, but it wasn’t, dragged down mostly by the awful translation from the French (composer Charles Aznavour had a new set of lyrics written a few years later for when he re-recorded the song in English). Elsewhere, the song choices are predictable (Somewhere, The Good Life), with the occasional curveball thrown in (There Ain’t No Sweet Gal Worth the Salt of My Tears). It’s the curveball that comes off best here, otherwise this is a pleasant album, but far too safe. 6/10
22. Bobby Darin Sings the Shadow of Your Smile (1966)
This is very much an album of two halves. The first side finds Bobby trying his hand at each of the songs short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Song in 1966. Another year, it might have worked. But here we have Bobby trying to make something out of What’s New Pussycat, The Ballad of Cat Ballou, and The Sweetheart Tree, none of which are songs that fit Darin’s style of singing, and Pussycat is particularly painful. On the second side, we have a group of standards, pulled together from a complete album recorded months earlier that would remain unreleased, with the leftover tracks eventually lost in a fire. Bobby sings well enough, but the sound quality on the stereo release is appalling, with the singer sounding as if he is in a separate room to the musicians. Perhaps they had tried to get as far away as possible during Pussycat and Cat Ballou. Overall, very disappointing. 4/10
23. In a Broadway Bag (aka: Mame) (1966)
Here, Bobby comes up with a concept that seems influenced by Sammy Davis Jr, in that this is an album of songs from recent Broadway shows. If the last couple of albums had demonstrated Darin having an artistic slump, here he reverses that completely, and this LP heralded a new golden period for him. Mame became a minor hit, and it’s hard to find a better version of Don’t Rain On My Parade. Darin manages to pull away Feeling Good from Nina Simone, and here gives it a funky, blues-tinged reading, but perhaps the biggest surprise is the beautiful rendering of The Other Half of Me, a rarely heard song that is beautifully performed. 9/10.
24. The Best of Bobby Darin. (1966)
Bobby Darin was back in the charts, and so Capitol released this to try to capitalise on that now that the singer was recording for Atlantic. It’s a weird concoction, bringing together some genuine hits, but also leaving out the likes of If a Man Answers. Meanwhile a couple of album tracks make the grade, as does the previously-unreleased Fly Me to the Moon. With literally dozens of unreleased performances in the vaults, it’s odd that Capitol didn’t utilise them here to make it a new Darin album. As it is, this is a bizarre mish-mash of songs that was never going to make an impression. It remains the only US lifetime LP which has not been reissued on CD in its original form. 6/10.
25. If I Were a Carpenter (1966)
In a Broadway Bag might have been a return to form for Bobby Darin, but it was this album of folk songs, written by the likes of Tim Hardin, John Sebastian, and John Denver, that ultimately brought him back as a major force in popular music. The quiet reflection of the title number saw Darin have an unexpected, if fleeting, return to the charts, and also saw him host a number of TV specials in the coming years – his first since 1961. Musically speaking, this is miles away from the brash sound of That’s All, but there is no doubt that Darin was serious with regards to the music he was offering, developing the sound further when he set up his own record company a couple of years later. 9/10
26. Inside Out (1967)
A rather straightforward follow-up to If I Were a Carpenter, the music is just as good as before, but the album didn’t resonate with audiences as the previous one had done. That said, Darling Be Home Soon is a beautiful rendition of one of the best love songs ever written, and Bes’ Friends really is great fun. There is also a more sombre mood represented here with Randy Newman’s I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today and Whatever Happened to Happy. But perhaps most key is Darin’s own I Am, a song that again foreshadows not only the musical style of the Direction recordings, but the nature of the lyrics as well. 7/10
27. Something Special (1967)
This live recording, made in London, was released only in the UK, in conjunction with the TV special of the same name. The album has yet to appear officially on CD. Here, Darin, demonstrates his entire musical range, from the swing of Don’t Rain On My Parade, through to the folk of The Girl Who Stood Beside Me, and on to the blues of Funny What Love Can Do, in a superior arrangement to that which had appeared on single. A really fine album and performance that deserves a proper reissue. 8/10
28. Bobby Darin Sings Doctor Dolittle (1967)
Darin’s album of songs from the film Doctor Dolittle isn’t quite the anomaly that some suggest. After all, this is a film about love, acceptance and peace, and therefore lyrically the songs aren’t miles away from the themes that Bobby would explore for his own label the following year. Sadly, the album suffers from being split up into a ballad side and an upbeat side, but Beautiful Things and Talk to the Animals are classic Darin. Unfortunately, the release seemed to get lost amongst the official soundtrack album and the superior album of songs from the film by Sammy Davis Jr – someone who understood the songs of Leslie Bricusse better than anyone. But Darin’s Dolittle is much better than many biographies suggest. 7/10.
29. Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto (1968)
Bobby Darin had released twenty-eight albums in a nine-year period. In his final five years, he would release just three. This album was his first for his own Direction label. Gone are any signs of gloss and glamour, and instead we find a group of self-written songs that are simple musically, but demonstrate how great a poet Darin the lyricist could be as he tackles subjects such as the environment, capitalism, murder, organised religion, and mourning. This was an intensely personal project, and very few heard it at the time, but for anyone trying to understand the Bobby Darin story, this is essential listening. 8/10
30. Commitment (1969)
Darin’s second album for Direction is a less raw affair. He’s still protesting, but he’s also delving into the counter-culture for inspiration, and taking part in some self-reflection with the caustic Songs for a Dollar. This is a more complicated album, and from a distance of fifty years, few will know who or what Bobby is referring to in songs like Me and Mr. Hohner or Sausalito, but that also demonstrates just how current and on the ball he could be. But this is an album full of surprises, from the near-rap of the opening number to the beautifully trippy Water Color Canvas. 9/10.
31. Bobby Darin (1972)
In late 1970, Darin re-entered the mainstream, joining the Motown label. Over the next three years he recorded a live album and around forty studio masters. Other than a handful of single sides, this dismal ten-track album from 1972 is all that he released during his lifetime. A few more tracks appeared on a tribute album in 1974, the live album (which is wonderful) appeared in 1987, and 2018 will see nearly two dozen of the remaining studio tracks finally released. But this 1972 album is a major disappointment, as Bobby sings a series of big ballads, with an even bigger orchestra, and the whole album comes across as one thing Bobby Darin’s music rarely was: dull and predictable. Sail Away is the only real saving grace here, although Who Turned the World Around and Average People threaten to kick the album into life, but give up just before they manage it. 4/10.
Next time, we look at #32-50: posthumous Darin compilations and albums that are essential for every fan.
https://thisisbobbydarin.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/bobby-darin-albums-reviewed-and-rated-part-1/
