"There’re little slurs and modulations that are as hard to sing as they are easy on the ear. In the bridge, he hits a blue note and then a line or two later ('I heard somebody whisper, please adore me') there is a little waver in his voice that brings to mind Nick Lucas, Tiny Tim’s mentor, who sang the original 'Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips.'"
Writes Bob Dylan about Dean Martin's version of "Blue Moon, in "The Philosophy of Modern Song."
Let's listen to Nick Lucas:
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17 comments:
Wow, sounds like Tiny Tim wasn't "mentored" by Nick Lucas, Tiny Tim was just ripping him off. My mother had a deep-seated hatred of male sopranos and singers like Nick Lucas. If they were on the radio or TV, she would immediately turn the channel or station. It became a family in-joke.
As for Dino, I've always felt he was underrated when compared to Sinatra. There was a warmth and humor to him. Sinatra really didn't have much of either.
Dino used the "mordant" in his vocals, one of those little note wiggles. Crosby used them a lot.
If a man didn't sing like that then by God he weren't no real singer.
AFAIK Sinatra eschewed mordants.
Dylan has previously spoken highly of Dean Martin. On his Theme Time Radio show he said: "Italy is shaped like a boot, and one guy I get a boot out of is Dean Martin. He was the smoothest singer of the 50’s and 60’s; Elvis Presley wanted to be him, as did Frank Sinatra, for two very different reasons. Here’s Dino and I call him Dino.”
He also did a cover of a Dean Martin song, "Return to Me" that was on the Sopranos.
Here's a photo of Dylan watching Martin on TV, in 1964:
https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/786643217982820352?lang=en
With a name like "Nick Lucas" (or his original name, Dominic Lucanese) it sounds like he'd be more likely to beat up Tiny Tim as to inspire him.
You can see a clip of him on the Tonight Show in 1969 (at Tiny Tim's request) when he was 72.
But I don't think he was an oddball or a novelty act in his heyday. He sounds a lot like Rudy Vallee or Jack Smith or Al Bowlly or any number of 1920s/1930s crooners.
Lorenz Hart put a lot of effort into Blue Moon. According to Wiki, the lyrics we hear nowadays were his fourth attempt. I've heard the lyrics of the song as originally written for Hollywood Party. They're witty and clever and worth your attention but they don't fit the yearning of the melody....Dean Martin, of all the Rat Pack members, was far and away the coolest. He used to be a prizefighter and a professional blackjack dealer. That's not to say he was a better singer than Sinatra though. And that's not to say that he was a bad singer. All such comparisons to Sinatra are invidious.
I've always described Dean Martin's singing voice as appealingly "slide-y". Ironically, that ability of his voice to caress and seduce lyrics worked out real well for when he performed his pretend to be drunk persona.
Always loved the name Dino.
Not just a dinosaur!
Dino was the protagonist in my big movie inspired by an artist (Kelly Ronan -- not Roman, don't make that mistake, I did that shit) called Snake in Blue. For that movie, I had to paint like 90 works of abstract art. So I did that shit myself. All of them -- fucking all 90, I think -- are hanging on the walls of my small-ass apartment in Charlotte North Carolina.
So you try writing a fucking will while you give artwork to your friends and your non-friends. I don't know about you, but when I go to Facebook, sometimes I look at my alleged "friends" and I'm like, I don't know any of these fucking people.
That might be a slight exaggeration for comic effect.
For instance, nobody from law school! I have friends from law school, I swear. When Ivy League assholes say shit like, "If you don't know who the class asshole is, it's you."
Okay, that's Ivy League shit. You can't listen to that! I can't tell you how many Ivy Leaguers say that shit. And it fucks me up when I read that smart shit, because I'm like, "I've got multiple classes where I don't know who the class asshole was." Multiple classes! That's when the little voice that I like to call "Satan" (which means opposition) whispers very softly, "Maybe you were the class asshole."
You see how internal that shit is?! No wonder people don't like thinking about Satan. Because it causes doubts and makes you strive to be a better person. And who wants to do that shit! Nobody! I'm lazy as shit because it's hot in the South. If you don't know what I'm talking about, turn off the fucking AC and see how you feel.
My "Little Man From Scotland" Plan for the Middle East involves dropping free AC units to every Islamic country in the fucking universe.
Calm their shit down! Doh! Duh! It's pennies on the dollar, you dumb fuckers. Little man from Scotland who scared the shit out of me says, Calm Their Shit Down Or I Will Visit You!.
When the morons in Washington D.C. who feel like if you give one free AC unit to one terrorist in Iraq, we got to give free units to everybody in Israel. As my man from Scotland would say, "Why the FOOK would we give FREE AC to FOOKIN Israel when NOBODY is worried about FOOKIN Israel bombing the shit out of us?"
And the diplomats are looking at each other. "It can't be that simple. They pay us big bucks, millions of dollars, to solve these massive problems. Obviously we need to give a free AC unit to 10 billion people.
Then they fly into my city, Charlotte, and introduce themselves to me, because they are super happy about my free AC idea, and they want to call it the Carmichael Plan.
"We'll put your name on it! You'll be rich and famous! Can we have a photo op with you before we go?"
And I say, "Are y'all diplomats?"
And they say, "Yes we are. We're diplomats from Washington D.C. And this is your chance to become rich and famous."
And I say, "Do you really think Israel is a terrorist threat to any fucking country in the world?"
(This is when I have to be patient and stand there for 10 hours until they acknowledge they're not worried about Jewish nukes. I might have to say "Jewish nukes" 1000 times before they admit this shit. Even the Jewish diplomats are like, "We can't say Jewish Nukes, that's offensive!)
"Are you worried about Islamic nukes, by any chance?"
Now I have to stand in position for 36 hours or some damn shit like that. I'm about to keel over from heat exhaustion because I'm in the South and I'm outside and it's hot as shit down here!. And I might have to mention it to the sweaty people when they emerge from their Porsches because the AC stopped working when they ran out of gas.
Finally, one sweaty Jewish guy who might be 99 or some damn shit like that says, "I might be slightly concerned about Iranian nukes." And I'm like "Fuck it, that's close enough."
And I say, because I'm about to keel over from exhaustion, "Okay." And I talk real slow. You want to scare the shit out of people? Sloooooooooooooooow talking scares the shit out of them. That's a Southern trick. I talk fast, normally. But if you start slow-talking and give people the stink-eye, especially if they are trying to make you rich and famous, they start getting a little nervous. Satan whispers in their ear and shit like that. And so what you do then (this is 2022, you might have to rewrite this shit in 2066, okay future editors?!) you take out your iPhone (that's what we call it, future readers, we love this shit), and you look at it.
And one of the Jews is like, "Can we give free AC units to Bangladesh?" (Like I know the answer to that shit, I can't even find Bangladesh on a map). And I'm talking slow, and giving stink-eyes, and looking at my iPhone.
Sweaty Jewish diplomat from Washington D.C.: "All we want to do is make you rich and famous." That's when you get super-slow. (Don't forget the stink-eye!)
You
Want
To
Give
Me
MONEY?!?!?!
And I don't know why, but that diplomat either drops to his belly to apologize for offending me, or he's running for the hills. Either way, the other diplomats are starting to get a little nervous. And I say, "You know, there's a word we use for white people in the South."
And then I don't say anything.
And we're all sweaty and about to keel over, because it's fucking hot in the South. And then one of the overweight black guys who's about to keel over too says, "Redneck!" And all the other diplomats are hitting him with their briefcases. And I fuck their shit up by talking normal and being super-friendly and polite. (We got that reputation, too, motherfuckers, are you terrified yet?)
"That ain't the word," I say, happy and smiling. "You like Jeff Foxworthy?"
And there's a silence because they've never heard of him. And I say, "He's the Chris Rock of Boone, North Carolina." And they don't know what to say to that. They're speechless. They're terrified. And I'm looking at my iPhone.
"Y'all got 10 minutes."
"What happens in 10 minutes?"
"What happens in 10 minutes?"
"This is a joke right?"
"Nine minutes."
"Okay, I appreciate your attempt at humor, but we're from Washington D.C."
And one of the diplomats, Fred, walks away.
And the other diplomats are screaming at him.
"Fred! Where are going? FRED!"
"I need a Coca-Cola," Fred says.
"Fred, it's the fucking Carmichael Free AC Units for the World negotiations, and we haven't signed the documents yet, and we haven't paid any money, and we haven't done the photo op, we got a lot of shit to do, Fred!"
"I'm thirsty," Fred says.
That's when I say, "Six minutes."
And they sprint like motherfuckers. They run up, down, sideways, on top of the car, into the car, try to start the car, no fucking gas, they get out of the car--
"Five minutes," I say.
They're sprinting, they're sprinting.
A diplomat from Korea is yelling. "He can't count! He can't count! He's from the South and he can't count!"
But he's got nothing on the guy from Nigeria. That fucker was fast! He blew by Korea and the Jews and all the Chinese and everybody from South America. And he's screaming. "He might be armed! He might be armed!"
And I would be laughing at this, except there's a little African-American girl that's standing in front of me.
I'm like, "uh-oh."
And this little African-American girl, I'm guessing she weighs, I don't know, 110 pounds (I hope you kids are writing this shit down), she starts to say something.
I don't know what the fuck she said actually. Her first words were...
"Hey, Daddy, I'm Jewish..."
And I'm sprinting away from that girlie. Oh my God, I'm already terrified. That's how you give your grandparents heart attacks. Or even your parents, sometimes.
I read in a bio of Dean Martin that at some point in the 60s he'd get a check in the mail every day, money rolling in every freaking day from records, TV, movies, radio, Vegas shows, even books ghostwritten for him.
And he was gobsmacked, like what am I ever going to do with all this dough lol guess I'll go play golf.
I suppose it's like that when you get really famous and don't eff up.
Apparently, Don Rickles pranked the Rat Pack in Vegas. Sinatra, Dino, and the others were in the sauna. They were all relaxing naked. Rickles paid a show girl walk right into the sauna in the nude. As soon as she walked in, Sinatra and the others went jumping and screaming for their towels - all except Dean. Dean Martin simply sat there relaxed, smile, and said, “beautiful, absolutely beautiful.”
William said...
Lorenz Hart put a lot of effort into Blue Moon.
It made me happy when I discovered this version - The Bad in Every Man.
Did Dean Martin and Tiny Tim ever collaborate?
I talk fast, normally.
Noooo!
Saint Croix, you never fail to capture my attention.
thanks Jamie
I love cheerleaders, always have
big fan
and I need the support, always
even a line or two keeps me going
I've set a personal record for insomnia this week, not sure why
I never feel like I know what I'm doing.
Life is improv and the vast majority of it is outside our control
Hope I didn't upset with "cheerleader"
George W. Bush was one and people mocked him for a decade.
You know who are the men who are independent and smart as shit?
The Millennials who are "cheerleaders" and "in the yoga class."
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