Recently I posted a couple of items about Mitch Miller. It’s been said that the low point of Frank Sinatra’s recording career was towards the end of his contract with Columbia, when Miller had him record Mama Will Bark. Cactus Lizzie wrote to say…
WCBS New York is doing “the dog days of summer” today on-air. They mentioned “Mama will Bark” and said it was available for review on their web site. There’s a write-up of it here at this link below, and the video which they took from YouTube.
http://wcbsfm.radio.com/2010/08/12/mama-will-bark/#more-14660
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRNRaMToK1g
Follow-up: Denro saw Cactus Lizzie’s comment about the flip side, “I’m A Fool to Want You”, and he says…
Here’s a link to the 1951 version. Mitch may have made him record “Mama” but he also let him record and release this song — co-written by Sinatra himself (one of the few). By the way, Mitch remembers Frank being okay with recording it at the time. He seems to be having some fun with it and even gets a good last line in. It’s no better or worse that some of the stuff that Perry Como or Rosemary Clooney were doing during the same period. The worst part was probably having Dagmar try and do the vocal, in retrospect an early TV flash-in-the pan. That’s the real novelty part. Then again, it’s still pretty poor!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEQm–gWvfA