| At one point he started
calling himself Bob Darin
and recorded songs with vague anti-establishment overtones that could be said to
be biting the largely bourgeois hands that fed his highest-paying gigs. It may
be most accurate to say that Darin was,
above all, a singer who wanted to do a lot of things, rather
than make his mark as a particular stylist. That may have cost him some points
as far as making it to the very top of certain genres, but also makes his work
more versatile than almost any other vocalist of his era.
When Darin had his
first hits in the late '50s, he was a teen idol of sorts, albeit a teen idol
with much more talent and mature command than the typical singer in that style.
The novelty-tinged "Splish Splash" was his breakthrough smash, followed by
"Queen of the Hop" and the ballad "Dream Lover." There was a slight R&B feel
to Bobby's
delivery that may well have influenced R&B-pop-rock singers such as Dion,
though it would be an exaggeration to call Darin a
blue-eyed soul man. In late 1959, he found a new direction when the swinging
"Mack the Knife," a tune from Brecht-Weill's
Threepenny Opera musical, made #1. The song came
from an album of pop standards, heralding his move toward light big band jazz,
which was consolidated by the Top Ten success of "Beyond the Sea" in 1960.
In the early '60s, Darin had
mostly abandoned rock for the adult pop market, becoming a huge success on the
Vegas-nightclub circuit, and moving into the all-around entertainer mode with
starring roles in movies (including one as a non-singing jazz musician in John
Cassavetes' Too Young Blues). He also continued to score
regular hits with the likes of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," "Things,"
and "Lazy River." To keep people guessing, there was also a hit cover of "What'd
I Say" and some country tunes (one of which, "You're the Reason I'm Living,"
made #3 on the pop charts). Around 1963, he put a folk section into his
nightclub act that employed guitarist Roger
McGuinn, then a couple of years away from fame as the leader of the
Byrds. Darin
didn't make the expected retreat into Rat Pack land when his records stopped
making the upper reaches of the charts in the mid-'60s. In 1965, there was a
rather nice self-penned jangly folk-rocker, "When I Get Home," that become a
British hit for the
Searchers. Another 1965 flop, "We Didn't Ask to Be Brought Here," was an
unexpected anti-war tune. When he made his return to the Top Ten in late 1966,
it was with a cover of a gentle Tim
Hardin folk-rock song, "If I Were a Carpenter." His final Top Forty hit the
following year, "Lovin' You," opted for material by another major folk-rock
composer, John
Sebastian.
Darin
may indeed have been far more hipper and politically aware than the average
nightclub act, covering tunes by Dylan
and the
Rolling Stones, participating in a 1965 civil rights march to Alabama, and
penning some Dylan-influenced
songs of his own in the late '60s It doesn't seem accurate to say that this was
the true Bobby
Darin, shedding his show-biz skin for something that came to him more
naturally; in 1967, the same year he covered Jagger-Richards'
"Back Street Girl," he also recorded material for an album entitled Bobby Darin Sings Doctor Dolittle. By the early
'70s he working Vegas and similar joints again, exchanging his blue jeans for a
tuxedo, and hosting a TV variety series. In a much odder turn of events, he was
now recording for Motown, though these efforts met little success.
Born with a rheumatic heart, Darin was
always aware that his time might be limited, and died near the end of 1973
during open-heart surgery. He left behind a considerable quantity (and
diversity) of recorded work, and underwent a critical reevaluation of sorts,
especially among rock critics, which might have aided his election to the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. A 1996 four-CD box set, divided into thematic
discs, attempted to put his wide-ranging efforts into perspective. Richie
Unterberger |
