[Blogger's note: Back-to-back-to-back...thrice as nice!]
Baby's got blue skies up ahead, but in this I'm a rain cloud, ours is a stormy kind of love, ohohoh...I'm (only six days!) late again....
My introduction to this week's tune came from a compilation CD that I picked up at--you guessed it!--our local library sale for a dollar. It was a three CD set called The Fabulous Fifties, and disc two, which was cleverly entitled Unforgettable Fifties, was chock full of songs that were, well, uh...unforgettable. As so often has happened on my musical journey, I learned that this week's artist--whom I had only known as a very talented actress--had also been a pop music star....
Debbie Reynolds was born in El Paso, Texas in 1932, and had her breakout role at the ripe old age of twenty when she co-starred in the classic musical (which is actually a quite entertaining movie), Singin' in the Rain. Over the course of her sixty-eight-year career, Reynolds starred in numerous movies, plays, and TV shows, and had her own TV variety show as well as a Las Vegas act. She also released several albums. Reynolds was nominated for a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Tony, and an Emmy. Despite her quite successful career, Reynolds biggest claim to fame may have been that she was the mother of Carrie Fisher, of Star Wars fame (he writes "of Star Wars fame" for the three people in the world who don't know who Carrie Fisher was). Reynolds was well known for being down to earth--as an example, despite her fame, she was the leader of her daughter's Girl Scout Troop. Famed dancer and actor Gene Kelly said of her that she was just as happy playing her French Horn as she was starring in movies. Reynolds was a very early supporter of the LGBTQ community and quit her TV show (costing her $2 million) because her contract forbade cigarette advertising on her TV show and the network featured tobacco ads regardless (though she did characterize it later as the stupidest mistake of her career). Sadly, Renolds passed away from a stroke, one day after the sudden death of her daughter Carrie from cardiac arrest, on December 28, 2016.
"Tammy" was released as a single in 1957 from the movie Tammy and the Bachelor and would show up on numerous greatest hits/best of packages that Reynolds released during her career. It reached #1 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and near as I can tell, may have been the only single she released that charted. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. If you're going to have just one hit, hitting #1 with an Oscar nomination is the way to go....
Fun Fact. Motown founder Berry Gordy was so smitten with "Tammy" that he wanted to name his first record label Tammy. Unfortunately, the name was already taken so he called it Tamla instead (which he later merged with Motown).
There's nothing earth shattering about this one--"Tammy" is a sweet love ballad, filled with lush strings and woodwinds and a tinkled piano key here and there. The lyrics feature numerous references to nature (whippoorwill, owl, leaves rustling) which I thought a bit different until I read about the movie it was featured in and learned that the Reynolds plays a young woman who lives with her grandfather in a shack on a swamp. Not surprisingly for an artist who made her career singing in musicals on stage and screen, it's Reynolds' voice that carries the day--her vocals are as soft and precious as a seventeen-year-old who's falling head over heels in love...which worked out quite well as that was the character she portrayed in Tammy and the Bachelor. This was one of the songs that I fell in love with the first time I heard it and knew I would love for the rest of my life. And it's still keepin' on keepin' on....
Lyric Sheet: "Does my lover feel what I feel/When he comes near/My heart beats so joyfully/You'd think that he could hear..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
