Perry Como Salute

It's a few more months until radio stations will unearth the classic CHRISTmas recordings by other long forgotten singers. Perry Como is one of these. Why it's cool to listen to Bing and Perry at CHRISTmas but not the rest of the year is beyond me, so this week "The Nostalgic Rambler" salutes Mr. C, Mr. Relaxation, Mr. Perry Como.

Some statistics: between 1945 and 1970 he sold over 100 million records. Only Bing Crosby, Elvis and the Beatles topped him. He had 17 Gold records between 1945 and 1958. His thousands of tv shows included "The Kraft Music Hall" which back in 1959 was a 25 million dollar contract for two years.

Rather than list too many statistics, let me introduce (or re-introduce you) to Perry's work. Many of his "Kraft Music Hall" shows are available to watch here. Perry's guest stars on these shows are a cavalcade of great artists, from pianist Roger Williams to singer Nat King Cole to dog star Rin Tin Tin. Youtube also has plenty of Como to listen or watch. Try here and here for an example.

A Perry Como biography came out not too long ago. It is filled with lots of nostalgic tidbits that I just eat up. Not too much about Perry's personal life however. He was a family man and apparently kept his private life out of the spotlight which the biographers continued to respect.

I got to see Perry at a Christmas show in Daytona Beach, Florida back in 1991. By that time he was quite old, but his voice was still there. When he got tired, he simply pointed to the choir behind him. It wasn't his heyday 1940s to 50s best, but it was obvious that we were still watching a master a work.

For a bit of fun, notice the "TV Song Stars" magazine on the top of this blog post. Notice anything odd? Yes, the TV show is in color and Eddie Fisher, another famed song master of the era, is tuning ME in on the screen.

I've included some other great shots of Perry in his prime plus the autograph I got!

Sing to me, Mr. C!