[78-L] FW: Look at this! Another 'rock historian' telling usabout the 1930s

[Michael Biel]

David Lewis wrote:
> And he didn't say anything about how the material Mitch matched to the entertainers he handled negatively affected their careers. Sure, "Come On-a My House" was a huge hit for Rosie Clooney. But she hated the song from the first, and struggled for nearly thirty years to get out from underneath it, ultimately reinventing herself to what she had been before all that got started. 
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> Uncle Dave Lewis uncledavelewis at hotmail.com
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>   

She might have had personal satisfaction, but she would have been 
singing to herself.  She was a competent performer, but she was not 
someone who on her own would have stood out in a crowd.   Those novelty 
songs gave her a start, but she got left in the dust afterwards and she 
would have never have gotten a chance to get into the dust without those 
novelties.  Did "Splish Splash" and "Mack the Knife" hurt Bobby Darin?  
And who ever came to see her or bought her records in her later, more 
personally satisfying years?  She re-invented herself into obscurity -- 
not that there was anything she could have done with other novelty songs 
later on.  She was a personally troubled individual who would have been 
better off if she had not resented Mombo Italiano and Come On-A My House 
so much and came to peace with them.  The latter was written by WILLIAM 
SAROYAN for god's sake!!!!! And people would kill for a copy of the 
record he made of it.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com