[78-L] Olde-timers

[David Lennick]

Mark L. Bardenwerper, Sr. wrote:
> David Lennick wrote:
>> You can actually make it through Can Can? I couldn't! Or anything else with 
>> Shirley MacLaine, for that matter. Seriously, I was raised on early Chevalier 
>> records and it was pathetic to see him slog through Gigi and Can Can (playing 
>> the same part).
>>
>> Take him out and shoot him, I say.
>>
>>   
> One of the very few French performers who did well in the States.
> Piaf
> Reinhart
> Trenet
> even Baker
> all flopped here. Probably shouldn't have. Says more for our tastes than 
> for their talents.
> 

Don't get me wrong..the old Chevalier stuff is great, and I've done 3 or 4 CDs 
of him. Even his 1947 Victors are wonderful, with updated Henri Rene arrangements.

Trenet stayed for about a year and a half in Montreal around 1950..seemed to be 
having a good time. Aznavour also spent formative time in Canada (by that I 
mean Quebec, and that's a different country). And the Columbia catalogs 
contained a lot of Trenet, Piaf and Sablon in the 40s so somebody was buying 
those records in the US.

dl