To enjoy audio samples and/or order this wonderful CD, CLICK HERE.
A lot of younger people think of Rosemary Clooney merely as actor George Clooney’s aunt. If they have seen or heard her at all, it’s probably in the 1954 film classic, “White Christmas,” co-starring Bing Crosby. But there is no doubt that Rosemary was one of the great song stylists of the 20th century. Her popularity spanned the globe and the generations. Older fans no doubt remember her best for her novelty numbers, (“Come On-a My House,” “Botch-A-Me,” “Mambo Italiano”). But Rosie could also sing some serious music from the great American songbook, including light jazz, show tunes, pop and even country.
With the premier of our exciting new CD, “Rosemary Clooney: Rare & Unreleased,” we’d like to tell you a little bit about how this very unusual project came about. (You can also scroll down the page to hear actual song samples).
This CD surveys three distinct periods in Rosemary’s career: The first five tracks are from the tail-end of the Big Band era (1951-52) and feature the Earl Sheldon orchestra. Nobody seems to remember much about that group except it was a very serviceable studio orchestra that accompanied a bevy of stars, including Rosie. We’ve improved the mono originals and given them a little help with new percussion, strings, etc. for a very enjoyable, stereo sound.
The next 16 songs are very sophisticated light jazz/pop offerings from the period of 1955-61 when Rosie was indisputably in the best voice of her life. She is SENSATIONAL. We regard these as the centerpiece of the album.
Besides appearing on the silver screen, Rosemary hosted her own Thursday night program on CBS radio beginning in March 1955. It was produced by Crosby’s company, and a musical accompanist who was a close friend of Bing's, Buddy Cole, was assigned to work with her. The announcer on the show was Johnny Jacobs, and he and Miss Clooney exchanged light-hearted banter. Her very relaxed, convivial demeanor was most enjoyable and helped establish her in the minds of the American public as sort of the “girl next door”: down-to-earth and sincere. Which she was, in real-life.
Many of the numbers that Rosemary taped for her show were later used when she joined Bing to co-host the five minute “Ford Road Show” (launched in September 1957), and recycled yet again for the “Crosby-Clooney Show,” which premiered in February 1960 on CBS and aired for 20 minutes, five days a week. By that point, she and Bing had stockpiled songs (recorded in marathon sessions in Palm Springs and Hollywood), such that all they had to do is get together once or twice a month and tape scripted “wraparounds” — good-humored dialog which they delivered so convincingly it sounded natural and ad-libbed. Actually, it was often recorded in the living room of Rosey’s Roxbury Drive home in Beverly Hills, with breaks for cocktails and to change the reels of tape.
Though Ms. Clooney was also busy doing recording sessions for her commercial releases and having hit singles and albums, besides hosting her own syndicated television show for awhile and making many guest appearances, it was her radio work that most intrigued us. That’s because when Rosie sometimes sang songs on her shows that she had out on record, she invariably did a better job singing them on the radio. Maybe that’s because — unencumbered by the demands of a record label or a producer breathing down her neck — she could sing what she wanted, the way she wanted...and the results were simply superb!
For her part, Clooney remained modest about her musical abilities. Like a lot of naturally talented singers, she couldn’t read a line score, and said she followed the band. She didn't think herself to possess a voice that was in any way extraordinary. But it surely was! Always hitting the notes squarely in the middle, she had a way of caressing a melody with a deceptive ease. But she could also sing rousing numbers with real swing (as she proves convincingly on this CD!)
For her radio shows, Rosie also went on various musical excursions to cover tunes she personally liked but had not cut masters on for her record label, Columbia. Despite these radio performances being arguably the most impressive work of her career, ironically many of these recordings were long forgotten after their original airing, and were routinely overlooked when labels around the world did various compilations of Clooney’s commercial repertoire over the years. For decades, some of Rosie’s best songs (and such an important part of her musical legacy), remained unknown and unavailable to fans with the exception of bad homemade dubs traded amongst a relative handful of collectors of old-time radio shows.
Back in 2002, I had formed an indie record label, VoiceMasters, ostensibly to share previously unreleased material on Jim Reeves that I had located in the course of researching a major new 672-page book on him, “Jim Reeves: His Untold Story.” I had become a preservationist of sorts, obsessed with rescuing rare recordings by great artists that were too often lost, damaged through mishandling, fell into the hands of hoarders, or remained locked up and unheard. I spent tens of thousands of dollars in this regard.
While producing a CD (for H&H Music. Ltd. in the UK) called “Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney: The New Recordings” in 2013 — which features 28 overdubs of previously unreleased radio recordings as well as a handful of commercial tracks, all of which we had professionally overdubbed with new instrumentation — I had become aware of Rosie’s exquisite vocalizing. Although I always knew she was good, until I heard more of these unissued recordings, I didn't realize how truly great she was! And until you listen to our new CD, you won't fully grasp this either.
We were determined to see to it that some of Ms. Clooney’s magnificent recordings, although intended initially only for radio broadcast, be released for her many fans around the world to discover and enjoy. But unlike other labels, who merely throw stuff together in a cheapo boxed set (or one that is grossly overpriced), without doing much (if anything) to restore the audio, we had developed a proprietary way of treating old recordings. Our longtime engineer David Lawrence is a specialist in dealing with old disks and has done work for the National Archives and the Country Music Foundation. (He's even built his own 16-inch transcription turntables).
He is joined by the UK's Richard Moore, head of the indie label Mint Audio (for whom our new Rosemary Clooney CD was produced). Richard is also an audio restoration expert who has done major work for the estate of Matt Monro (one of Frank Sinatra’s favorite singers), actor Peter Sellers, and jazz pianist Roy Budd (among others) — as well as for EMI. (To hear audio samples of his restoration work before/after, click here). Richard is also a skilled archival researcher, recording and remix engineer (including 5.1 surround sound), and remastering specialist who deals with everything from shellac to vinyl disks and multiple media formats. The stories of how he has rescued old audio are legendary. (When master tapes on Monro were lost, Mr. Moore worked from cassette dubs to recover priceless recordings that otherwise would have never survived).
We also had assembled a talented group of world-class musicians, background singers, engineers and orchestrators (both in America and Europe), to help us showcase these great artists in new musical settings. To date I have produced a series of CDs which I am proud to say have garnered critical acclaim from fans and professional media critics around the world, including Billboard magazine and even the BBC. Three of my overdubs (on another artist) made the Top Ten in Europe, two of them climbing to #1 (one as recently as July 2014).
We had been told — erroneously, as it turned out — that only the Crosby organization had good copies of Rosemary Clooney's radio songs and, aside from some duets with Bing they had released, up to that point they had shown no propensity for making her solos available.
But we were already aware, from our having found our own sources for the “New Recordings” CD, that many of these CBS broadcasts had been routinely transferred from tape onto disks that were distributed by the network itself to certain radio stations that, for one reason or another, weren’t carrying the live feeds of the shows that were otherwise available over the network lines.
So we embarked on a worldwide search to locate better copies of Rosemary Clooney’s performances.
We spent months trying to chase after good copies of these disks. One guy in Italy claimed to have pristine transcriptions, which he proceeded to down sample (and thus destroy) before cramming them onto DVDs that he sold to us for an exorbitant price, but that turned out to be a rip-off. Finally, we put out the word in the OTR community and eventually were successful in finding vinyl copies of Rosemary’s shows that were in good enough condition we could use them.
To hear some pristine excerpts from these disks from the Rosemary Clooney CBS show, (from which we drew songs we used on our CDs), simply CLICK HERE to listen to material that has never been commercially released by any record label.
Once we located viable copies of these network disks, (not only from Rosie’s 1955 series but also the programs she had done with Bing over the next several years), we were both elated and crestfallen. That’s because — upon further study — we realized that so many of Clooney’s incredible vocals were undermined by keyboardist Buddy Cole. While he was a fairly competent pianist, he had a real fixation on the Hammond organ, which he played incessantly on most of her songs, sometimes even upstaging her and usually ruining the mood she was trying to create. Why this man’s dreadful organ playing was tolerated by the network, affiliates, or the stars for whom he worked, is incomprehensible. We suspect it had more to do with Cole’s ability to ingratiate himself with head honcho Bing Crosby on a personal level than any musicianship he possessed. Even on songs that started out with pretty arrangements, that damnable organ would usually begin playing at some point and make you want to plug your ears and cringe. In a candid interview years later, Rosie diplomatically observed that Cole “wasn’t the best” keyboardist she had worked with. That’s putting it mildly.
However, we were able to salvage some numbers that either didn’t include Cole’s Hammond, or at least if he was playing we were able to hide him underneath new instrumentation. We were determined to transform Ms. Clooney’s timeless singing into something truly beautiful. Among those to whom we turned for help were some members of the Atlanta jazz scene, who added just the right accent to some of her bluesy numbers.
Just as we were wrapping up our work on “Rosemary Clooney: Rare & Unreleased”, (which commenced about two years ago), another label put out an overpriced, 5-CD boxed set of Rosie’s raw tracks. The contrast between that offering and our CD could not be more profound.
In the estimation of many fans whose reviews we’ve read online, the songs contained on that boxed set are lifeless, formulaic and monotonous. There isn’t any reverb on her voice, which sounds “dry” and unnatural. Even the photo on the cover is dreadful — and from an earlier period of her life not associated with the time frame covered by the recordings. But most of all, they feature that damnable Buddy Cole organ music throughout, as if he’s the star and Rosemary is just accompanying him as he shows off at the keyboard. Self-described “purists” (we call them “elitists”) may prefer to hear those recordings that way, but Rosie deserves better than that!
What we’ve done with “Rosemary Clooney: Rare & Unreleased,” is cull the best of her songs and made HER the star of our CD. Our mixes bring her voice forward and present her with a more natural-sounding acoustic ambience. The “presence” we have restored to her wonderful voice will astound you. Our tasteful new accompaniment also compliments her great singing in ways far better than many of her commercial recordings have done. (Like a lot of other stars, sometimes Rosie's singles and albums were over-produced such that her voice was overshadowed by the other musicians playing on her sessions).
We were also careful, on the final eight “live, in concert tracks” — which Rosemary did for the U.S. National Guard — to make sure her voice was not drowned out by the accompaniment of the Russ Morgan and Ray Coniff orchestras respectively. Those songs — which also have never been commercially released by any label until now — demonstrate what an exciting performer Clooney was on stage, especially when backed by such talented musicians!
On our CD, you will hear the real Rosemary Clooney, better than ever before. And if you're truly a Clooney fan, isn’t that a GOOD thing?
To enjoy audio samples and/or order this wonderful CD, go to: www.good-music.biz/rosemary.html
And also be sure to check out the CD shown below, of which we are very proud: “Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney: The New Recordings.” The clarity and richness we have achieved on their voices will astound you, along with the pretty new musical settings in which we have showcased these two beloved artists. To hear samples and order, scroll down the page...
Listen to some samples of these delightfully melodic and fresh songs at: www.good-music.biz/bing.html
A lot of younger people think of Rosemary Clooney merely as actor George Clooney’s aunt. If they have seen or heard her at all, it’s probably in the 1954 film classic, “White Christmas,” co-starring Bing Crosby. But there is no doubt that Rosemary was one of the great song stylists of the 20th century. Her popularity spanned the globe and the generations. Older fans no doubt remember her best for her novelty numbers, (“Come On-a My House,” “Botch-A-Me,” “Mambo Italiano”). But Rosie could also sing some serious music from the great American songbook, including light jazz, show tunes, pop and even country.
With the premier of our exciting new CD, “Rosemary Clooney: Rare & Unreleased,” we’d like to tell you a little bit about how this very unusual project came about. (You can also scroll down the page to hear actual song samples).
 |
| 30 tracks, many in NEW musical settings, including songs you never heard Rosey sing before! |
Besides appearing on the silver screen, Rosemary hosted her own Thursday night program on CBS radio beginning in March 1955. It was produced by Crosby’s company, and a musical accompanist who was a close friend of Bing's, Buddy Cole, was assigned to work with her. The announcer on the show was Johnny Jacobs, and he and Miss Clooney exchanged light-hearted banter. Her very relaxed, convivial demeanor was most enjoyable and helped establish her in the minds of the American public as sort of the “girl next door”: down-to-earth and sincere. Which she was, in real-life.
Many of the numbers that Rosemary taped for her show were later used when she joined Bing to co-host the five minute “Ford Road Show” (launched in September 1957), and recycled yet again for the “Crosby-Clooney Show,” which premiered in February 1960 on CBS and aired for 20 minutes, five days a week. By that point, she and Bing had stockpiled songs (recorded in marathon sessions in Palm Springs and Hollywood), such that all they had to do is get together once or twice a month and tape scripted “wraparounds” — good-humored dialog which they delivered so convincingly it sounded natural and ad-libbed. Actually, it was often recorded in the living room of Rosey’s Roxbury Drive home in Beverly Hills, with breaks for cocktails and to change the reels of tape.
Though Ms. Clooney was also busy doing recording sessions for her commercial releases and having hit singles and albums, besides hosting her own syndicated television show for awhile and making many guest appearances, it was her radio work that most intrigued us. That’s because when Rosie sometimes sang songs on her shows that she had out on record, she invariably did a better job singing them on the radio. Maybe that’s because — unencumbered by the demands of a record label or a producer breathing down her neck — she could sing what she wanted, the way she wanted...and the results were simply superb!
For her part, Clooney remained modest about her musical abilities. Like a lot of naturally talented singers, she couldn’t read a line score, and said she followed the band. She didn't think herself to possess a voice that was in any way extraordinary. But it surely was! Always hitting the notes squarely in the middle, she had a way of caressing a melody with a deceptive ease. But she could also sing rousing numbers with real swing (as she proves convincingly on this CD!)
For her radio shows, Rosie also went on various musical excursions to cover tunes she personally liked but had not cut masters on for her record label, Columbia. Despite these radio performances being arguably the most impressive work of her career, ironically many of these recordings were long forgotten after their original airing, and were routinely overlooked when labels around the world did various compilations of Clooney’s commercial repertoire over the years. For decades, some of Rosie’s best songs (and such an important part of her musical legacy), remained unknown and unavailable to fans with the exception of bad homemade dubs traded amongst a relative handful of collectors of old-time radio shows.
 |
| A singer of extraordinary warmth, vitality and exactitude, Rosemary was a delight to hear. She sang effortlessly. |
While producing a CD (for H&H Music. Ltd. in the UK) called “Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney: The New Recordings” in 2013 — which features 28 overdubs of previously unreleased radio recordings as well as a handful of commercial tracks, all of which we had professionally overdubbed with new instrumentation — I had become aware of Rosie’s exquisite vocalizing. Although I always knew she was good, until I heard more of these unissued recordings, I didn't realize how truly great she was! And until you listen to our new CD, you won't fully grasp this either.
We were determined to see to it that some of Ms. Clooney’s magnificent recordings, although intended initially only for radio broadcast, be released for her many fans around the world to discover and enjoy. But unlike other labels, who merely throw stuff together in a cheapo boxed set (or one that is grossly overpriced), without doing much (if anything) to restore the audio, we had developed a proprietary way of treating old recordings. Our longtime engineer David Lawrence is a specialist in dealing with old disks and has done work for the National Archives and the Country Music Foundation. (He's even built his own 16-inch transcription turntables).
He is joined by the UK's Richard Moore, head of the indie label Mint Audio (for whom our new Rosemary Clooney CD was produced). Richard is also an audio restoration expert who has done major work for the estate of Matt Monro (one of Frank Sinatra’s favorite singers), actor Peter Sellers, and jazz pianist Roy Budd (among others) — as well as for EMI. (To hear audio samples of his restoration work before/after, click here). Richard is also a skilled archival researcher, recording and remix engineer (including 5.1 surround sound), and remastering specialist who deals with everything from shellac to vinyl disks and multiple media formats. The stories of how he has rescued old audio are legendary. (When master tapes on Monro were lost, Mr. Moore worked from cassette dubs to recover priceless recordings that otherwise would have never survived).
We also had assembled a talented group of world-class musicians, background singers, engineers and orchestrators (both in America and Europe), to help us showcase these great artists in new musical settings. To date I have produced a series of CDs which I am proud to say have garnered critical acclaim from fans and professional media critics around the world, including Billboard magazine and even the BBC. Three of my overdubs (on another artist) made the Top Ten in Europe, two of them climbing to #1 (one as recently as July 2014).
We had been told — erroneously, as it turned out — that only the Crosby organization had good copies of Rosemary Clooney's radio songs and, aside from some duets with Bing they had released, up to that point they had shown no propensity for making her solos available.
But we were already aware, from our having found our own sources for the “New Recordings” CD, that many of these CBS broadcasts had been routinely transferred from tape onto disks that were distributed by the network itself to certain radio stations that, for one reason or another, weren’t carrying the live feeds of the shows that were otherwise available over the network lines.
So we embarked on a worldwide search to locate better copies of Rosemary Clooney’s performances.
We spent months trying to chase after good copies of these disks. One guy in Italy claimed to have pristine transcriptions, which he proceeded to down sample (and thus destroy) before cramming them onto DVDs that he sold to us for an exorbitant price, but that turned out to be a rip-off. Finally, we put out the word in the OTR community and eventually were successful in finding vinyl copies of Rosemary’s shows that were in good enough condition we could use them.
To hear some pristine excerpts from these disks from the Rosemary Clooney CBS show, (from which we drew songs we used on our CDs), simply CLICK HERE to listen to material that has never been commercially released by any record label.
Once we located viable copies of these network disks, (not only from Rosie’s 1955 series but also the programs she had done with Bing over the next several years), we were both elated and crestfallen. That’s because — upon further study — we realized that so many of Clooney’s incredible vocals were undermined by keyboardist Buddy Cole. While he was a fairly competent pianist, he had a real fixation on the Hammond organ, which he played incessantly on most of her songs, sometimes even upstaging her and usually ruining the mood she was trying to create. Why this man’s dreadful organ playing was tolerated by the network, affiliates, or the stars for whom he worked, is incomprehensible. We suspect it had more to do with Cole’s ability to ingratiate himself with head honcho Bing Crosby on a personal level than any musicianship he possessed. Even on songs that started out with pretty arrangements, that damnable organ would usually begin playing at some point and make you want to plug your ears and cringe. In a candid interview years later, Rosie diplomatically observed that Cole “wasn’t the best” keyboardist she had worked with. That’s putting it mildly.
However, we were able to salvage some numbers that either didn’t include Cole’s Hammond, or at least if he was playing we were able to hide him underneath new instrumentation. We were determined to transform Ms. Clooney’s timeless singing into something truly beautiful. Among those to whom we turned for help were some members of the Atlanta jazz scene, who added just the right accent to some of her bluesy numbers.
Just as we were wrapping up our work on “Rosemary Clooney: Rare & Unreleased”, (which commenced about two years ago), another label put out an overpriced, 5-CD boxed set of Rosie’s raw tracks. The contrast between that offering and our CD could not be more profound.
In the estimation of many fans whose reviews we’ve read online, the songs contained on that boxed set are lifeless, formulaic and monotonous. There isn’t any reverb on her voice, which sounds “dry” and unnatural. Even the photo on the cover is dreadful — and from an earlier period of her life not associated with the time frame covered by the recordings. But most of all, they feature that damnable Buddy Cole organ music throughout, as if he’s the star and Rosemary is just accompanying him as he shows off at the keyboard. Self-described “purists” (we call them “elitists”) may prefer to hear those recordings that way, but Rosie deserves better than that!
What we’ve done with “Rosemary Clooney: Rare & Unreleased,” is cull the best of her songs and made HER the star of our CD. Our mixes bring her voice forward and present her with a more natural-sounding acoustic ambience. The “presence” we have restored to her wonderful voice will astound you. Our tasteful new accompaniment also compliments her great singing in ways far better than many of her commercial recordings have done. (Like a lot of other stars, sometimes Rosie's singles and albums were over-produced such that her voice was overshadowed by the other musicians playing on her sessions).
We were also careful, on the final eight “live, in concert tracks” — which Rosemary did for the U.S. National Guard — to make sure her voice was not drowned out by the accompaniment of the Russ Morgan and Ray Coniff orchestras respectively. Those songs — which also have never been commercially released by any label until now — demonstrate what an exciting performer Clooney was on stage, especially when backed by such talented musicians!
On our CD, you will hear the real Rosemary Clooney, better than ever before. And if you're truly a Clooney fan, isn’t that a GOOD thing?
To enjoy audio samples and/or order this wonderful CD, go to: www.good-music.biz/rosemary.html
And also be sure to check out the CD shown below, of which we are very proud: “Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney: The New Recordings.” The clarity and richness we have achieved on their voices will astound you, along with the pretty new musical settings in which we have showcased these two beloved artists. To hear samples and order, scroll down the page...
 |
| 28 NEW overdubs of rare Bing and Rosey solos and duets in sparkling, fresh musical settings |
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