Bobby Darin - what cd's should a new fan seek out?

Here's an artist I know that I need to know better. What are the best cd's to get? Looking around the internet, it certainly seems he did many styles of music. I'm as interested in his pop output as I am in the swing/lush material.

 

1. Splish Splash (Take 2)
2. I Ain't Sharin' Sharon
3. Queen Of The Hop (Takes 5 & 6)
4. Queen Of The Hop (Takes 6 & 7)
5. I Want You With Me
6. Pity Miss Kitty
7. Splish Splash (Take 6)
8. Splish Splash (Take 7)
9. Bullmoose
10.You're Mine
11.Mack The Knife (Take 3)
12.You Never Called
13.Didn't It Feel Good (Takes 1,2,3 & 4)
14.Pretty Betty (Take 5)
15.Plain Jane (Take 4)
16.Plain Jane (Take 5)
17.That Lucky Old Sun (Take 11)
18.Now We're One
19.You Know How
20.Judy, Don't Be Moody (Take 2)
21.While I'm Gone
22.Hush, Somebody's Calling My Name
23.Splish Splash (Take 1)
24.Queen Of The Hop (Take 9)
25.All The Way Home
26.Here I'll Stay
27.Make The Knife (Take 7)
28.Don't Call My Name (Take 3)
29.Plain Jane (Take 12)
30.Keep A Walking



Track Listings

Disc: 1
1. Early In The Morning - The Rinky-Dinks
2. Splish Splash
3. Queen Of The Hop
4. Don't Call My Name
5. All The Way Home
6. Lost Love
7. Plain Jane
8. Dream Lover (Demo Version)
9. Dream Lover
10. Bullmoose
11. Somebody To Love
12. I Got A Woman (live)
13. You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby
14. Irresistible You
15. Multiplication
16. What'd I Say
17. The Right Time
18. If A Man Answers
19. Treat My Baby Good
20. When I Get Home
21. We Didn't Ask To Be Brought Home
22. Funny What Love Can Do
23. She Knows
24. Easy Rider
25. Everywhere I Go
26. Sail Away
Disc: 2
1. Mack The Knife
2. Beyond The Sea
3. That's THe Way Love Is
4. That's All
5. Clementine
6. The Gal That Got Away
7. Black Coffee
8. Guys And Dolls
9. Won't You Come Home Bailey
10. Minnie The Moocher
11. Easy Living
12. I Found A New Baby
13. It's You Or No One
14. Milord
15. Two Of A Kind - Bobby Darin & Johhny Mercer w/Billy May & His Orch
16. Artificial Flowers
17. Lazy River
18. It Had To Be You
19. How About You
20. Nature Boy
21. Baby Face
Disc: 3
1. As Long As I'm Singing
2. Oh! Look At Me Now
3. A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square
4. The Party's Over
5. This Isn't Heaven
6. My Funny Valentine (live)
7. You're Nobody Till Somebody
8. Hello, Dolly
9. Once In A Lifetime (Only Once)
10. Look At Me
11. Charade
12. Sunday In New York
13. Somewhere
14. There Ain't No Sweet Gal That's Worth The Salt...
15. Silver Dollar
16. Lover Come Back To Me
17. Rainin'
18. The Shadow Of Your Smile
19. Mame
20. Don't Rain On My Parade
21. Beautiful Things
22. The Curtain Falls (Live)
Disc: 4
1. Things
2. You're The Reason I'm Living
3. (I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle
4. Sally Was A Good Old Girl
5. 18 Yellow Roses
6. Walking In The Shadow Of Love
7. Work Song
8. I'm On My Way, Great God (Live)
9. Blowin' In The Wind
10. If I Were A Carpenter
11. The Girl That Stood Beside Me
12. Reason To Believe
13. Lovin' You
14. The Lady That Came From Baltimore
15. I Am
16. Darling Be Home Soon
17. Back Street Girl
18. I'm Going To Love You
19. Long Time Movin'
20. Long Line Rider
21. In Memoriam
22. Me & Mr. Hohner
23. Song For A Dollar
24. Sweet Reasons
25. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (live)
26. Simple Song Of Freedom (Demo)

27. Simple Song Of Freedom (Live)

 

You need at least these LP discs or their CD counterparts if available:

That's All
Twist With Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin Sings Ray Charles
Two Of A Kind (with Johnny Mercer)

I favor the mono versions when possible.

 

"Bobby Darin : As Long As I'm Singin'" (not to be confused with the RHINO box set) was released on the RND label in 1986. This a bootleg CD with many tracks of live Darin TV performances (Mostly Bobby's Ed Sullivan Show performances). It also has nice liner notes and a picture of Bobby shaving. Try Ebay for this one.
TRACKS

As Long As I'm Singin'

This Nearly Was Mine

Spirituals Medley:Swing Low Sweet Chariot/When The Saints Go Marchin' In/Lonesome Road

Silver Dollar

Dream Lover

Uptempo Medley:This Could Be The Start Of Something Big/Just In Time

Clementine

Minnie The Moocher

The Sweetest Sounds

Ballad Medley:Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye/Don't Worry About Me

That's The Way Love Is

The Breaking Point

You're Nobody Until Somebody Loves You

Medley: By Myself/When You're Lover Has Gone

Beyond The Sea

Just In Time

Mack The Knife

Medley:I Got A Woman/What I'd Say/When The Saints Go Marchin' In


http://www.bobbydarin.net/singing.html






Bobby Darin in Hell Is For Heroes (Trailer)

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)]Bobby Darin[/COLOR] "If I Were A Carpenter" Live 1973

Bobby Darin sings "Got My Mojo Working"

 

thank you.

 

"Mack is Back" is a very late TV special that is a lot of fun....

 

Two of a kind is excellent and sounds good.

 

My two favorite albums of his are Oh! Look at Me Now (1962) and In a Broadway Bag (1966).

 

Fantastic live album is "At the Copa." He plays vibes, too. No long-winded Sinatra-like monologues either. Lots of pep.

 

His hippie years were very interesting, to me.

Like that video of GOT MY MOJO WORKING, there was something going on in him, MORE than what was on the surface.

 

Splish Splash Bobby Darin 1st and 2nd take Ahmet Ertegun Producing

 

For a starter CD this has all the important hits. Later you can explore the styles you prefer: rock, pop, swing, folk, live ect.

http://www.amazon.com/Bobby-Darin-T...qid=1366734357&sr=8-1&keywords=bobby+darin+cd

 

Ahmet Ertegun & Bobby Darin


I just hired Phil Spector as my assistant(laughter from audience) and we went to Bobby Darin's house. Phil said, "What we are gonna do?" and I said, "The first project is we're gonna record Bobby Darin."

So he said, "Great." So we went over to his house and by this time, Bobby had a beautiful house in Beverly Hills, with a swimming pool and a butler. We arrived there and he had his guitar and I introduced him to Phil Spector and he barely said hello to him

(laughter from audience)

and then he started playing a few songs. He started playing me a song called "Jailer Bring Me Water." So he started singing: (Mr.Ertegun begins to sing.)

"Jailer, bring me wah-ter,
Jailer, bring me wah-ter
Jailer, bring me wah-ter
I think I'm gonna die."

Bobby singing "Jailer Bring Me Water" (Audio)


I said, "Well, that's great. What else have you got?" (Laughter from the audience.) So after he sung two or three songs, and I said, "That's great, that's great, but what else have you got?" (laughter from the audience)

because eventually he would come up with a big hit. After the third song, Phil Spector looked at me and said, "Are you crazy or am I? These songs stink!"

Bobby said, "Who is this S.O.B? Get him out of here!" (Laughter from the audience.) Then we left, of course. From then on, I just worked with Bobby alone (more laughter from the audience) but a year or so later, Bobby said to me, "We've been doing very well, but there are some of these young kid producers who are really terrific. Do you think you could work with one of them?" I said, "Who do you mean?"

He said, "Well, I heard this guy Phil Spector's very hot," and I said, "That's the guy you threw out!" and he said "Oh, boy ..."

(More laughter from the audience.)

http://www.bobbydarin.net/songwriters.html

 

Darin's is a difficult catalogue to collect his stuff is on so many different labels. I'm fan of both his Capital period (the most well recorded) and ATCO periods, and the later Atlantic label-If I Was a Carpenter/Inside Out albums are great too. Mono is best for most of the ATCO & Atlantic stuff, but I love his Stereo recordings on Capital.

 

I'd start with this one Best of, Volume Two, which, in my opinion, covers his strongest period.

 

I'm a fan of the stuff that you singled out. Overall, I guess that I most enjoy the Capitol and Atlantic stuff (the Atco stuff, not as much).

About the difficulties with Bobby's catalogue, it's all relative, of course. It's certainly more complicated than that of singers who primarily recorded for just two or three labels (like say, a Tony Bennett), but simpler than that of many an artist who jumped labels again and again, or who spent more decades than Bobby in the studios.


What we have on record from Bobby is on the following labels (listed from greater to smaller quantities of masters):

Atco/Atlantic (two time periods)
Capitol
Direction
Motown

And miscellanea on Decca/Bruswick and Colpix. Plus a few live concerts and the TV tracks from the album described by Mikefromlongisla.