Book123

    Free register and download UseNet downloader, then you can FREE Download from UseNet.

    Download without Limit " Lyrics & Music Bobby Darin - Born Walden Robert Cassotto (1968) " from UseNet for FREE!

More

Bobby Darin - Born Walden Robert Cassotto (1968)

Born Walden Robert Cassotto was the first of Bobby Darin's two Folk-protest albums, recorded for his own label, Direction, in 1968, in the wake of the success of If I Were A Carpenter, and in the wake of the RFK assassination, which seems to have hit Darin very hard.

Tracks:

01. Questions

02. Jingle Jangle Jungle

03. Proper Gander

04. Bullfrog

05. Long Line Rider

06. Change

07. I Can See the Wind

08. Sunday

09. In Memoriam

Buy Book at Lowest Price on Amazon

Bobby Darin's Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto was arguably his most personal project and his life's work. The album was completely written, arranged, and produced by Darin himself. In fact, the album jacket also asserts that Bobby Darin even designed the album art and took its pictures. The lyrics are printed on the inside jacket, which demonstrates how Darin was trying to express himself more with this album than any other, beginning with the title. Using it almost as a coming out, Darin sheds his stage persona and offers up himself as the true artist. In some ways, it could be claimed that this isn't a Bobby Darin album at all. Instead it is Robert Cassotto's debut (and only) record. The music is his most rock and is highly Beatlesque, and includes hints of psychedelia. The songwriting makes absolutely no attempt to be commercial, even by Darin's standards (which often led him to cover popular genres like folk or traditional ones like standards or Broadway). Instead, these tracks are marked with a personal voice that only occasionally appeared on previous Darin albums. "Questions" is a funky song inspired by soul and rock dealing with commercialism, identity, and urban ills. "The Proper Gander" even includes a Woody Guthrie homage ("This Land Is Your Land") and musical hints of the Beatles ("Drive My Car" and "Rocky Raccoon"), both of whom were major influences. "Change" includes the most straightforward lyric Darin ever sung: "music that used to sound hollow/Now seems to fit in your range." If Bobby Darin was an expert singer and interpreter, here he attempts to be the singer/songwriter. You can bet every executive who could have convinced Darin tried to dissuade him from including "Bullfrog," but the song encapsulates how he loved telling a story through lyrics. The album ends with such a story. "Memoriam" is inspired by Robert Kennedy, whose life and death deeply touched Darin. Overall, the album is a reflection of the historical moment, for it was created in an environment of assassinations, LSD, civil rights, economic recession, and war. Darin was feeling heavy and these songs became his cathartic release. Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto did not chart, making it perhaps his most commercially disappointing album. It was surprisingly critically acclaimed, however, meaning that his message of artistic truth did reach some people. (In fact, "Long Line Rider" reached number 79 on the singles charts.) The least-essential record to casual fans. But possibly the most important Darin record for those who wish to better understand the man's love for music and his quest for artistic truth. Put another way, if you are moved by knowing that Bobby Darin once retired from the Las Vegas scene, started going by Bob, and removed his hairpiece to sing folk-rock songs with genuine passion and integrity, then this album may be your favorite. Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto was more than a one-time indulgence. Committment followed in 1969 and makes a nice companion to this album, both of which were released by Darin's own Direction label. The catalogue number for the record is Robert Cassotto's birth date, not an insignificant choice. An overlooked masterpiece painted in bold, personal strokes.

:~ JT Griffith

Darin himself was swinging in a more liberal direction, but no longer swinging with a big band. Rather than overly concern himself with uninspiring movie roles like the one he accepted in the film Cop Out (released in England as Stranger In The House), Darin was much more keen on spending his energy campaigning for Senator Robert F. Kennedy, with whom he'd been acquainted since the early '60s. When the younger Kennedy brother announced his run for the Presidency in 1968, Darin was behind him all the way. And when Kennedy was killed, Darin (already deeply troubled by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, with whom he was also personally acquainted) became uncharacteristically withdrawn, his music further affected by these tragedies.

"He was very tormented. This was in the wake of RFK [being shot]," said Dodd. "He was with RFK the day before he was assassinated. Like everything he did, he'd get into it full-bore, and be immersed in it. And it was just really shocking. He went nuts, essentially, when he heard the news. And that was a very hard time for him.

"It began a process of introspection about everything he did, what he stood for. He went to Big Sur, lived near the beach in a little trailer, ran his own electricity, did woodwork, had very little to do with the show business world, and tried to find out what was important to him. He sold a lot of his possessions, gave a lot of stuff away, and was trying to make a change.

"And I think it was good for him," Dodd said. "Nobody really knew who he was up there. He was just a regular guy, He got his mail under the name Cassotto, drove a little Toyota. Basically, he just dropped out to take stock of what he wanted to do next. It was his 'hippie period,' his time to reevaluate. But it was not something driven by fad or style. The RFK thing was devastating. I guess, clinically, he was probably depressed. It was a very difficult time."

Darin wrote the somber song "In Memoriam" in tribute to RFK and included it on his highly personal album Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto, released on his own label. Direction, in September. Darin assigned catalog numbur 1936, the year of his birth, to the album, which he produced himself. The following summer, 1969, Darin's next self-produced Direction LF appeared. Commitment, only now the singer was identifying himself as "Bob Darin," not Bobby. RFK had been called Bobby, too. Now both Bobby's were gone. Darin's view of life and music had turned serious, and he didn't feel like having fun, particularly not with his old swingy image burdening his conscience.

"When he became Bob Darin," Dodd said, "a lot of people said, 'Oh, he's selling out 'cause that tuxedo stuff's over.' But I don't believe that. He looked around, he saw the civil rights movement, he saw Vietnam, he saw the sexual revolution, and he said, 'Why the % &* am I singing "Mack the Knife"? I have something to say, and 1 want to say it.' Everybody vilified him. The press and the public hated him. But he [genuinely] felt it.

"I think he would've stayed with that, if people would have accepted him, and he could've paid his bills. But he went back and put on the tuxedo, because he had medical problems. And 'Bob Darin' was not gonna sell out Vegas showrooms. 'Bobby Darin' would. He was clever, and I think he finally found a balance. He was comfortable [with his act] and I think, had he lived, he would have gotten the respect and the credibility that a Tony Bennett or a Sinatra has. Or even a Tom Jones, for that matter."

Dick Clark takes partial credit for convincing Darin to backtrack a bit, including reverting to the name by which he'd become known. "I'm sure a lot of people had a hand in that," he said, "but I was perhaps one of the most vocal, because I had nothing to lose. All he could do was yell at me, You know, I've had that (type of] relationship with a handful of artists over the years. It was as close as you can get with him, because we got into discussions of our personal lives, which I hadn't done with a lot of people. So, I felt very firm in our friendship. And if there was ever anything that I needed, he'd be there to help me, and to do it for me. It was tight."

Years after Darin had left Capitol, Venet still remained friends with him and would join him for some of his live gigs, in Vegas especially. In the time after he started the Direction label, and before he underwent his first heart surgery in 1971, Darin refused to wear a traditional black tuxedo for his engagements, wearing a denim tux instead, or just completely dressing down. He wouldn't bother to wear his hairpiece (which he'd taken to using to cover his thinning pate) and doing a lot of his newer, downbeat, material in favor of his familiar hits and smooth standards. Venet stuck with him through the difficult days, understanding that Darin was a true artist, and not merely a crowd pleaser,

"He wanted the phrasing and the emotion that Paul McCartney put into 'Blackbird'," Venet said. "I have nine reels of tape of him singing 'Blackbird,' singing along with Paul McCartney's [Beatles] record. He did it until he could turn the record off anyplace, and then continue. And if you backed the record up against his tape, he would sync-in perfect. And then, once he got the phrasing and the feel down, he would go do his thing to it. He'd take it to another level, to the Bobby Darin level.

"So, he wasn't copying people. He was inspired by people and he would study them. An interesting thing is, if you've ever heard the original version of 'Mack the Knife,' it was a dirge. And first he learned to sing it the way they did it in the Threepenny. And then he took it from there.

"You see, he had some genius to him," Venet said. "He would start from the ground, and go on up. You have to give him credit. He didn't come up with everything in 30 seconds. He labored over something like 'Dream Lover.' Everybody thought it sounded all smooth and easy, but that's how good he was. This guy labored.

"I mean, the guy made it look easy, but Fred Astaire used to do that too, and I hear that he worked on it all the time. He was an athlete. With his bad heart and his frail condition, the son of a bitch used to work as hard as anybody I've ever seen in my life. He really worked for it. But he was talented." :~ bobbydarin.com

Still Available:

The Bobby Darin Story (1961)

Original Url:

'Things' about Bobby Darin.

profile by Andrew Darlington

Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123