Re: [bomp] Re: Rudy & Winchester

["BlackMonk" <BlackMonk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Sknoof@aol.com>
To: <bomp@router.xnet2.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 9:12 AM
Subject: [bomp] Re: Rudy & Winchester


>
> << How many people who heard Winchester Cathedral (essentially a novelty
> song)
> could care about [Rudy] Vallee? >>
>
> << Also Gigi, but neither were meant for the same audience as The Beatles.
> That
> was the point of the question. Disney and Gigi weren't relevent to the pop
> music of the day. >>
>
> Sorry, have to disagree here.  From, say, '64 to '67 there was tremendous
> crossover of that sort.  "Winchester Cathedral" could be found in the
> little-45s-box-with-handle of just about every kid I knew.

And Benny Bell later had a huge hit with "Shaving Cream," that's what I mean 
by a novelty, something that caught people's attention because it was so 
off-the-wall. That doesn't mean Bell or Vallee were in serious competition 
with the major pop acts of the day for the same audience.

>And Rudy Vallee was very
> well-known to all ages during that time, after having been out of the 
> picture for
> a couple of decades prior to that -- he was on Broadway in a featured role 
> in
> "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" and showed up 
> frequently on
> shows like "Hollywood Palace" and such.
>
> Hard as it might be to believe, when kids first heard the guy at the end 
> of
> "Winchester" sing "A-vo-de-o-doh," it wasn't anything new to them.  They 
> knew
> what it was and where it was from, even if only vaguely.
>

Maybe I'm wrong, but that sounds like when I was a kid and I knew what the 
musical bits in Bugs Bunny cartoons or the "Camptown Ladies" single. I 
understood the reference, but it didn't have much to do with what I normally 
listened to at the time. How many kids saw Vallee and thought "great, I love 
this singer" and how many would have rather seen the Dave Clark Five? 

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