Richard Pennycuick:

>On Gramophone's suggestion, I checked out the San Francisco Symphony's
>website and was most impressed by it.  I was amazed to find that Rosemary
>Clooney is doing a concert with the orchestra in mid-July.  I haven't
>thought of her in years and was surprised to find she's still singing.
>The website informed me she started her career in the 1940s - my
>recollection of her is rather later than that.

Nope.  Definitely the 40s.  Her Hollywood career, however, peaked in the
50s, and her work with Mitch Miller (including the truely awful "Come On-a
My House") also dates from then.

The hell of it is, she was briefly a jazz singer.  Apparently, there are
some early sessions made in New Orleans and never released.  In my opinion,
she was the best white female pop singer of her time.  The hits with
Miller, by and large, wasted her talent.  She left Columbia in the 60s.
Her album, Love, with Nelson Riddle, is one of my all-time favorites.
Her voice lasted a remarkably long time, but now, unfortunately, it's
in shreds, and she hasn't the breath to take the long phrases that once
sounded effortless.  That all said, however, she's still a fine singer,
with that old smokey quality in her voice enough to take you back and
remember when she was a great one.

Steve Schwartz