Monday 15 October 2007

Ray Anthony


What a man..Ray Anthony looked like Cary Grant, married balloon chested b-movie star Mamie van Doren and recorded the best selling single recording of Peter Gunn - not bad for a guy who was born Raymond Antonini on 20 January 1922 in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania

My first experience of Ray Anthony was on one of those Crime Jazz lounge collections with his storming Gene Krupa style version of the theme from Dragnet. I don't know how he did it but he seemed to get such a big sound on his recordings.

A classic example of that big sound is available on his Like Wild! album which includes the aforementioned version of Peter Gunn and the closing track, a cool and cooking Walking To Mothers which I presume is underscore from Peter Gunn.

Well worth bending an ear to (provided you turn the volume way up and you have deaf neighbours). Check it out

1 comment:

Crispy32 said...
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