Gotta catch up!
I have a lot of catching up to do. I certainly won’t win the blogger of the year award with my procrastinating.
First things first: Somewhere I promised to give my opinion on Robert Harris’ comments about Doris Day on his tribute show entitled:- Doris Day: I Hear Music, CBC Radio 2 . December 30, 2006.
Many things he said were very true. He had the highest regard for Doris Day as a vocalist, even calling her a genius. He expressed great regret about her choice of material; too many novelty tunes in the 50’s.
He also considers her career a tragedy, feeling that under different circumstances she would be regarded as a vocalist in the same circle as Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. As a fan, I regard Doris Day to be part of that exalted circle.
It is true that Doris Day is neglected by the contemporary music scholars, who, at best, minimize her contribution to the music world. She is not categorized under jazz, to them big band is a category apart. Neither is she placed under rock and roll or pop. If we find her CD’s in the music store she’s always under a different category. Doris fares much better on the Internet.
If Doris Day recorded more than 600 different songs and if half of them were novelty and the other half were from the Great American Song Book, then that ,in itself, is a great accomplishment. Many of the songs Doris made her own, like Bewitched, Perhaps x3, It’s Magic, Sentimental Journey, Secret Love, April in Paris and others. In my opinion Doris has the best versions of such siongs as Fly Me To the Moon, Again, I Love Paris, My Romance. And there are others, I’m sure.
Doris Day has left us enough masterpieces to secure her place amongst the top vocalists of all times. It’s now up to the music scholars and critics to acknowledge her genius.
Luckily, one such person is Tom Santopietro in his book Considering Doris Day . On the whole I enjoyed the book. One can see that he truly loves and admires Doris Day, the singer, actress and animal activist. And mostly I agreed with his assessment of Doris’ career. I don’t agree with his critique of Pillow Talk and Calamity Jane. I find both movies to be true classics where Doris gave an Oscar worthy performance. Nevertheless, I find this to be an important book since it deals seriously with Doris Day’s career. Hopefully more such books will be written.
In the next few days I will write more: the Carmel trip for DD’s B-Day, and the filming of my short film with a big Doris Day theme.