Mark Pentleton

Today’s song was chosen by my son Matthew, who insisted that it should be played after Christmas because, after all, the lyrics are “Mary’s boy child, Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas day”, so it wouldn’t be right to play this song until after Christmas day! It dates from 1956 when it was released by [...]

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Today’s song is a bit of a rarity: I’ve not been able to find a lot of information about the song online, but I know that it was something of a “one-hit wonder” for the Moe Koffman quartet in February 1957, and was included on the 1959 Ella Fitzgerald album Get Happy. I originally heard [...]

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I’ve always loved the Frank Sinatra version of this song – it sort of represents an ideal image of Christmas for me: “frosted window panes, candles gleaming inside…”. It was written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne and the Sinatra recording dates from 1954.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:33 — 4.9MB)

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A big song today! Cry me a river was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in the 1955 film Pete Kelly’s Blues. However, it was dropped from the film and Ella Fitzgerald didn’t record it until 1961. The most famous early recording of the song was by Julie London in 1955, and it has since [...]

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This song dates from 1957 and was the title song of Frank Sinatra’s album, setting the tone for an album which featured various songs describing exotic locations, including April in Paris, The Isle of Capri, Blue Hawaii and Autumn in New York. Come fly with me must be one of the only songs ever to [...]

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This is another of those songs which I was sure I’d already played, but it turned out to be You’ve lost that loving feeling. The song was written in 1955 and was originally used in the soundtrack of the film Unchained in that year. However it was in 1965 when the Righteous Brothers recorded it [...]

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It’s November and since most of December’s 365songs will probably have a festive feel, I’ve been having a look at some of the songs that I really enjoy playing that I want to fit in before the end of the month. I couldn’t believe that I’d not played Misty! This song dates from 1954 and [...]

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Today’s song dates from 1951 and was originally written in Italian by P.G. Redi and Michele Galdieri for the movie Anna, released in 1953. Shelley Dobbins wrote an English version of the lyrics and the song was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1958.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:43 — 5.2MB)

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On September 9th 1956 Elvis Presley performed a new song on the Ed Sullivan Show, just before it was due to be released and a month before the launch of the film. Love me tender was based on the melody of the 1861 Civil War ballad Aura Lee, and the following day over 1 million [...]

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This song is 80 years old this year. It was written for the 1930 film version of the musical Whoopee! The most famous version of the song, however, is Nina Simone’s performance from 1958. I was experimenting with layering sounds on my Roland RD700GX at the weekend and I decided to record a version of [...]

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This song was popularised by Frank Sinatra in 1953 and sold over a million copies, so much so that it was decided that the film that Sinatra was working on at the time should also be called Young at Heart.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:18 — 4.6MB)

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This song, from the Bernstein/Sondheim musical West Side Story was first published in 1956. In the musical it follows Tony’s solo, Maria (which I played in June) and in the song both Tony and Maria profess their love for each other. You may also be interested in my version of Somewhere from back in February.
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Based on the French song La Mer by Charles Trenet, this song was recorded in 1959 by crooner Bobby Darin. I’d like to dedicate the song to my wife Catriona who celebrates her birthday today. It’s always been one of her favourite songs, and I hope she likes this version! Happy birthday, Catriona!
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Given that today is Fathers’ Day, I asked my dad what song he’d like me to play, so this one is for him! Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I’m sure there’s a photo somewhere of my mum and dad at the Trevi fountain. If not, there’s definitely one of the whole family there in 1980… Dad?
The [...]

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All this week my friend and former colleague Joan Herald has been starring as Mother Abbess in Mearns Castle’s production of The Sound of Music. I would love to have seen the production but my trip to Denmark this week has made that impossible. I’m sure that Joan did an amazing job, and indeed that [...]

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I’ve spent the last five days in Denmark working at the annual Apple Teacher Institute in Svendborg in the south of the island of Fyn. I thought therefore that I should really play something with a Danish theme, although this song isn’t really the most authentic option! It comes from the 1952 musical film about [...]

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This song from the Bernstein/Sondheim musical West Side Story, was first published in 1956. It marks the moment when the character Tony discovers the name of the girl with whom he has just fallen in love. Just to make sure he doesn’t forget it, he repeats the name 29 times in the song!
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I’ve played this song hundreds, if not thousands of times, but it wasn’t until this morning when I was doing my ‘research’ to write today’s blurb that I found out that the song was actually originally written as the theme tune for the 1956 film Around the World in Eighty Days! The vocal version wasn’t [...]

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Today we’re off to Rome. Or rather, we’re off to Rome and leaving already! I decided to play the song Arrivederci, Roma today. The song was first introduced in the 1959 film The Seven Hills of Rome and has been recorded by many artists including Perry Como and Nat King Cole.
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Nel blu dipinto di blu, often referred to as Volare won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1958 and was then chosen to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest. It came third, but nonetheless was voted the second most popular Eurovision song ever, beaten to the top spot by Abba’s Waterloo. Today’s interesting but possibly [...]

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