(483) BOBBY DARIN : FROM MOTOWN TO FOLK SONGS

Back in July of this year, we posted on Bobby Darin on Motown Records, where he tried on the popular Motown Sound.  Well, Bobby was challenged to find his niche in music by the mid sixties. He was challenged by changing times and the influence of Bob Dylan to cover songs that were more folk or political.  It was particularly difficult to pick and choose because he was so diverse in his talent.

I first met an ambitious Bobby in New York City in the Brill Building, introduced by Neil Sendaka, where he was making his rent by singing on demo records for song writers.  He was also writing songs of his own.  He was in the perfect spot to discover or write a hit song, and he did soon after we me with his recording of  Splish Splash.

Bobby was able to change his singing style enough to be hired to make a good many of those demos and I suspect that somewhere there is a treasure trove of them that he made - and some of them maybe you wouldn't know right away you were listening to Bobby. 

This challenge of being true to yourself, or what you're really good at, and being out of sync with the changing times, it's happened to the best of us. It happens in the music business every few, maybe every several years that music changes enough that you might get left behind, and 1966 is right about when you found the British Invasion with the Rolling Stones making the Beatles look tame - and in San Francisco, a new sound, the beginning of a Psychedelic drug fueled sound, typified by the Grateful Dead - and Peter Paul and Mary who are sticking to their folk music - while Bob Dylan is identified as a protest singer but doesn't want to be identified that way - and Bobby Darin - out of a whole group of young men who had vibrant carriers beginning in the 1950's, trying to figure out which way to go. 

Give it enough time though, and you become known as a CLASSIC.
Linking to his official site:  BOBBY DARIN NET - OFFICIAL - INCLUDING LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Bobby gets the most airplay over time for Mac The Knife, with Splish Splash clearly thought of as the 1950's.