By Jerry Pearce

The life and career of Dick Haymes was covered in a piece written several articles ago here on Newzbreaker, and while given a brief mention, glossed over a unique benchmark in his career that saw the production of two fine swing albums heralded by the forgotten balladeer. While Haymes was best known for the tender readings of intricate ballads, his forte which allowed him to have a successful career serenading audiences with traveling orchestra throughout the 1940s, the singer could swing as well, most notably on two releases which saw the light of day in both 1958 and 1961.

Haymes’ recording career can best be broken into three sections: his early big band days in the 1940s to the production of two wonderful ballad albums, “Moondreams” and “Rain or Shine” for Capitol Records in 1955, his later years between 1972 and 1980 which saw the release of a live album from the Coconut Grove and two fine trio albums with Loonis McGlohan, and the middle period, notably 1956 through the 1960s, where Haymes tried his best to compete with the other swingin’ cats of the day, notably Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Johnny Desmond, etc with the making of two albums, one with an orchestra led by Maury Laws with the help of Cy Coleman, the other with a big band ensemble arranged and conducted by jazz notable Ralph Burns.

The first release, “Look At Me Now!” is a fine selection of mostly up-tempo numbers featuring Haymes backed by the Maury Laws Orchestra, as well as the Cy Coleman trio, with Coleman accompanying Haymes on the piano throughout the program. While the program features some of the most well-known standards written, including “Oh! Look At Me Now,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “My Heart Stood Still,” “On A Slow Boat To China,” and “This Time The Dream’s On Me,” the album’s two finest moments come, first with Haymes’ exciting reading of “You Stepped Out Of A Dream,” a swingin’ arrangement with Laws and the orchestra at full tilt. One would think if a Haymes television special had been produced in the 1950s, he would use this high caliber chart as his opener. The other features the Coleman trio with Haymes poignantly recreating a song he had first sung during his days with the Tommy Dorsey big band, the wondering “A Sinner Kissed An Angel,” featuring an equally intricate solo on piano by Coleman.

The album was ignored by critics and the public in general, having been released on the low-yield Hollywood Records label with not much of an advertising campaign accompanying it. In the compact disc era, the album has been re-released several times, albeit most of the releases under different titles not featuring the original cover art, an amused Haymes being clutched around the shoulders by a smiling redhead.

Haymes’ notable nightclub work with singer Fran Jeffries at the dawn of the 1960s paved the way for a new album in 1961, produced by the burgeoning Warwick Records label. Featuring an unforgettable cover of a smiling Haymes holding a Variety newspaper with the headling “LION ESCAPES FROM ZOO!” with the aforementioned beast perched next to the singer, “Richard The Lion-Hearted: Dick Haymes, That Is!” is a solid enjoyable attempt to get Haymes away from the lush ballad tones he was known for and throw him into the midst of a jazzy, brassy maelstrom from which some great sounds would emanate.

Ralph Burns provides great driving backgrounds for what amounts to an assortment of big band tunes from both past and present at time, including the snappy opener “Pick Yourself Up,” proceeding with tunes like “Blue Champagne, “Paris Is My Old Kentucky Home,” “I’ve Heard That Song Before, “Serenade In Blue,” “I Concentrate On You,” “Anything Goes,” and “Lulu’s Back In Town.” Perhaps the most interesting song of the set, a vocal version of Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy Theme,” most notably heard in the 1960s as an instrumental during the opening to Hefner’s acclaimed television show “Playboy Penthouse.”

Following the release of the album, which followed a fate similar to the earlier album with Maury Laws, the release was itself derided by Haymes himself, who claimed to dislike Burns’ arrangements and said that he had to scream in the studio to be heard over his perceived loudness of the orchestra. While it isn’t evident on the recordings themselves, one can’t fault Haymes for voicing what he believed to be shortcomings in what he hoped would be a quality product for the American music market. With the exception of a British produced album in the late 1960s by Mercury Records (“Then and Now”), it would be the last album released by Haymes for eleven years in the United States.

Both the Laws and Burns albums were packaged together into a single 22-track compact disc in the 1990s, and while it has gone out of print today, copies still pop up on eBay from time to time. Individual CD releases for the 1958 album (under several different titles, including “The Ballad Singer” and an expensive Japanese release with the original album artwork) and the 1961 release (on Fresh Sound Records) also pop up there as well. Check them out now!

Highly recommended, as usual. 5/5.

Until next time, music lovers!

Jerry Pearce is an amateur singer in the vein of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dick Haymes and has released two discs of standards music, Crossroads in 2010, and One Summer Night in 2016. Samples of his music can be heard on his YouTube Channel. To purchase his CDs use the form box below.

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