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Caught in a Trap: How Elvis Presley Turned ‘Suspicious Minds’ Into His Last Great Comeback
Caught in a Trap: How Elvis Presley Turned “Suspicious Minds” Into His Last Great Comeback At four o’clock on a freezing January morning in 1969, Elvis Presley walked into a recording studio in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee, and began singing for his career. He had not recorded in his hometown in…
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How Bobby Darin Made ‘Mack the Knife’: The Swinging Gamble That Made Him a Star
Some songs are gambles. “Mack the Knife” was one of the biggest gambles in pop history: a dark, German cabaret song about a murderer, recorded by a twenty-three-year-old teen idol who had just had a hit with a novelty song about splashing in a bathtub. It should not have worked. Instead, it became Bobby Darin’s…
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Bobby Darin: The Heart Behind the Hits
Behind Bobby Darin’s confident smile and his swinging, effortless performances was a young man who knew he might not live long, who loved fiercely, who worked relentlessly, and who hid a family secret that shaped his identity. His hits sound carefree, but they were made by a man who understood urgency, loss, and the need…
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The Untold Story of Bobby Darin: The Restless Star Who Refused to Stand Still
Some stars are content to find one sound and stay with it. Bobby Darin was not one of them. In a career cut tragically short, he moved from teenage rock-and-roll idol to swinging jazz crooner, from folk protest singer to country storyteller, and he did it all with a restless energy, a sharp intelligence, and…
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How Connie Francis Made ‘Where the Boys Are’: The Song That Became a Summer Anthem
Some songs are tied to a season so closely that hearing the first notes is like feeling sunshine on your face. “Where the Boys Are” is such a song. For Connie Francis, it was more than a hit; it was the title song of a film, an anthem for a generation of young people on…
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Connie Francis: The Heart Behind the Hits
Behind Connie Francis’s bright, confident voice was a woman who knew both great joy and great pain, and who sang about both with a honesty that made listeners feel less alone. Her hits sound effortless, but they were shaped by a close, sometimes complicated family, by early fame, by love and loss, and by a…
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The Untold Story of Connie Francis: The Voice That Carried a Generation’s Heart
There are singers who sing a song, and there are singers who become the song, who make you feel as if the words were written for your own heart. Connie Francis was the second kind. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was the most popular female singer in America, a voice that could…
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How Brenda Lee Made ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’: A Christmas Classic Recorded by a Teenager
Every December, without fail, a bright, swinging voice bursts from radios, shops, and car stereos, inviting everyone to rock around the Christmas tree. It is Brenda Lee, and she was thirteen years old when she recorded it. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is now one of the most beloved Christmas songs in the world, a…
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Brenda Lee: The Heart Behind the Hits
When Brenda Lee sings about heartbreak, you believe her, even though she was often still a teenager when she recorded the song. That believability is the heart of her story. Behind the hits was a girl who grew up too fast, who helped support her family with her voice, who married young and stayed married,…
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The Untold Story of Brenda Lee: The Little Miss Dynamite Who Sang Like a Grown Woman
She was barely four feet nine inches tall, she was still a child when she first sang on the radio, and yet when Brenda Lee opened her mouth, audiences heard a voice that seemed to belong to a grown woman who had lived a dozen lives. They called her Little Miss Dynamite, and the nickname…