Top Pops - Frankie Carle

 

Please Mr. Sun

Wish You Were Here

Top Pops

Frankie Carle with Rhythm Accompaniment

RCA Victor Recors LPM 3024 & LPM 3098 (10-inch LP)

1952

From the back cover of Vol. 1: Frankie Carle is a well-established standard himself. The only thing spectacular about his career is the fame that has followed the years of obscure drudgery during which he was "learning by doing" all the tricks in the expert musician's bag of tricks. Mastery like Frankie's of keyboard, orchestra, and music comes only after many years of experience, and Frankie has plenty of them – just about forty, in fact.

It's a big head start, if your want to be a musician, to have one in the family. As a boy in his native Providence, R. I., Frankie had a musical uncle, Nicholas Colangelo, thoroughly trained in European conservatories, who was only too glad to teach his nephew. The catch was, the nephew wanted none of it, thank you – he wanted to be a boxer. But eventually parental persuasion and perhaps his own changing inclinations led him to study piano with Uncle Nick. He made fast progress, so fast that he had his first music job when he was nine and wrote his first song – for Frankie is a first-rate composer of pop music – when he was thirteen.

In his teens and twenties he has a variety of music jobs al over New England, and played with some of the best sidemen of the day. His rise to fame really began in 1939, when he joined Horace Heidt's band as solo pianist and, later, co-leader. It was during his five years with Heidt that his name as a composer spread. His "Sunrise Serenade," a smash hit in '39, was only one of a series of great Carle tunes, including "Lover's Lullaby," "Oh, What It Seemed To Be," "Deep In Your Eyes," and "Blue Fantasy."

He went out in '43 with his own band, opening at one of the country's biggest hotel spots, the New York Statler. He caught on at once and skyrocketed into the top bracket of fandoms elite. A star ever since on radio, TV, in night spots and hotels, he's achieved his most phenomenal success on records, of which more than fifty million have been sold.

From the back cover of Vol. 2: Volume I of "Top Pops" by Frankie Carle was frankly an experiment. RCA Victor believed that you'd like to have a collection of your current favorites played for dancing and just listening by one of your favorite artist. The success of Volume I showed you agreed.

Frankie Carle is an old hand at giving a new tune the distinctive touch that accentuates its best points. He's been doing it for a good many years – for nearly ten years with his own orchestra, and before that as star piano soloist with Horace Heidt's and other big name banks. Frankie has been on his own as a band leader, radio and recording artist for nearly a decade, but he's had twice as many years' experience in the music field working for other leaders. He came to national attention while working for Heidt, not only as a pianist and assistant leader, but as a composer as well. "Sunrise Serenade," a steady favorite since its fist success in 1939, is only one of Frankie's compositions.

Frankie has had the advantage both of thorough training as a classical pianist under his uncle, Nicholas Colagelo, in his native Providence, R.I., and of practical experience as a popular pianist with a series of bands, notably Ed McEnelly's and Mal Hallett's. In his early years as a musician, he worked with such famous jazz musicians as Gene Krupa, Jack Teagarden, Jack Jenny and Toots Mondello. Frankie learned his jazz partially at its source.

Volume 1

Any Time

Please Mr. Sun

Wheel Of Fortuen

Blue Tango

Until

Be My Life's Companion 

Tulips And Heather

Tell Me Why

Volume 2

Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart

Half As Much

Walkin' My Baby Back Home

Maybe

Wish You Were Here

Vanessa

Botch-A-Me

Somewhere Along The Way