Love Songs By Russ Columbo

 

Sweet And Lovely

Love Songs By Russ Columbo

Reprocessed with High Fidelity Equipment

This reissue produced by Bill Grauer, Jr. and Orrin Keepnews

Collector's Series

Recorded in New York, 1931 - 1923

RCA Victor LPM-2072

1959

From the back cover: The career of Ruggerio Eugenio di Rudolpho Columbo was brief but meteoric. His fabulous success was compressed into only four of his twenty-six years. Columbo got his big break with Gus Arnheim's band at the Cocoanut Grove – the same circumstances that had previously launched Bing Crosby. He clicked almost immediately and achieved radio stardom virtually overnight. Although he made several movies and appeared in stage shows at movie houses, it was his voice that primarily accounted for his fame. This album contains a representative sampling of the style and repertoire that propelled Columb to the top.

Unlike such contemporaries as Crosby and Rudy Vallee, who later made successful adjustments to the passage of time, Columbo is always remembered as the personification of dark and handsome youth. For, on September 2, 1934, he was killed in an accident so fantastic that it would never be accepted as credible in fiction. The facts apparently were these: Russ was chatting with a photographer in the latter's studio. The photographer, about to light a cigarette, struck a match on the barrel of an antique French pistol. In some manner, the flame of the match set off an ancient, long-forgotten charge still in the gun. The bullet that was fired ricocheted off a table and struck Columbo in the forehead. He died almost instantly. In this bizarre fashion the man whose voice had launched a thousand dreams passed into legend.

Call Me Darling (Call Me Sweetheart, Call Me Dear)

Sweet And Lovely

Just Friends

Where The Blue Of The Night (Meets The Gold Of The Day)

You Try Somebody Else

You're My Everything

All Of Me

Time On My Hands (You In My Arms)

Save The Last Dance For Me

Living In Dreams

Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear

Paradise