Dean Martin

Official Page: http://www.deanmartin.com/

Once again I return to the world of Swing and one of the largest influences on my Music collection – My grandfather.

There’s not a corner of his house that doesn’t have at least one ‘Rat Pack’ CD.

The rest of the ‘Pack’ will appear as we go along and don’t want to tread into this particular thread just yet.

Dean Martin, often referred to by friends as ‘Dino’ (his original name), has been a mainstay of popular music especially since his revival in TV adverts, Films as well as shows such as ‘X Factor’ (though this last abhors me). His most popular songs are his trademark and his voice and charm dub him as the ‘King of Cool’.

Not a voice that came to him initially though – he could never read music, and kept trying different methods often employed by the bigger names at the time, Bing Crosby and Perry Como being just two of them.

Dean for most of his career had been plagued by his on stage performances claiming he was a drunk on as well as off the stage. I must point out at this juncture Dean liked a good drink (often Jack Daniels) and was an appreciator of women (often being called a womanizer). However still whenever he was on stage he drank Apple Juice and only played the part of a drunkard so when it came to singing he was still in full control of that smooth, charismatic voice that belted out the greatest of his back catalog and more.

Dean’s personality is the biggest part of what really keeps him in my library though. He had nothing but absolute respect for his job, family, friends and body. He as stated above was never drunk on stage, whenever trouble brewed at home he stopped working often leaving a tour to return home (most pronounced at the death of his son in 1987), Dean was always a voice for reason at ‘Summit’ meetings, and not at all athletic Dean played a lot of golf never actually drank more then he can handle and although Smoked for best part of his life he never chain smoked always having the dignity to say he didn’t need one when offered one.

This is (with the exception of the smoking and the golf) where I’d like to end up (if according to my closest of friends, I haven’t yet already), because of Dean being one of several role models in my personal life.

I’m going to avoid the conventional songs that most people will have heard at the end here.

From ‘This Time I’m Swingin’ ‘ – ‘True Love’

From (not sure) – ‘ A Hot Time In The Town Of Berlin’

And Ok so I lied – From ‘Ocean’s 11 OST’ (yes there was an original Ocean’s 11 before Clooney and Pitt didn’t follow the story but somehow made a reasonable film) – ‘Ain’t That A Kick In The Head’ (also recognisable by people playing Fallout: New Vegas and several video games recently)