NASHVILLE, TN – (December 2, 2022) – A new album from Hindsight Records, Rosemary Clooney Love and Learn, has been released. The latest project from the label’s Reimagined Series was produced by John F. Forbes and executive produced by Thomas Gramuglia.
Stream and download Rosemary Clooney Love and Learn on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and your favorite digital music platform at https://RClooney.lnk.to/LoveAndLearn
“This album is the combination of Rosemary Clooney in her prime, Buddy Cole’s colorful keyboards and John Forbes’ orchestrations, which makes Love and Learn both an excellent introduction to her beautiful singing, and a welcome addition for her longtime fans,” expressed Scott Yanow.
“Rosemary Clooney has become one of my favorites of all of the singers that I’ve worked with in this series,” shared producer John F. Forbes. “She has a deep resonance in her voice that really touches my heart and for many other listeners. It is easy for me to feel an emotional connection to her with her voice. She has a beautiful tonality, her phrasing is wonderful, and everything that she sings is warm.” He continued and said, “My Dad was a big theater organ fan, as was I. Buddy Cole’s organ was going to be in the mix of these performances with Rosemary Clooney and, rather than fighting it, I embraced it and orchestrated around his sound. I considered this a bit of a balancing act for his trio, which was different than the usual piano trio, and led itself to more orchestration than on the other projects. I used a bassless chamber ensemble that included a few cellos, alto flute, oboe, piccolo, and every now and then, a trumpet. I also added vibes on a couple of songs, although most of the vibes one hears is due to the stops Cole used on the organ, which sound great.”
Rosemary Clooney Love and Learn Tracklist
1. Harbor Lights
2. I Get A Kick Out Of You
3. Love And Learn
4. Always Together
5. When I Sing
6. Goodbye Blues
7. It Just Happened To Happen To Me
8. Mountain Greenery
9. Anyone For Love?
10. Witchcraft
11. Time For Love
12. You Got
13. I Love You (My Every Thought Is You)
14. You Ol’ Son Of A Gun
Session musician Buddy Cole played piano, celeste, harpsichord and organ. The Reimagined Series additional production was recorded, mixed and mastered by John Forbes at Forjam Studios.
Rosemary Clooney loved to sing, a fact that is obvious whenever one listens to any of her many recordings. She had a deceptively simple delivery, sticking to the lyrics and melody of a song while somehow making it sound as if each tune were written for her. Her beautiful voice, attractive phrasing, and understanding of the words she was singing uplifted each song that she interpreted. Whether it was a slow ballad, a medium-tempo rendition of a standard, or an obscurity that would otherwise have been long forgotten, she made every number that she chose to sing well worth hearing.
She was born on May 23, 1928 in Maysville, Kentucky. Rosemary Clooney had a difficult childhood. She came from a broken home headed by a mother who remarried and abandoned her and her younger sister Betty (1931-1976) in 1941, and an alcoholic father who left without warning in 1945. The sisters had to support themselves while still teenagers, struggling for food, money and their general survival. Fortunately they were both fine singers from a young age, having gained early experience singing in their grandfather’s election campaigns for mayor; he won three times. After a few months of extreme poverty, they were saved when they won an audition at radio station WLW in Cincinnati. The Clooney Sisters (who were 17 and 14 years old at the time) were given their own radio show, worked with bandleader Barney Rapp who had helped discover Doris Day in the late 1930s and, most importantly, were paid $20 a week apiece.
Shortly after, Tony Pastor heard the Clooney Sisters singing on the radio and hired the siblings for his big band. During 1945-48, Rosemary and Betty Clooney were major attractions with the Tony Pastor Orchestra, performing at concerts, on the radio, and on recordings. Pastor, a personable and cheerful singer (similar to, although not as crazy as, Louis Prima) and a decent tenor-saxophonist, led a top-notch swing band that was prosperous into the 1950s. It was an excellent setting for Rosemary to develop and mature as a pop and jazz-inspired singer.
In 1949, Betty Clooney left Pastor to return to Cincinnati where she worked on local television and gradually retired from the music business. Shortly after, Rosemary Clooney also departed from the big band, moving to New York where she began her solo career. She worked on radio and television (including as a regular on CBS’ Songs For Sale) and was soon signed by the Columbia label.
While Clooney always preferred to sing superior standards, Columbia producer Mitch Miller constantly pressured her to record novelties that had the potential to become commercial hits. She caused a minor stir in 1951 with “Beautiful Brown Eyes” but it was “Come On-a My House” that became a big seller. Clooney actually hated the song, disliking the phony Italian accent that she had to use along with the double-entendres, and she avoided performing it whenever she could. Despite that, it helped make her a household name when she was just 23. Her other hits of the era included “Botch-a-Me” (1952), “Half As Much” (1952), “Mambo Italiano” (1954), “Hey There” (1954), “This Ole House” (1954), “Where Will The Dimple Be” (1955), and “Mangos” (1956). With the exception of “Hey There,” she generally skipped singing those tunes in later years in favor of more enduring material.
In the early 1950s, Clooney co-hosted a radio variety show with Bing Crosby, who became her lifelong friend. Following in Doris Day’s footsteps, she began to act and had roles in three films: The Stars Are Singing (1953), Here Come The Girls (1953), and Red Garters (1954). The biggest impact that she made in Hollywood was in 1954’s White Christmas, where she held her own with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen and had “Love, You Didn’t Do Right by Me” as her solo feature. But despite that major success, Clooney never liked acting and soon dropped out of that side of show business. Other than a couple of cameo appearances, her only other films were a few TV movies (including 1968’s The Joker’s Wild) and 1994’s Radioland Murders. Singing was her love, not acting.
She was so popular by the mid-1950s that during 1956-58 she had her own syndicated half-hour television program, The Rosemary Clooney Show, which during its first season featured her joined by Nelson Riddle’s orchestra and the Hi-Lo’s. She also made guest appearances on other television specials.
Over time, Rosemary Clooney was able to use her growing fame to get more control over the songs that she recorded. She waxed some unusual duets with actress Marlene Dietrich, was joined by trumpeter Harry James on eight jazz-oriented selections in 1952, and had some occasions to record the swing standards that she loved. With the rise of the Lp, there was less pressure for her to have hit records. One project that she was particularly proud of was Blue Rose, a memorable meeting with Duke Ellington’s orchestra. After leaving the Columbia label in 1958, she continued recording regularly including for the MGM, Coral, RCA Victor, Reprise and Dot labels. Although the hits stopped, she remained a popular attraction into the mid-1960s.
Rosemary Clooney’s personal life during this time was not as successful as her musical career. Her marriage to actor José Ferrer during 1953-61 resulted in five children but they were divorced after eight years. Clooney and Ferrer tried again during a second marriage in 1964 but that union lasted less than three years. The pressures of her life resulted in her becoming addicted to tranquilizers and sleeping pills. The singer was a good friend of Robert Kennedy and she sometimes performed at his campaign events but, a month after his assassination in 1968, she had a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized, and dropped out of music altogether for eight years.
In 1976 Rosemary Clooney started a comeback when Bing Crosby asked her to be part of what would be his final tour. Her voice was still very much in its prime (she was just 48) and she signed with the Concord label. While not a full-fledged jazz singer herself, she recorded and performed regularly with a swing combo featuring tenor-saxophonist Scott Hamilton and cornetist Warren Vache, singing the classics from the Great American Songbook that she loved. She made 25 albums for the label during her final 25 years including some later sets with orchestras and tributes to Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Mercer, and Nelson Riddle.
Rosemary Clooney wrote two autobiographies (This For Remembrance and Girl Singer), performed in concerts on a regular basis, and had a final happy marriage to former dancer Dante DiPaolo. A lifelong smoker, she passed away from lung cancer on June 29, 2002 at the age of 74.
