Bobby Darin's Krautrock Nightmare

Only one of these dudes was called The King

Darin died at 37, shockingly young. It was the early seventies, and his career was moving with the times into a more reflective, less pop-oriented, era. Always dogged by ill health, a heart op finished him off. But what a life. He'd been a a Brill Building songwriter, and a rock n' roll heartthrob in the late 'fifties, the self-penned Dream Lover selling in the millions. His inventive cover of Mack The Knife helped make him one of the biggest stars in Vegas. He acted, creditably, in movies and T.V., had his own T.V. show, started his own record company, and late in life suffered the trauma of discovering his mother was his grandmother, and his sister his mother. Can't have helped, right?

He recorded nearly thirty albums at a rate of two a year. And here is where the problem lies - none of them is great, or even quite as good as you want it to be. As a teen heartthrob, he was no Elvis, no Ricky Nelson. As a lounge swinger, he was no threat to the Rat Pack. As a singer of pop, country, and folk rock he was competent, unexceptional. Although backed by some of the greatest musical talents on the planet, his voice could be that of anyone who can carry a tune in a flatbed truck (his voice has a tendency to lose interest in the note). The recorded legacy is disappointing; I want to like it more than I can. But his success in his own life, on his own terms, can't be argued, and it's at this point that my point of view fades into irrelevance. We all get to do our own thing (man). Indeed, doing someone else's thing is futile at best. So here's a glass raised to Walden Robert Cassotto, for achieving what he did with what he had. I like to think had he lived a little longer, he may have tried his hand, with equal success, at Krautrock.