Post by zimmerman on Aug 13, 2013 17:17:10 GMT -5
Over the weekend, we lost one of the finest vocalists in traditional pop music. Eydie Gorme, the longtime professional and personal partner of Steve Lawrence, passed away Saturday in a Las Vegas hospital with her husband and son at her side, dying of an undisclosed illness. Eydie's passing officially marks the end of her longtime marriage to Steve, and the end of an era in show-business entertainment that has yet to be repeated.
She was born Edith Gormezano on August 16, 1928 in New York to a Jewish couple who migrated from Sicily. Her Father was a tailor who changed his last name upon arrival in the United States. She was able to speak several languages, including Spanish. As 'Edie Gorme', she sang with several dance bands in her high school years, including Tommy Tucker and longtime Glenn Miller tenor sax man Tex Beneke. It was during her tenure with the Beneke band in 1950 that she met a struggling young guitar player named Don Costa, who was then getting his feet wet in arranging. Gorme noticed several original arrangements--"Costa's Last Stand", "Costa's Retreat", etc. which Beneke never used because it did not fit his band's style.
Her first big break came sixty years ago when she auditioned, and eventually became, a regular cast member on Steve Allen's original Tonight Show cast. During her time on the Tonight Show, she sang solos and duets with another young Jewish cast member, Sidney Leibowitz, aka Steve Lawrence. Making a hefty sum of $90 a week on the Tonight Show, Gorme, in her own words, "Just fell madly in love with" Steve during her Tonight Show tenure. She and Steve stayed on the show for five years, and married just a few days after Christmas in 1957. Eydie successfully wooed Steve away from several potential suitors, including future 1970's Hollywood Gossip queen Rona Barrett, who was the president of Steve's fan club.
During 1956-57, the pair released their first recordings together on Coral Records, wherein they were reunited with Don Costa, who became the pairs producer and A&R (Artists and Repitoire) man. Together with Costa, Steve and Eydie founfed ABC-Paramount Records.
While her Coral sides did not get any attention when they first came out, it was during her tenure on ABC-Paramount that she blossomed and emerged as a superb female vocalist. With Don Costa functioning as her arranger-conductor-producer, she recorded a number of concept albums for the label that served as the female vocalist equivalent of Frank Sinatra's classic Capitol albums. In addition to her self-titled debut, which contained such classics as "I'll Take Romance" and "Too Close For Comfort", other notable albums she recorded for ABC-Paramount include, Eydie Sings the Blues, Eydie In Love, Love Is A Season, Gorme Sings Showstoppers, Eydie in Dixieland, and Eydie Gorme Vamps the Roaring '20's., the latter of which contained a stunning torch ballad version of "Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye."
In 1960, Lawrence, Gorme, and Costa formed United Artists Records. While Steve scored one of the biggest solo hits of his career with "Portrait of My Love", the pairs albums, including Cozy and Two On The Aisle, rank among their finest work. Eydie recorded two solo LPs for the label, Come Sing With Me and I Feel So Spanish, the latter of which was her first step into the pond of Latin music, which would come into full blossom in her next recording contract.
Steve and Eydie left United Artists and signed with Columbia Records in 1962, and their friendship with Aldon Music/Screen-Gems Columbia Music music publisher and co-founder Don Kirshner resulted in the pairs biggest solo hits, Steve with his #1 hit "Go Away Little Girl", written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and Eydie with "Blame It On The Bossa Nova", written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. the latter song peaked at #7 on the Billboard Magazine charts and led off a successful album of the same name with standards such as "I Remember You", "Moon River" and "Almost Like Being In Love" done Bossa Nova style along with standard pop-Latin songs such as "Desafinado."
it was during her tenure at Columbia Records that the second most productive period of her as a recording artist and a solo vocalist was at its peak. She recorded a number of amazing concept albums for the label,, including collections devoted to Spirituals, country songs, show tunes, and torch songs. The latter category produced two amazing albums in that genre: Don't Go To Strangers and Softly As I Leave You, the former of which contained two career-defining songs for her: "What Did I Have That I Don't Have" and "If He Walked Into My Life." The Columbia tenure also produced her first major Spanish albums: Amor, More Amor, and Navidad Means Christmas, with The Trio Los Panchos, which helped to make her a major star in the Latin American music market. Before she and Steve were dropped from the label, she recorded a dynamite version of "The Look Of Love" that Columbia released a year later as part of a compilation of songs from Gorme Country Style and Blame It On The Bossa Nova.
Steve and Eydie next moved to RCA and Broadway, starring in the musical Golden Rainbow, and producing such duet albums as Real True Lovin' , A Man and A Woman , and What It Was Was Love.. It was during her RCA tenure that she recorded "Tonight I'll Say A Prayer", a stunning torch ballad that became her last major hit.
Entering the '70's, Eydie and Steve continued their tour schedule and individually began appearing as guest stars on The Carol Burnett Show. Eydie made far fewer guest appearances (13) than Steve did (27), but she still managed to sing such '70's classics as "The Way We Were". The early-'70's saw the couple recording for MGM, wherein Eydie put out one solo LP and several singles, in addition to giving Helen Reddy a major run for her money with a dynamite version of "I Am Woman" on the Steve and Eydie LP Feelin' , also known as Sing. A brief return to United Artists Records gave her her last notable recording, "What I Did For Love.", the big song from A Chorus Line. The singles flip side, "Can It Ever Be the Same", was a song co-written by Eydie and her son David.
The 1980's were filled with touring, recording, and occasionally tragedy. Eydie recorded two albums for tiny Applause Records in 1981-82, SInce I Fell For You and Tojame O Dejame, the former featuring some arrangemetnts by the legendary Nelson Riddle. In 1983, Steve and Eydie said goodbye to their longtime arranger-conducter Don Costa, who passed away in January of 1983. Four years later, their son Michael Lawrence died of ventricular fibrillaration, at the young age of 23. The pair took a year off, then resumed their busy touring schedule with surviving son David at the piano. Also in the fall of 1986, viewers brave enough to watch Life With Lucy, the final flop series for veteran comedienne Lucille Ball, got to hear Eydie Gorme sing the theme song each week.
The 1990's and 2000's saw Steve and Eydie busier than ever, touring with Frank Sinatra on his "Diamond Jubilee Tour " and recording "Where or When" For Frank's Duets II album. The pair made a cameo appearance on The Nanny in the mid-1990's. and bought back all of the albums of their recording masters from their various labels they recorded and reissued them on their own label, GL Music. The pair became Vegas staples until Eydie retired from performing in 2009. She touched base with her many fans via a blog on the couple's website, her last entry posted in September 2011. Steve continued to tour on his own while Eydie enjoyed her retirement until her passing just a few days before her birthday. upon her death, Steve Lawrence said in a statement. "Eydie has been my partner on stage and in life for more than 55 years. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the Greatest Pop Vocalists of All Time."
Well said, Steve. RIP Eydie Gorme.