Bobby Darin

Induction Year: 1990

Induction Category: Performer

"Bobby Darin was one of the most ambitious and versatile performers of the last forty years. He straddled generations, appealing to bobbysoxers as a teen idol who wrote and recorded “Splish Splash” in 1958 and then winning over their parents as the swaggering, Sinatra-voiced adult who cut the ultimate version of “Mack the Knife” (a song from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s musical Threepenny Opera) only a year later. Both songs were enormous hits, with “Splish Splash” reaching Number Three and “Mack the Knife” topping the chart for an astounding nine weeks. Darin’s range was as boundless as his brash self-confidence. In 1959, he told a Life magazine reporter that he wanted to be a pop legend by the age of twenty-five, while he allegedly informed another writer that he intended to surpass Frank Sinatra.

Darin was a man on a mission. Recurring bouts of rheumatic fever in his youth damaged his heart and left him aware that he would be living on borrowed time as an adult. Therefore, he wasted no time as he set out to leave his mark on the world. Born in the Bronx in 1936, Walden Robert Casotto launched his musical career as a songwriter for a New York publisher and then made the leap to performer, cutting a few unsuccessful sides for Decca before signing with Atlantic Records’ Atco subsidiary. His breakthrough single was “Splish Splash,” an uptempo bit of rock and roll doggerel reportedly dashed off in twelve minutes. Darin followed it with the similarly infectious “Queen of the Hop” (#9) and “Dream Lover” (#2). The latter song, which marked his peak as a teen idol, found him marrying the yearning sound of to the elegant simplicity of Buddy Holly’s later arrangements. Then, in August 1959, he took the world by surprise with “Mack the Knife,” which won a Grammy for Record of the Year. It became his signature song and appeared on the album That’s All, which marked his courting of a more adult audience.

While maintaining a prolific recording career, Darin subsequently launched a career in films (appearing in Come September, Too Late Blues and Captain Newman, M.D.) and became a regular on Las Vegas stages. In the mid-Sixties, his career took an interesting turn when he began recording material by a new breed of songwriters. His insightful reading of Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter” became a Top Ten hit in 1966. A couple albums of original material written in a more folk-oriented vein followed. Subsequently, Tim Hardin had a minor hit in 1969 with his recording of the Darin-penned “Simple Song of Freedom.” Sadly, Darin’s intuition about his premature demise proved true as he died on December 20th, 1973, following heart surgery.

In recalling Bobby Darin, former teen idol and fellow traveler DiMucci said: “He could play any instrument, and he was doing jazz and folk and rock and anything else he wanted. He could do it all - and do it all well.”

TIMELINE

May 14, 1936: Bobby Darin was born.

1958: Don Kirshner and Al Nevins form Aldon Music Publishing, hire songwriting teams Neil Sedaka & Howard Greenfield and & Mort Shuman. By October Sedaka & Greenfield’s “Stupid Cupid”, recorded by Connie Francis, reaches #14 Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” reaches #3.

1959: First Grammy award for an Atlantic Records artist - “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin, Record of the Year.

September 29, 1959: Mack the Knife (Bobby Darin) was a hit.

December 1, 1960: Bobby Darin weds movie star Sandra Dee.

1990: Bobby Darin inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Essential Recordings

Mack the Knife
Splish Splash
Queen of the Hop
Dream Lover
If I Were a Carpenter
Beyond the Sea
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby
Irresistible You
Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey?
Early in the Morning