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Bobby Darin

BOBBY DARIN

YEAR

1990

INDUCTED BY

Paul Anka

CATEGORY

Performers

Teen idol. Adult crooner. Vegas lounge singer. Rock and roll star.

Bobby Darin flirted with many musical personae and rocked them all. Versatile and ambitious, he conquered the hearts of teens, parents, rock and rollers and Frank Sinatra devotees before he was 25.

Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin

HALL OF FAME
ESSAY

By Michael Hill

In 1959 a cocky twenty-three-year-old Bobby Darin, flush with the success of “Mack the Knife,” revealed his ambition to Life reporter Shana Alexander: He merely wanted “to be a pop legend at 25.”

Darin’s exuberant, off the-cuff performance of “Mack the Knife,” produced by Ahmet Ertegun, did become the stuff of legend, but Darin could hardly have predicted the path his career would take. Bom in the Bronx in 19366 , Walden Robert Cassotto allegedly chose his stage name by thumbing through the telephone book. Although he had played several instruments as a child, Darin never seriously considered a musical career until after he enrolled at Hunter College, in Manhattan.

Forsaking the student life after a semester or two, he landed a gig as a songwriter for Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music and soon made the leap from writer to performer, cutting a few unsuccessful sides for Decca before signing with Atco/Atlantic.

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Class of 1990
He was bold, he was brash, and he was larger than life
Paul Anka
More from the class of 1990
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