Somehow I came across a version of the “Hawaii Five-O” theme with lyrics performed by Sammy Davis Jr. Not only were the lyrics banal and embarrassing, but I found Davis’s performance to be hackneyed. I listened to a few other Davis recordings, and I’m beginning to think that Davis as an artist was all image and no substance. Basically, mostly what he did was take a song that other people had made classics and add his characteristic phrasing to it (Sammy-fy it?). And, you know what? It’s bad, and it’s boring.
Is there any reason to remember Sammy Davis Jr. as a singer, recording artist, and performer, or is he just a novelty from a certain era?
I think he also sang “Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow” for the old Baretta series. He was more than a singer: he was an old-fashioned entertainer, singing, dancing, acting and comedy. He used to pack them in in Vegas, as did some of his cohorts in the Rat Pack. Of lesser caliber were Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford, of course. I think it’s unfair to criticize him for covering someone else’s songs, as that’s what most jazz singers did and still do. Hell, that’s what Sinatra did for a living, not that Davis was at his level of talent. You’d be hard-pressed to find any of the artists of that era who actually wrote their own material. Davis is probably best known for his cover of the song “The Candyman Can”, which made it onto the charts.
A quick search shows that it was #1 for two weeks.
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick here. I don’t have any expectation that a singer will also be a songwriter. I never criticize singers for singing songs other people have written or recording. I’m criticizing Sammy Davis Jr. for doing that, and producing nothing compelling or memorable in the process. Sinatra can do a song and make it a classic. Davis’s style is more like a novelty act in which he repeats the same trick over and over.
He certainly had a lot of stinkers but so do most artists whose output is enormous. His legacy is incredible for many reasons, not least of which being he was an amazing trail blazer for non white entertainers, but also the entertainment itself and the longevity of his career. He was also among the last of the truly great “The Show Must Go On” showman- when you went to see Davis perform, you knew you’d seen a performance.
Rufus Jones for President- an extraordinarily racist short by today’s standards but even at age 7 you can see his talent. (I think this was also the longest he was ever on film without a cigarette.)
His “last dance” with Gregory Hines almost 60 years later. I saw this when it first aired (don’t remember if it was aired live or not) but it was one of the few things that ever moved me to tears. Davis was mute due to throat cancer surgery, he weighed less than 60 pounds, and was essentially given leave by his doctors to go to the show only if he took a nurse (she was backstage) and did not exert himself. That particular request was denied- he actually dispatched his personal assistant to go get his tap shoes because he couldn’t not dance. The pain he was in must have been excruciating. Hines’ gesture is beautiful.
Davis died not long after this and it was his last public appearance.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare Davis to Sinatra (who could you compare to Sinatra?), but he was a multi-talented performer who won five Grammys, five Emmys and a Tony award. And he could dance rings around Sinatra.
His shows were both compelling and memorable for those who saw them; he was one of the hardest-working entertainers in the biz. You’re right: he was no Sinatra, nor did he try to be, but hell most of the entertainers back then were just doing the job and hoping to make a living at it. Davis just happened to fall in with a very prominent crowd, which certainly helped him make his mortgage payments, but winning all those Emmys and Grammys would seem to elevate him above average shlub status. I’d love to have a legacy like that.
That’s not really a “legacy”. A legacy is something you leave behind for generations that follow. Fame – even immense fame – that only lasts as long as your life time, after which you are promptly and fully forgotten is not an example of someone who left a legacy. For SDJ to have had a legacy, we’d have to still be listening to his music, or at least be hearing about how much of an influence he was on the entertainers of today.
(And I’ll admit that for all I know, plenty of young-uns do still listen to his music and plenty of performers do note him as an influence. I honestly have no idea either way. I was just commenting on your use of the word.)
I feel the same way panache. I hadn’t seen that before.
ascenray, I think Sammy Davis, and to a certain extent, Dean Martin and even Sinatra might sound a little hackneyed to modern ears because their Vegas acts were so widely imitated. “Lounge Singers” today are something of a cliche, but when Sammy was doing it, it was fresh. His legacy, maybe, is that for the next fifty years people tried and failed to copy his act.
Although there are many recordings of the works of many artists, you really do have to search them out. Their greatest works are going to be hidden from the vast majority of the public simply because it won’t get played. So, although there’s a whole library of the works of jazz great Louis Armstrong, most people are gonna know him because of “Hello Dolly” and maybe the Betty Boop cartoon “I’ll be Glad When You’re Dead you Rascal, you.”
Similarly, despite his many performances and his talent, Sammy Davids Jr. will be known for the original Ocean’s 11, Robin and the Seven Hoods (in which he has a heckuva number), The Cannonball Run movies and , sadly, the song The Candyman, which I understand was pretty off-the-cuff, and nobody expecte to go anywhere. If Fate is kind he might be remembered for Porgy and Bess, too.
Can’t let a Sammy thread go by without a link to Mr. Bojangles Here he is talking about the song.
Sammy was a giant. He was an old school all rounder. He could do everything and do it all brilliantly.
Sammy and May had originally planned to marry in summer 1960 but the wedding ended up being postponed until November 13, 1960. By some accounts- one included in the Ray Liotta Rat Pack movie (in which Don Cheadle played Sammy) he postponed it until after the election as Team Kennedy was afraid that the negative publicity of an interracial marriage of a celebrity who had campaigned for JFK would cost votes- some sources claim this isn’t true, others swear to it.
Whatever the case, JFK was such a shit to Sinatra and to Davis that both supported Republican candidates later. His hugging of the famously unhuggable Nixon was a major news story and partly inspired his more famous kiss of Archie Bunker. That episode, incidentally, had the longest laugh in TV history up to that point, so long that it was actually edited for TV due to time consideration. (When Sammy returned to visit Archie Bunker’s Place Archie kissed him- that episode is on YouTube as well.)
Yes, this is exactly the point I’m asking about. I don’t really see any reason for people generations from now (or even this generation) to go looking for Sammy Davis recordings to experience some kind of unique musical creation.
And no one will ever experience his live performances again, so that doesn’t form a basis for a legacy.
But I disagree with your category. I listen to Dean Martin recordings and Sinatra recordings. They display in each case a unique artistic accomplishment. Lots of people listen to them. They’re used in dozens of soundtracks and commercials. I can see every new generation of musicians or music fans going back and finding something in Dean Martin or Sinatra to enjoy or inspire new artistic work. I just can’t see any recording by Sammy Davis Jr. being important in that way.
That Guinness commercial and the show clip it’s based on kind of reveals that Davis was more of a novelty act rather than a memorable artist.
The problem with that categorization is that one of Davis’s strongest suits was his dancing and people just don’t watch dancers again and again in the same way that they listen to singers. You might as well say that Mikhail Baryshnikov had no legacy apart from some novelty turns in White Nights and Sex and the City.
I remember watching that last performance with Gregory Hines (sadly also now passed away) and being amazed that Davis was still so spry, and I had no idea at the time that he was as ill as he was. Watching it now…you can see that even in his condition he had moves and style that Hines struggled to keep up with. His legacy is the memory of an immensely talented man.
By some of these definitions, would Enrico Caruso have a legacy? He was the greatest and most popular opera star of his day and one of if not the first recording superstars, but he’s not much listened to today except by really hardcore opera buffs. Or Sarah Bernhardt for that matter: supposedly she was the greatest actress of her time, but all that survives are a few grainy silent films. Or Liberace, whose museum just closed and I can’t imagine his recordings still sell very well (his big money even in his lifetime was from concerts rather than recordings).
I think Sammy is like these: more legend in his own right.
Yes, Caruso might still have a legacy, if he inspired or taught people who heard him, if he created genres or categories or styles of music that were influential, if he contributed to ongoing trends that affected the development of music, if he set standards that affected subsequent generations of opera singers, if his popularity helped create or expand the audience for certain kinds of music that then gave later performers the opportunity to contribute to the art.
I certainly consider Liberace more in the line of a novelty act rather than a musical artist with a lasting legacy.
