Clooney, Rosemary

views updated

ROSEMARY CLOONEY

Born: Maysville, Kentucky, 23 May 1928; died Beverly Hills, California, 29 June 2002

Genre: Vocal

Best-selling album since 1990: Mothers and Daughters (1996)

One of the most distinctive vocal stylists of the twentieth century, Rosemary Clooney enjoyed a highly successful career, even though her periods of greatest success were spaced decades apart. Beginning in 1950, she released a long string of hits for Columbia Records, where her work often fell under the guidance of pop producer Mitch Miller. Her hits of this period are composed largely of light-hearted "novelty" numbers such as "Come On-a My House" (1951) and "Mambo Italiano" (1954). Beginning in the late 1970s, however, after suffering a harrowing emotional breakdown, Clooney returned to the scene as a sensitive, intelligent jazz interpreter, imbued with a subtle sense of swing and a dry, textured voice. Clooney earned her greatest critical attention during this period—the late 1970s through the early 2000s—when she issued a series of strong albums for the small Concord Jazz label. Always working with excellent supporting musicians, she performed continuously until six months before her death.

Born in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1928, Clooney was raised in an unstable, shifting home. After moving several times, the family settled in Cincinnati, where Clooney and her sister, Betty, found steady work during the early 1940s singing for radio stations. In the mid-1940s she performed as lead vocalist for bandleader Tony Pastor, signing with Pastor's label, Columbia, as a solo artist in 1950. At Columbia, her recordings were overseen by Miller, whose work is often derided by modern jazz critics for its lowbrow pop leanings. Although Clooney recorded some fine jazz work at Columbia, she became a star on the basis of novelty numbers such as "Come Ona My House"—a song she initially did not want to record. Sustaining her stardom throughout the 1950s, Clooney acted in films such as White Christmas and Red Garters (both 1954). By the late 1960s, however, Clooney's life and career had unraveled. In 1968, addicted to pills, distraught over her failed marriage to actor Jose Ferrer and the assassination of her friend Senator Robert Kennedy (Clooney was present when Kennedy was killed), Clooney broke down after ranting at an audience during a performance. Released from a psychiatric ward after a four-week stay, Clooney worked to rebuild her career with the help of her friend, legendary vocalist Bing Crosby. By the late 1970s, she had re-emerged as a jazz stylist of the first rank.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Clooney, under contract to the Concord Jazz label, recorded many fine albums, often presented as "songbooks" honoring a particular composer. While critics and fans observed that her voice no longer possessed the suppleness of its youth, all agreed that her skills as an interpreter had sharpened. On songs such as "We'll Be Together Again" (from the album Do You Miss New York? [1992]), she underscores her performance with a rich yet subtle current of emotion, extending words with a smoky vibrato and then cutting them off for dramatic emphasis. Like pop legend Frank Sinatra, Clooney never allows emotion to push a song out of control; instead, she plumbs depths of feeling through quiet power.

Another highlight of the 1990s was Dedicated to Nelson (1995), an album tribute to gifted 1950s arranger Nelson Riddle, with whom Clooney worked and, at one point, shared a romantic relationship. Backed by re-creations of Riddle's original arrangements, Clooney applies her finely shaded voice and astute rhythmic sense to classic songs such as "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" and "Come Rain or Come Shine." Demi-Centennial (1995), an album of new performances celebrating Clooney's fifty years as a singer, ranks with her finest recordings. Here, delivering songs associated with various periods in her life, Clooney captures an honesty and warmth rare in contemporary music.

In November 2001, Clooney gave her final performance at the Blaisdell Concert Hall in Honolulu, Hawaii. The recording of the evening, released after her death as The Last Concert (2002), is notable for Clooney's voice—shakier and less potent than it had been in the 1980s and 1990s, but still impressive—and undiminished sense of timing. On "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe," first performed by the legendary entertainer Ethel Waters in the 1943 film Cabin in the Sky, Clooney distills romantic affection with sincerity and directness. After a long battle with lung cancer, Clooney died in June 2002.

Infusing her performances with honesty and emotional commitment, Clooney became one of the most beloved American vocalists, her consistency and taste rivaled only by her tenacity. Overcoming personal conflicts after her initial popularity declined, Clooney returned in the late 1970s with renewed force, giving listeners impeccable jazz recordings for the next two decades.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Rosemary Clooney with Harry James (Columbia, 1952); Clap Hands! Here Comes Rosie! (RCA Victor, 1960); Love (Reprise, 1963); Here's to My Lady (Concord Jazz, 1978); Sings the Music of Cole Porter (Concord Jazz, 1982); Do You Miss New York? (Concord Jazz, 1993); Demi-Centennial (Concord Jazz, 1995); Dedicated to Nelson (Concord Jazz, 1995); Mothers & Daughters (Concord Jazz, 1996); Sentimental Journey (Concord Jazz, 2001); The Last Concert (Concord Jazz, 2002).