The King of Cool

For most of my life I’ve considered myself a rock ‘n roll disc jockey. During the first ten years of my broadcasting career I was on Top 40 radio stations, which played a steady diet of the Rolling Stones, Blondie, David Bowie and Tina Turner.

Little did my listeners know that ever since childhood, my favorite singer was not a rock star. In fact, he once bragged about knocking the Beatles off the top of the charts during the height of Beatle-mania. He even sent a message to Elvis Presley when he accomplished this feat, stating, “If you can’t handle the Beatles, I’ll do it for you.”

I’m talking about Dean Martin, or as Elvis referred to him, “The King of Cool.”

I could have never admitted my love for “Dino” during my radio days. My co-workers would have laughed me out of the studio. Their first clue should have been that I was did not smoke marijuana, which was almost a job requirement at the time. So I never got high, and that’s a miracle considering the lingering odor of pot in our tiny control room.

I was also not a drinker. Oddly enough, I had that in common with Dino, who made a career out of pretending to be drunk. I first learned this when my parents took me to a Dean Martin show in Las Vegas. I was 12, and my dad was on the board of the local telephone company. Las Vegas was the site of their annual convention. I was invited to tag along that year, and I got to see Glen Campbell, Andy Williams, and my favorite, Dino.

 

 

My dad and I watched him on his NBC variety show each Thursday night, which is another oddity because my dad’s life was nothing like Dean’s. A cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, Dean bumbled his way through a few jokes, but always nailed the songs. That’s what happened in Vegas too. Dean came on stage, pretended to stumble a time or two, and asked, “How long have I been on?”

Then he started singing and he was flawless. That’s when Dad assured me he was sober. “He’s drinking apple juice,” he said. “He couldn’t sing that well if he was drunk.” Perhaps my dad was living vicariously through Dean’s playboy-like demeanor, his snazzy tuxedos, and the beautiful women at his side. Men all over America probably thought to themselves, “Well, I can’t BE him, but I can enjoy watching him.”

 

Recently I saw a Dean Martin video on YouTube that reminded me of how much I loved his music. Back in 1964, the Beatles and other English Invasion bands had long relegated Dean, Pat Boone, Tony Bennett and other crooners to the “old people” radio stations. Dean then pulled off the musical upset of the century.

The Beatles were dominating the charts. In the aftermath of their sensational appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” every record they released sold millions. By late summer, they even had the nation’s top movie, “A Hard Day’s Night.” The title song shot up to the top of the Billboard charts within two weeks. No one was less likely to dethrone them than Dean Martin.

At the age of 47, he had recorded an album that summer aimed at my parents’ generation. His producer said they needed one more song, so Dean’s pianist Ken Lane suggested a song he had written back in 1947. “Everybody Loves Somebody” had been recorded by Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and other singers of the Big Band era, but it never got much attention.

Dean recorded the song, and his delivery gave it the “something extra” it needed. The teenyboppers liked it too, and it became a Number One hit, topping the Beatles. The song’s popularity led NBC to ask him to headline his own weekly prime-time show.

He agreed on two conditions: “No rehearsals, and I only want to work one day a week.” NBC said yes, and the show ran for nine years.

Watch him perform that song on YouTube in glorious black and white, and you’ll see why he was truly “The King of Cool.”