Sunny Side of the Street

The latest in our series of disembodied-head covers is also the latest in our series of soundtracks on 10-inch LPs. This one is a real obscurity, a 1951 effort called Sunny Side of the Street.

The two disembodied noggins, which appear to be singing to us from the windows of a shocking pink apartment building, belong to tune-shouters Frankie Laine and Billy Daniels, who played themselves in the film. To discover the movie's lead actors, you need to look at the back cover below, where you will find Terry Moore and Jerome Courtland in the upper right corner. (Poor Jerome doesn't even get his name on the cover.)

This record seems to be one of those "songs from the film" rather than "songs from the soundtrack" LPs. While Laine does sing these tunes in the film, these particular recordings were all released by Mercury some time before the movie was made. In 1951, Laine had moved on to Columbia.

Not that these performances are bad; far from it. These were among Frankie's first efforts, and they show the freshness and drive that made him popular. I May Be Wrong, one of his early hits, is particularly good.

Daniels is another story. His mannered belting and bellowing - popular in the cabarets - may have been great in person, but on record the effect is unendurable. The back cover captures him in characteristic pose -arms flung about, in the throes of some nameless rapture. I don't get it.

As far as I can tell, Daniels didn't sing either of these songs in the film, although both songs are used in the movie. In the film, Daniels did sing I Hadn't Anyone 'Til You, but here that is presented by Vic Damone. Neither Tony Fontane nor his song are in the film.

I should mention that the end of side one of this record is badly worn, affecting mainly the Damone tune (sorry I couldn't find a clean copy of this record to substitute). I believe this wear was caused many years ago by the record being played on an auto-changer turntable with the hold-down arm off to the side. At the end of the record, because no LP fell, this would cause the mechanism to think you wanted to repeat-play a 7-inch record. If you forgot about this and left the room, the end of the record would play over and over - and eventually wear out, as happened here.

UPDATE - I did find a copy of the Damone record among my 78s, so I've substituted it in the file linked below. While not worn out, this copy is pretty noisy, so it's not much of an improvement, I'm afraid. There is also a link to download only the Damone record.

UPDATED LINK | DAMONE ONLY