Billy May

In, uh, 1960, 24-year-old Bobby Darin teamed up with 51-year-old Johnny Mercer for a duo record called Two of a Kind.

It was arranged and conducted by Billy May.

The album is one of their finest, and it's an infectious little record of, uh, swinging old gems.

We'll swing easy on our way out with the Mercer original, If I Had My Druthers.

I think he was very attentive to that.

But, you know, he also had these... astonishing arrangers and in the case of luck be a lady billy may utterly different from robert alda's uh the arrangement in the in the show but so superlative and so perfect for him and he recorded it and performed it frequently even though his relationship with its composer and lyricist frank lesser wasn't so

wonderful yes Okay, so here's a song that Frank Sinatra didn't get to sing in the movie, and out of sheer spite, he made it a signature tune for the rest of his career.

They call you Lady Luck But there is room for doubt At times you have a very unladylike way of running out You're on this date with me The pickings have been lush And yet before this evening is over You might give me the brush You might forget your manners You might refuse to stay And so the best that I can do Luck be a lady tonight Luck be a lady tonight Luck if you've ever been a lady to begin with Luck be a lady tonight Luck let a gentleman see How nice a dame you can be I know the way you treated other guys you've been with Luck be a lady with me A lady doesn't leave her escort It isn't fair, it isn't nice A lady doesn't wander all over the room And blow on some other guy's dice Let's keep this party polite Never get out of my sight Stick with me, baby I'm the fella you came in with Luck be lady tonight Luck, let a gentleman see Just how nice, how nice a dame you can be I know the way you've treated other guys you've been with Hey, luck, be a lady with me A lady doesn't leave her escort It isn't fair and it's not nice A lady doesn't wander all over the room And blow on some other guy's dice So let's keep the party polite Get out of my sight Stick with me, baby I'm the guy that you came in with Luck be a lady

It was subtitled Poliziesco, if you want the full information on that.

From 1962, ahead of that, Billy May, a nice little number called The Naked Island.

And that came from Billy May, 70.

Don Tellings, Island Mysteries, did the Mysterons theme.

And that from a self-titled release for Don Tellings, Island Mysteries.

But Richard’s role in the project was changing.

Veteran arrangers Peter Knight and Billy May took on work that Richard ordinarily would have done himself.

Years later, Richard admitted there was a reason beyond simply wanting collaborators.

Had he been healthy and functioning at his best, he believed he would have handled much more of the arranging himself.

Well, for tonight's music, we're getting back to basics that are anything but basic.

As I said earlier, Sinatra, Capitol, and Billy May.

So we've got three Luke's Picks from one of my favorite Sinatra albums, Come Swing with Me.

Our first featured song was written in 1930, music by Jimmy McHugh with lyrics by Dorothy Fields.

And right out of the gate, multiple recordings were out there hitting the airwaves and turntables, and this thing just was well on its way to becoming a standard.

And one of the most popular recordings was done in 1945 by Tommy Dorsey and his band.

Tonight, we turn to a 1961 recording by Frank Sinatra on Capitol with a fittingly swinging chart from Billy May.

And now, from the Come Swing with Me album, here's Frank with On the Sunny Side of the Street.

We're going to slink now low into a most beautiful recording of Lullaby of the Leaves from Keely Smith.

You can find this stellar cut off her 1958 Capitol album with Billy May and his orchestra.

It's entitled Positively.

Hope you dig.

And of course I couldn't play them on the trumpet and we didn't have the kind of money that we could get a piano.

I loved Frank Sinatra, all that, you know, Neil Hefti, Billy May, Nelson Riddle stuff, absolutely adored it.

So I wanted to learn how to write.

And I thought, well, those ones would be easier to do because there's not so much going on because there's a singer to be behind.

I got called liberal scum there by a regular.

And Bill Senior, the owner, Billy's father, Bill Senior was tending bar.

And he looked at the guy and he goes, you out.

Only I can call her a liberal scum.

yeah slow down and read

all right well i thank the three of you for rising early and joining the shake and vibrate stratosphere i'm gonna um go into a billy may track not that billy may you know we got this cd donation in here and there's all these um ultra lounge cds which i never knew And I took the Hammond, Oregon one, and now I'm just like crazy.

So this is Patricia by Billy May.

And that's what I'm going to go into.