Yes, it's Artie Malvin
Themes from Hollywood Films (1957?) was your usual cheap-label "theme" LP--namely, a carelessly tossed together collection of whatever previously released tracks happened to satisfy the title. The cover consisted of a still from a current movie (in this case, 1957's No Down Payment)--a ploy intended to conceal the fact that 1) most of the tracks weren't recent, and 2) none were from actual soundtracks.
How did Tony Randall and Sheree North feel about showing up on this cover? Did they even know they were on it? The answer is lost is the mists of Newsweek. I mean, Time.
Anyway, I bought this LP because it contains Rock Around the Clock, which I figured would be the version by the Waldorf Music Hall label's Artie Malvin, who had sung for Glenn Miller in an earlier era. I figured this because Audition is an Enoch Light label. But I had to be sure. Well, I was right--it's Malvin. I was sort of hoping it would be an instrumental, but no such luck. Note that the cover cites the 1956 Rock Around the Clock movie instead of the film that made the song such a huge hit--i.e., 1955's Blackboard Jungle.
The Malvin version is interesting because it is one of a small number of Clock recordings which presents the song as originally written (as opposed to Bill Haley's 1954 reworking), meaning that the verse ("One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock....") is in minor mode, and that the chorus starts out mi, fa, sol instead of do, mi, sol, like we're used to. It means that Enoch Light and Malvin were working from the sheet music, not copying Haley's Louis Jordan-esque recording. Most, if not all, of the other cheap-label knock-offs of the day imitated Haley--even, in a couple of instances, down to the tricky Danny Cedrone guitar solo. (Check out Jack Richard's Broadway label version.)
Also interesting: Instead of (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock, the label reads, "We Gonna":
And, sure enough, that's what Artie sings: "We gonna rock...." That's cool. I don't know why, but it is.
And this is why I collect records--for exciting, hold-the-phone discoveries like this one. I'd post the track, but the tune's a tad too famous.
Lee
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