Bobby Vinton - Blue Velvet (1963) HQ

Great music share!

Excellent song share brother Kerry.

Thank you, my friend Sgt (Join to see) for posting the music video of Bobby Vinton performing the classic Blue Velvet from 1963.

Here is the first recording by Tony Bennett whom the songwriters offered the song to in 1951.
Blue Velvet by Tony Bennett 1951
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I_RpG05C4w

Song background: Blue Velvet" is a popular song written and composed in 1950 by Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris. A top 20 hit for Tony Bennett in its original 1951 version, the song has since been re-recorded many times, with a 1963 version by Bobby Vinton reaching No. 1.
Songwriter Bernie Wayne was inspired to begin writing "Blue Velvet" on a 1951 visit to Richmond, Virginia where he stayed at the Jefferson Hotel: at a party at the hotel Wayne continually caught sight of a female guest dressed in blue velvet with whom he would have a holiday romance.
The song's co-writer Bernie Wayne had pitched "Blue Velvet" to Columbia Records head A&R man Mitch Miller, who as soon as he'd heard the song's opening measure: "She wore blue velvet", had suggested giving the song to Tony Bennett. (Wayne's response: "Don't you want to hear the rest of the song?", caused Miller to opine: "Quit while you're ahead!") Recorded in a July 17 1951 session with the Percy Faith orchestra and released September 21 1951, Bennett's version peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard chart of "Records Most Played by Disc Jockeys," while reaching No. 18 on Billboard's chart of "Best Selling Pop Singles," and No. 18 on Billboard's chart of "Most Played Juke Box Records." Bennett's version of "Blue Velvet" made its album debut on a 1959 compilation LP that was also titled Blue Velvet. The single's B-side "Solitaire" was also a Top 20 hit.
"Blue Velvet" was expediently covered by Arthur Prysock - whose version although recorded a week after Bennett's evidently was the first version released, in August 1951 - , Bill Farrell, and Norman Kaye (a solo act who was also a member of the Mary Kaye Trio): the Cash Box Top 50 singles chart ranked Bennett's version and the three covers in tandem, with a peak position of No. 12 attained on the chart dated 1 December 1 1951. Cash Box also ranked Bennett's version as high as No. 11 on its chart of "The Nation's Top 10 Juke Box Tunes".
New York Times music journalist Stephen Holden would vaunt "Blue Velvet" as one of the four tracks which defined the first phase of Bennett's recording career: according to Holden "Blue Velvet" along with "Because of You" (1951), "Cold, Cold Heart" (1951), and "Stranger in Paradise" (1953), "stand as the gorgeous final flowering of the high-romantic style invented in the 40's by Sinatra [with] arranger Axel Stordahl. Pure and throbbing, ...Bennett's voice adds a semi-operatic heft to Sinatra's more intimate crooning style. Male pop singing since [the mid-50's] has never been [so] unabashedly sweet." In 1957 Bennett would begin a longstanding working relationship with jazz pianist Ralph Sharon who Bennett would recall advised him: "If you keep singing...sweet saccharine songs like 'Blue Velvet' sooner or later...you're going to stop selling [records]" and with his 1957 album The Beat of My Heart - produced and conducted by Sharon - Bennett had launched a new musical persona as an intensely intimate song stylist.
A live version of "Blue Velvet" was featured on the 1962 concert album Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall, with the selection being included on The Good Life."

Blue Velvet originally written by Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris
Lyrics
"She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet was the night
Softer than satin was the light
From the stars
She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet were her eyes
Warmer than May her tender sighs
Love was ours
Ours a love I held tightly
Feeling the rapture grow
Like a flame burning brightly
But when she left, gone was the glow of
Blue velvet
But in my heart there'll always be
Precious and warm, a memory
Through the years
And I still can see blue velvet
Through my tears"

FYI SGT Steve McFarland SPC Margaret Higgins SFC Jack Champion SPC Douglas Bolton LTC Wayne Brandon LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj Robert Thornton CPT Scott Sharon SSG Donald H "Don" Bates PO3 William Hetrick PO3 Lynn Spalding SPC Mark Huddleston SGT Rick Colburn CPL Dave Hoover SSgt Brian Brakke SP5 Jeannie Carle SCPO Morris Ramsey