A Couple of Song and Dance Men

AMG Review of A Couple of Song and Dance Men

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Seventy-two-year-old Bing Crosby and 76-year-old Fred Astaire had each worked separately with British producer Ken Barnes before agreeing to team up for a duo album recorded in July 1975. Barnes and his musical director Pete Moore cleverly combined references to the two stars' earlier work together, such as in their previous recording of the album's title song for the 1942 film Holiday Inn, in which they co-starred, with appropriate contemporary songs written in a style consistent with that work. For example, "Roxie" was a John Kander/Fred Ebb song from the 1975 musical Chicago and "How Lucky Can You Get" another Kander/Ebb song from the 1975 film Funny Lady, both stories set in the 1920s. Astaire had a solo with "It's Easy to Remember," a song that had been introduced by Crosby, while Crosby soloed on "Change Partners," a song Astaire had introduced. Together on the rest of the tracks, they made for a wonderful comic team, the song lyrics occasionally adapted by Barnes, Moore, and the singers themselves to create an ongoing humorous dialogue reminiscent of the Crosby/Bob Hope "road" pictures, though Astaire was more self-effacing than the brash Hope. Both singers had suffered some vocal deterioration over the years, of course, particularly Astaire, who nevertheless got by with his ever-present charm. Not all of the material worked. "Sing," the Carpenters hit, could have been dispensed with, along with "Mr. Keyboard Man -- The Entertainer," a Barnes/Moore lyric setting of Scott Joplin's ag "The Entertainer" (newly famous due to its recent use in the film The Sting) that disparaged ock & roll. But such lapses couldn't dilute the chemistry between Crosby and Astaire, which made this album a delight for fans of each performer.