Como Swings

AMG Review of Como Swings

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

After 15 years of consistent success, Perry Como's career finally began to decline in 1959. For the first time since he went solo in 1943, he did not score a Top Ten single, and the ratings for The Perry Como Show fell such that NBC moved the program from its Saturday evening time slot after four years, putting Como in charge of the Wednesday night Kraft Music Hall starting in the fall of 1959. Meanwhile, he hadn't made a regular album in a while, last releasing a 12" LP with late 1958's inspirational set When You Come to the End of the Day and before that the TV-themed Saturday Night with Mr. C. in the spring of '58. Frank Sinatra had been enjoying a series of hits with his up-tempo albums Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), A Swingin' Affair! (1957), Come Fly with Me (1958), and Come Dance With Me! (1959), and Como Swings was Como's attempt at the same sort of thing. He hedged his bet with the punning album cover, which depicted him on the golf course, but, inside, his regular arrangers Joe Lipman and Jack Andrews turned in charts full of blaring horns and Latin percussion rhythms. The crooner himself sounded typically unruffled, frequently singing at half the tempo of the accompaniment, but he handled the material well, especially the change-of-pace reading of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo." Como Swings may not have been enough to reverse the singer's career downturn, but it signaled that he was trying to adjust to the more aggressive post-ock & roll popular music of the late 1950s.