Tony Bennett Interview, Topic: David Allyn, "The Singer's Singer" - September 24, 2012

Tony Bennett interview with Les Block (University of Minnesota) concerning David Allyn, "The Singer's Singer". This interview took place on September 24, 2012. Tony and David were great friends and roommates when they were both starting out in the business. We are posting this as a tribute to two great singers in light of the recent passing of Tony Bennett today.
David Allyn is best known for his two masterpiece collaborations with Johnny Mandel: David Allyn Sings Jerome Kern, A Sure Thing and In The Blue of Evening.
David Allyn (19th July 1919 - 22 November 2012 in West Haven , Connecticut ) was an American pop and jazz singer who was admired by many in the business. Frank Sinatra was a friend and supporter. Sammy Davis Jr. wrote liner notes to one of his later albums.
David Allyn was born Albert DiLello in Hartford, Connectict. His father played French horn with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, his mother was a singer. Influenced by Bing Crosby, he began performing as a singer in high school. From 1940 to 1942 he recorded with Jack Teagarden's Big Band and in 1945 in the studio orchestra of Lyle Griffin. Allyn was rising fast in the band-singer sweepstakes, but his career was cut short by World War II. Drafted into the army, he fought in North Africa with the First Division until he was seriously wounded at El Guettar. Discharged from the army, he sang with the Van Alexander Orchestra.
By now he had given up his Bing Crosby style, and was listening with interest to Sarah Vaughan, Dick Haymes, early Al Hibbler, Peggy Lee, and Frank Sinatra, but was developping his own style. David moved next to the early Henry Jerome band, with sidemen such as Al Cohn, Tiny Kahn, Harry Biss, Ollie Wilson, and most of all, Johnny Mandel. After the Jerome band broke up, David sang at WHN and WNEW radio and spent a short stint with the Bob Chester band, before joining Mandel in the new experimental Boyd Raeburn Band in 1945, a job that brought him considerable renown and should have catapulted him to the top.
A decade before, Allyn had been among the most celebrated pop-jazz vocalists, thanks to such Raeburn gems as ''Forgetful'' and ''I Only Have Eyes For You.'' But now, in the late-1950s, he was a forgotten man--not only because he had been off the scene for so many years but also because his nobly straightforward style of singing was being shunted aside by rock `n` roll.
But some old friends did not forget, and in 1957 one of Allyn`s former Raeburn band- mates, composer-arranger Johnny Mandel, collaborated with Allyn on an album of Jerome Kern songs titled ''A Sure Thing.'' This vocal masterpiece is an essay in romanticism so deeply felt, that it comes as no surprise to learn that tears were streaming down Allyn`s face when he recorded his trance-like version of ''Dearly Beloved.'' By this time, Allyn was a better singer than he had been during his Raeburn days, darker in tone and more emotionally mature. And his ability to sing a ballad remained unique, for Allyn favored the slowest tempos imaginable and seemed to place no distance between himself and the song.
The 60’s saw Allyn with the Stan Kenton Orchestra and in 1964 with Count Basie in Lake Tahoe. He also frequently appeared in clubs such as the Playboy Club, but recording dates for jazz singers of Allyn's ilk were scarce. Then his career got into a crisis again due to drug problems. But the state of the music business was such that for the most part Allyn`s efforts fell on deaf ears--so much so that his second album with Mandel, ''In the Blue of the Evening,'' wasn`t even released at the time.
So Allyn settled in Los Angeles, working in small clubs when he wasn`t serving as an addiction counselor at a Veterans Administration hospital, until he finally gave up on professional singing altogether--except for a superb but long-out-print 1975 album, ''Don`t Look Back'' , that paired him with pianist Barry Harris. By the 1980s Allyn was living in Minneapolis, working as a night manager in a hardware store, when his fate began to turn around. ''No one knew I was a singer,'' Allyn says, ''but then I came home one night and heard one of my sides being played on the local jazz station. I called the disc jockey to thank him, he said `Let`s do an interview` and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I was singing with a couple of good big bands.''
In the early 1990s he moved to New York, where he performed at Gregory’s. He then put together a big band with the greatest arrangements in the business, including many supplied by Frank Sinatra. Paul Cammarata booked him at The Red Blazer Too in NYC, a gig which lasted many years. This led to a trip to Spain and a new recording featuring many of his arrangements which came from the original Boyd Raeburn book.
He retired in 2010 and struggled with his health, especially in his later years. He died November 21, 2012 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 93.