Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

THE FELLOW WHO SANG "BLAZING SADDLES" HAS DIED. Well, that's what the philistine news hacks will call Frankie Laine, and he showed poor judgment and taste in that (but hey! Do those things count anymore? Hell, with the hacks that's ten bonus points!), yet in everything else he got it right. Yes, he was an emotional singer, and he wore that emotion on his sleeve, but he was a force, a fiery singer, a singer with guts. Say what you will about the guy's style, he had conviction. The fact that he sang the treacle beloved of A&R boys like the notorious Mitch Miller and became unremovably intertwined with that "YEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAH!" joke will not negate that. Listen to Rockin', a Columbia jazz album of the mid-50s, and you know you're in the presence of a musician of the first rank. He was also from all accounts a gentleman, and helped in his own small way in the fight for civil rights. Thankfully these days (as we say too often) we have MASTERWORKS now, and we can forget about these mere singers.