What singer took "Mack The Knife" to the No 1 spot in the charts?

Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor in film and television. He performed jazz, pop, rock and roll, folk, swing, and country music.

He started his career as a songwriter for Connie Francis. He recorded his first million-selling single, "Splish Splash", in 1958. This was followed by "Dream Lover", "Mack the Knife", and "Beyond the Sea", which brought him worldwide fame. In 1962 he won a Golden Globe Award for his first film, "Come September", co-starring his first wife, Sandra Dee.

In 1962, Darin released "Mack the Knife", the standard from Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, was given a vamping jazz-pop interpretation. Although Darin was initially opposed to releasing it as a single, the song went to No. 1 on the charts for nine weeks, sold two million copies, and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1960. Darin was also voted the Grammy Award for Best New Artist that year, and "Mack The Knife" has since been honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

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31 Comments

George Oliver Prince

Died much too young

Linda Spreng

May Tuan Tucker, PHD, Did it occur to you that QuizzClub might have gotten permission to use the image?? And your PHD should be Ph.D.

Sue Grayson

May Tuan Tucker, PHD, Good for you Ph.D. If everyone who ever did something so trivial had to get permission we'd be bogged down in litigation til the end of time. I pity your fellow musicians. Get over yourself.

Chris Lee

One of my favorite pieces of trivia, not mentioned above, is the relationship between Kurt Weill, the composer of the song in Three Penny Opera. Darin's lyrics include a list of women: Now, Jenny Diver, Suky Tawdry Oh, Miss Lotte Lenya, and ol' Lucy Brown Oh the line forms on the right, babe Now that Mackie's back in town. The lyric did not include Lotte Lenya when Weill wrote it. She was actually Kurt Weill's wife, who in 1931 created the film role of Jenny Diver, a character in Weill's opera. The same character appeared in other works, /the Beggar's Opera and Pirate Jenny. Diver was herself a real person, a famed Irish pickpocket of the first half of the 18th century, hanged in 1740 in London. Lotte Lenya died in 1998 after living many years in the US. She was nominated for an Oscar, and also appeared in a James Bond film.

Irene A

Great singer and songwriter

recordpete

Easy, old music is my thing.

Don Agey

One of my favorite singers; and yes, he died way too early

Cheryl Love

May Tuan Tucker, PHD, the appropriate way to write that degree is Ph.D., I know because I have 2.

kittycook

George Oliver Prince, He sure did way to young.

Tallia Gluck

George Oliver Prince, You are so right!

mjbchloe

Mack the Knife and Dream Lover are my two favorites. It's so sad that Sandra became an alcoholic and they divorced. She became one from going to all of Bobby's Vegas performances, sitting front row and she got started drinking alcohol, having not being much of a drinker before. Their son Dodd said they loved each other right up until Bobby's death and Bobby would come to the house to see Sandy and Dodd a lot, even after his second marriage.

Joanne Serin

I received the 45 rpm record of this for my 11th birthday, my first 45.

Robert Improta

I was on the heart team at Cedars of Lebanon when he had a double heart valve replacement about 1970-71. He was a funny guy from NY area like me and he kept us laughing for the long recovery needed in those days. He played quite a few instruments and wrote many songs.

erik hughes

Chris Lee, Weill wrote the music, not the lyrics, Bertolt Brecht did (and there is some debate about that), and none of that verse was in the original German version of the song. "Pirate Jenny" is another song from "The Threepenny Opera", which was based on "The Beggar's Opera".

Helen Allard

Oh how I loved him when I was in the second grade.....😇

Karen Mack

Great talent who died too young. One of my favorite albums is one of his lesser known ones... I used to play it all the time... guess I should drag out the turntable again.