That's Entertainment (Remastered) Sammy Davis Jr.

• 1 That's Entertainment (Album Version) (Remastered) 01:36
• 2 Get Happy (Remastered) 02:35
• 3 All The Things You Are (Remastered) 03:31
• 4 I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise (Remastered) 02:06
• 5 Lover, Come Back To Me (Remastered) 02:56
• 6 Astaire Medley (Remastered) 04:09
• 7 Singin' In The Rain (Remastered) 02:52
• 8 A Shine On Your Shoes (Remastered) 02:34
• 9 I Don't Know Why (Remastered) 03:11
• 10 Be My Love (Remastered) 03:03
• 11 Pass That Peace Pipe (Remastered) 03:01
• 12 That's Entertainment (Reprise) (Remastered) 00:45
• Total Runtime 32:19

Info for That's Entertainment (Remastered)

1974 marked the 50th Anniversary of the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which had been founded in 1924. The studio planned to mark the occasion in June with the release of a landmark compilation film looking back at MGM’s illustrious history making movie musicals – the film would be titled That’s Entertainment! Given that Sammy Davis, Jr. was recording for MGM Records at the time, he stepped into the recording studio in April to make his own tie-in album, also titled That’s Entertainment.

Sammy was intimately involved in the promotion of the film itself. When That’s Entertainment! was announced to the press on 28th March, it was Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Liza Minnelli and Sammy who made the announcement together in Culver City. That’s Entertainment! was written, produced and directed by Jack Haley, Jr. who would marry Sammy’s close friend Liza Minnelli in September of 1974 (with Sammy in the wedding party).

The film’s premiere was held on May 17th at the Beverly Theater. A red carpet was set up between the theatre and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where a stunning post-premiere reception was held featuring almost all of the living legends of MGM musicals past. The evening’s festivities were hosted by Sammy and Liza and involved them inviting around 50 of the stars onto the stage for a photo. Such a collection of talent in one room Hollywood would never see the likes of again.

The film itself was a roaring success. Critic Roger Ebert commented: “This isn’t just a compilation film, with lots of highlights strung together. Those kinds of movies quickly repeat themselves. That’s Entertainment! is more of a documentary and a eulogy.” The movie spawned two sequels (in 1976 and 1994) and an associated title, That’s Dancing! (1985), in which Sammy would appear as a co-host.

For Sammy’s tie-in album, producers Mike Curb and Don Costa organised arrangements by Nelson Riddle. Despite the fact that Riddle had been a long-time collaborator of Frank Sinatra’s (the two worked together intimately from 1953 to 1966), Sammy had never worked independently with Riddle. Perhaps Riddle’s sound wasn’t considered sufficiently commercial in the late 60s and early 70s, but the for the sound Sammy and MGM were shooting for on this occasion, Riddle was a perfect choice.

The major opus of the album is a 4-minute Fred Astaire medley, which is beautifully orchestrated by Riddle. Sammy often mentioned how much he idolised Astaire – both his dancing and his singing – and on this medley he provides a fitting tribute. (The only issue was that one of the songs – “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” – is from an MGM musical that Fred Astaire wasn’t even in. In addition, Sammy sings “I Concentrate On You” in the medley, which was left off the album jacket and LP label. Whoops!)

With the exception of “All The Things You Are”, which gets a touch of soul toward the end, and “Singing’ In The Rain”, which was previously issued as a commercial single and is the only cut not arranged by Riddle, the songs are rendered more traditionally. Everything suits Sammy’s style, however (for example “Lover, Come Back To Me” is given a supercharged bongo arrangement and features the world’s quickest sax solo). There is a good mix of belters, toe-tappers and ballads, making this album one of Sammy’s best since 1967. It even gets a clever LP cover, with Sammy replacing the MGM lion mid-roar!

As such, That’s Entertainment provides a fitting conclusion to Sammy’s recording career at MGM. The label was phased out by its new owners, PolyGram, and the truth was that Sammy wasn’t a bankable artist on vinyl at this stage of his career. Although he subsequently released a couple of additional LPs on other labels, That’s Entertainment certainly drew a respectable conclusion to Sammy’s time as a major recording artist.

At the end of “That’s Entertainment”, Sammy closes the album by adding the film’s promotional tag line, which certainly also applies to Sammy’s illustrious career as a whole: “The world is a stage; the stage is a world of entertainment … and boy, do we need it now!”

Sammy Davis Jr.

Digitally remastered

Sammy Davis Jr.
lived from 1925 to 1990. Michael Heatley from Vox magazine gives a short biography.

In the over hyped world of popular music music, there are legends, and then there are Legends with a capital L. There’s no doubting which category Sammy Davis Jr falls into.

For a staggering 60 years, from his debut as a four year old child star in the late 1920’s to his untimely death in 1990 at the age of 64, he more than justified his title of ‘Mr Entertainment’ and when he wasn’t inspiring headlines on stage he was making news of it, as a founder member of the Rat Pack with fellow superstars Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

It’s impossible in the space allotted to do more than scratch the surface of one of showbiz’s all time greats. Thankfully, Sammy Davis Jr left no fewer than three detailed accounts of life at the top. ‘Yes I Can’ (1965) and ‘Life In A Suitcase’ (1980) were followed by ‘Why Me’, published the year before his death. All are required reading.

He owed his early start to his parents, vaudeville star Sammy Davis Sr and Puerto Rican ‘Baby Sanchez, who performed with the youngsters adopted uncle, Will Mastin, in his act ‘Holiday In Dixieland’. But Sammy Jr soon became the star of the show as the newly rechristened ‘Will Mastin’s Gang, Featuring Little Sammy’ acknowledged. When the authorities forbade him to appear, so legend has it his father shrugged his shoulders, gave his son a rubber cigar and billed him as a ‘dancing midget’.

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.

Whatever the truth, Sammy Davis jr’s career was off to a flying start. He made his film debut in the 1932 short Rufus Jones For President, showing off the tap dancing skills taught by the legendary Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson. War service first brought Davis face to face with racial prejudice (‘In show business we had our own protective system’, he later remarked), but he survived to resume his career with the Will Mastin Trio (completed by his father), and while touring with Mickey Rooney in the late forties played a three week Manhattan residency with bill topper Frank Sinatra. It was the beginning of a close and lifelong friendship.

During three decades, along all the highways of my youth, Frank had always been there for me.

A near fatal car crash in 1954 en route to Los Angeles recording session saw Davis lose his left eye, but a gruelling rehabilitation schedule left little time for self-pity; he was back on stage within weeks, wisecracking about his newly acquired eye patch. That spell in hospital coincided with a religions conversion to the Jewish faith which, while sincerely held for almost the rest of his life, provided the material for yet more self-mockery of the type that endeared him to an ever growing audience.

Although Davis made his debut in 1956s Mr Wonderful, Broadway would be an occasional, enjoyable distraction from the bulk of his career. He returned in 1964 as boxer Joe Wellington in a musical adaptation of Clifford Odet’s 1937 drama Golden Boy, both shows ran for over 400 performances.

Hollywood opened new doors for all-singing, all dancing Davis, his first notable role being Sportin” Life in a 1959 version of Gershwins Porgy And Bess. If anything, he suffered through his notoriety, despite his undoubted ability, people found it difficult to accept him in character roles like the embittered jazz musician in 1966’s A Man Called Adam. More successful perhaps were Rat Pack movies like Salt And Pepper (1968) and One More Time (1970) in which he simply played himself, while a brace of Cannonball Run films in the eighties afforded screen reunions with Dean Martin and others. Then in 1988, just two years before his death, he showed he could still dance by partnering Gregory Hines in the evocative Tap.

bio_photo2While Davis’s success broke down racial barriers, there were inevitably cries of “sellout” notably when he endorsed Republican President Richard Nixon in 1972. (Even James Brown confided ‘You’re taking a lot of heat…I never got it this way’). Yet every black performer all the way to nineties superstars Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy (whose TV production company funded Davis’s last movie role in The Kid Who Loved Christmas) owe him a vote of thanks for his ground braking work both on and off camera.

‘Long before there was a civil rights movement’, he remarked in 1989, I was marching through the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria, of the Sands, the Fountainbleau, to a table at the Copa. I’d marched alone’. But it was his attitude to performance that broke barriers. Jolson had got the ball rolling, but too many taboos remained.’Dad said to me “You can’t do impersonations of a white person,” he once commented. ‘He really believed that’. Davis’s philosophy was a simple one. ‘Just do what you’re best at, he said in 1988, ‘and when you can’t do it any longer – stop’.

Sadly, the cancer that ended his life on 16th May 1990 made that decision for him, but he’d long since sung and danced his way into immortality. A final world tour in 1988/89 with Sinatra and Martin will long be remembered, even though Liza Minnelli had to take Dean’s place when ill health forced him to drop out. But Davis sang and danced on. ‘Sammy knew he was dying back then,’ Sinatra later revealed, ‘but you never expect it to come to that. We all think we’ll live forever.’

Sadly, of course, that doesn’t happen, but the magic of the music remains.

Three times married, Davis beat alcohol abuse, physical infirmity and the color bar and admitted he’d thrown away four fortunes gambling in Vegas and living the good life. Yet the musical legacy he left is priceless, and one that will surely endure for all time.

This album contains no booklet.