Rapture Records

Song: Papa Loves Mambo / The Things I Didn’t Do

Artist: Perry Como with Mitchell Ayres and his Orchestra and The Ray Charles Chorus

Record Label: RCA Victor (20-5857)

Recorded: August 31, 1954

Released: September 1954

Location: Central Square Bistro, various jukeboxes

You’ll hear this playing over the PA system surrounding the Central Square Bistro in Olympus Heights. Be careful that you don’t get too close to the Rosie and the splicers lurking about.

Born into the mythical status of a seventh son of a seventh son, Perry Como held two equally popular roles of a singer and a television personality. Born from Italian parents, Como’s good looks charmed his way into the hearts of from bobby soxers with hits such as “Till the End of Time”. He raised his status to crooner with his famous “Ave Maria” and “Catch a Falling Star” as well as many other standards such as “Prisoner of Love” and “Some Enchanted Evening”.

His television and radio broadcasts were well-praised for his honesty, good taste, and their ingenuity such as the Chesterfield Supper Club which was broadcast from an airplane in flight.

He is honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with three stars for radio, television, and music.

Mitchell Ayres is perhaps best known for his longtime work with Perry Como as his musical director and arranger.

He started out with his own band “Fashions in Music” in 1937 and only named orchestra leader after band members elected him due to the band’s unusual status of functioning like a company.. They had their first hit with “Row, Row, Row”.

During WWII, he worked with the Andrews Sisters and became musical director of Columbia Records. He would first meet Perry Como during recording of The Chesterfield Supper Club in 1944.

Como and Ayres would work together for nearly 20 years until 1963. Como was uncertain whether to continue with the television business leading Ayres to accept an offer conducting for The Hollywood Palace. He would be nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show.

Tragically, he was killed in a car accident in 1969. His wife, Georgianna, would pass away of a heart attack a week later.

Though a remarkable talented arranger, composer, and conductor, he was often known as “the other Ray Charles”.

Born Charles Raymond Offenberg, “Chuck” had his own radio program on WENR by the age of 15. In 1936, he performed at the Federal Theater in O Say Can You Sing with a young Buddy Rich. By 1944, he was doing 10 radio shows a week and in May, changed his name to Ray Charles.

In 1946, a singer named Ray Charles Robinson started to introduce himself as “Ray Charles” to avoid confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson .

Drafted into the Navy in 1944, this Ray Charles would work at New York’s Hunter College to train “Singing Platoons” that would entertain troops.

He was discharge in 1946 and continued work on Broadway and the radio. He would meet Perry Como in 1948 during his work on The Chesterfield Supper Club. The Ray Charles Singers would continue to work on The Perry Como Show for the next 35 years.

Along with providing accompaniment on many of Perry Como’s shows and records, Ray Charles  is perhaps most famous for composing the patriotic ditty “Fifty Nifty United States” and for singing the Three’s Company theme, “Come and Knock on Our Door”, with Julie Rinker.

Listen to the flip side “The Things I Didn’t Do” here.

Additional notes: This record was also available on a 45. Perhaps there were two copies: one that kept skipping in the jukebox and one that played on the loudspeakers.

Perry Como actually made a bet against "Papa Loves Mambo” prior to it becoming a hit. Here’s a rare glimpse at the recording process.