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Jubilee Recorders...1052...33 1/3 LP...High Fidelity

Cover: VERY Very Good - NEW
Record: (*) VG++...NEVER OPEN...$10.00

SIDE 1
1) Two Different Worlds - Sid Wayne/Al Frisch...2:47
2) But Give Me Time - Hal Hackady/Eddy Manson...2:24
3) They Can't Shake My faith In You - Doris Tauber/Mack Discant...2:17
4) We're Not Children Anymore - Harry Ross/Sanford Green...2:10
5) There Is No Love - Larry Stock/Stanley Adams...2:10
6) On Forgotten Street - Sid Wayne/Al Frisch...2:22

SIDE 2
1) While We're Young - Morty Palitz/Alec Wilder...2:50
2) He Made You Mine - Eleanor Di resta/William Taylor...2:13
3) The Love I Never Had - Harry Noble Jr./Joseph Paliano...2:31
4) To Belong - Bob Jaxton/Roy Kohn/Freddy James...3:02
5) Bring Back My Summer Love - Milton Berle/Buddy Arnold/Victor Young...2:46

Rondo..... with Don Rondo

"RONDO", let me hasten to explain if you're a purist interested in the musical definition, means: "A composition in which a theme is repeated and varied".
"RONDO", let me hurry on to say if you're a faddist interested in the high-fashion definition, means: "A new look in design in which the theme is repeated and varied by ... etc." (Please fill in the 'etc.' yourself. I know nothing about fashion.)
"RONDO", let me add if you're an albumist interested in the vocal definition, means: "Don Rondo ... a singing plumber with a fine set of pipes that burst upon the musical scene in this season when the mood of the public slowly turns to ballad".
Back up to the beginning of the rock-and-roll deluge if you've been wondering what ever did happen to ballads and new balladeers. As each new singer (those endowed with more than nasal twang, swivel-hip, guitar or bent-note vibrato) made impact with a ballad, up came wishful-thinking about the impending demise of the teen-agers' tedious tempos.
Few, unfortunately, could sustain. On the note of high-hope . . . and the one hit recording ... a second ballad was recorded and released. And down went the singer, future and all. Rock-and-roll had started a merry-go-round with house rules that permitted only one brass ring to each rider . . . each new singer, that is.
The new ballads . . . and the evergreens . . . were fondled and nurtured and bottle-fed by the long-accepted singing stars. They . . . the songs and the singers . . . had sufficient mileage left in them to keep music (a category often far removed from the reaches of rock-and-roll) alive.
Those, then, were the rules. And, like always, there were fortunately, few exceptions to the rules. Too few, 'tis true . . . but a new few, who made contact with the public's likings with songs that deserved to be called songs . . . with musical backing and arrangements that called attention to themselves and to the vocalist with deft and professional touch.
"RONDO", let me point out if you have not already gotten the point, was one of the too-few. No more a teen-ager, Don shied from strict teen-agers' tunes. His first big hit came out of "Two Different Worlds". . . as apt a descriptive phrase as has been concocted to spell the difference between the triplet-tempo and music. But the teen-agers listened and liked and latched on. "Rondo" was reaching them right.
If any of the foregoing sounds as though Don stumbled on a quick hit without the struggle and usual turmoil, I've been misleading you. It wasn't that easy. He was born on a farm in Ware, Mass.-a dairy farm, where he spent his early years (he's now in his middle twenties) milking cows, reaping hay, selling milk, going to school. Then, during World War II, when two of his brothers were drafted, Don left high school to work full-time on the farm.
Don's folks - his father, Oliver and his mother, Elmira - were not musical. They didn't play any instrument, sing in church choirs or such. But they certainly didn't object to Don's singing while he worked at his chores. Now comes the time-told tale. (Things still happen this way, thank goodness.) Two grain buyers heard Don on the farm one day while he sang to himself. They liked what they heard and entered him in a local amateur contest at the Lion's Club.
Well, you've guessed it. Don won the contest and caught himself a 15 minute radio show of his own on WAGE. The once-a-week outing gave him experience and exposure. He acquired more experience singing with local bands. Later on, Don tied on to a USO unit, toured Europe with it. Along the career-way, Don married Ida May Bousquet. He was then 19 and they had met two years before. Out of the marriage came 3 children - Ronald, Debra, Gay. The family still live up in those New England hills. Of course, making bill-payment time as a singer with a growing family had its usual difficulties. So Don worked as a farm hand, a construction man, a plumber.
His career continued, though. There were club-dates, et al, to keep the singing going. And there were lessons and training. One day Don was in New York in a practice studio. The vocalist in the next studio heard him, liked what she heard. That would be Fay DeWitt, a singing comedienne, who was appearing on a CBS Radio Show. She took Don along with her. He auditioned and appeared later on the "Young Ideas" program. And that trail led to his first recording contract.
Now about the dent in the public's taste this season. They liked "Two Different Worlds". They particularly liked Don's version. They made the record a hit. There are more melodies like it included here in "RONDO". There are a few you may have heard Don sing before: "On Forgotten Street", "He Made You Mine", "The Love I Never Had" and "To Belong". There are included here some you've never heard: "But Give Me Time", "They Can't Shake My Faith In You", "We're Not Children Anymore", "There Is No Love", "Three Doors" and "Bring Back My Summer Love". There is an old, delightful song here, "While We're Young," and a wonderful arrangement and reading of it.
"RONDO", let me conclude (and if you're a historian the name was originally "Rondeau", that's French-Canadian) if you're leaning back listening, means: "A first collection of the songs of Don Rondo ..... ballads and a balladeer in the new mood of the public's preference." Listen. And like it.

JUBILEE RECORDS - 1650 Broadway, New York 36, N. Y.

Cover and Liner Printed by McMurray Press, N. Y. (*) NEVER OPEN STILL SEALED

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