EARWORTHY - Sammy Davis Jr - Brief Article

A declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation report written by J. Edgar Hoover reads: "September 9, 1968--London--Enclosed for, Legat, London, are three copies of a letterhead memorandum classified `confidential,' which contain all the information in Bureau files concerning black nationalist activity on the part of the subject." A deleted sentence is followed, ominously, by: "You should continue to keep the Bureau advised of subject's activities relating to black nationalist matters while he is in England." Guess who J. Edgar was spying on? The multi-talented Sammy Davis Jr.!

Hoover's concern made perfect sense, because Sammy D was a terrorist in the art of performance. Watch videos of his live performances. I mean, How could one go on after Sammy had set the roof on fire?

Born in Roaring '20s Harlem, on December 8, 1925, Davis hit the stage when he was 21/2 and performed for the rest of his 64 years. In 1928 he made his debut in a burlesque revue, "Struttin' Hannah From Savannah," with his father and producer Will Mastin, with whom he would work for much of his career in the "Will Mastin Trio Starring Sammy Davis Jr." In the revue, Sammy would poke his head through a fence painted on the backdrop. "Are you a little kid or a midget?" Hannah would ask. Years later, to beat child labor and truancy laws, Davis was actually billed as "Silent Sam, the Dancing Midget." Being short worked.

So did being versatile. Davis could do everything. He was a comic genius and master impersonator who could sing, act and play drums, trumpet, guitar and bass. The Yes I Can! The Sammy Davis Jr. Story (Rhino, 1999) four-CD package reveals that Sammy was, above all, one of the greatest male vocalists of all time.

The four discs span 28 years, beginning with his first single, "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile," recorded for the Capitol label in July 1949. A unique and disciplined craftsman, Davis not only sang the tune but also enhanced its introduction with a pair of four-bar tap solos. He was a talent to be reckoned with.

"There's a Small Hotel," a tasty duet with the jazz vocalist Carmen McRae, is one of only three vocal duets in this peerless 91-song compilation.

Sammy goes up-tempo on "Me and My Shadow," a single that he recorded with Frank Sinatra in 1962. He is earnest, tender and honest when accompanied by the lilting accentuation of vocalist Paula Wayne on "I Want to Be With You," a song from the original cast of the Broadway musical hit Golden Boy, for which he received a 1965 Tony nomination for best actor in a musical.

He recorded "I Think I Like You" and "At the Crossroads" for the album Dr. Dolittle (Reprise) in the same month that the FBI noted the following in File 100-45012: "On 10/15/67, an SA of the FBI attended a benefit performance for the [Southern Christian Leadership Conference] which was held at the Oakland, Cal., Coliseum. Sammy Davis, Jr. provided the opening remarks and stated that all races must learn to live together in a peaceful manner. Vocal performances were given by Davis, [name deleted] and Joan Baez and a brief address was given by Martin Luther King (100-106670)."

Also included in the Yes I Can compilation are the very-high-voltage "Here I'll Stay" and "I Gotta Be Me," the song that became Davis' personal statement, recorded when he returned from the trip to London that had caught Hoover's attention in 1968. Davis' 1965 version of the pop hit "People" is the definition of the verb to swing.

The recordings on the fourth disc of this profound musical experience are of live performances at hip historical venues, such as New York City's Town Hall, where in 1959

Jack Benny introduced Davis as "the greatest entertainer in the world." Davis sang what he said was his family's favorite song, "And This Is My Beloved," based on a theme by Aleksandr Borodin.

At the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles in 1963, he performed a tour de force medley from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story, backed only by Tommy Mendoza on bongos, and a witty, droll, seriocomically hilarious version of "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody," replete with 16 uncannily believable impersonations, including devastating parodies of Marion Brando and Tony Bennett.

Nat, Frank, Tony, Billy and all those cats deserve praise, but Sammy had the best vocal timing. In intonation, elocution and enunciation, he was tops. "I've got to get so big, so powerful, so famous, that the day will come when they'll look at me and see a man; then somewhere along the way they'll notice he's a Negro," Davis once said. He got his wish, at least once. On January 12, 1955, Brando sent Sammy a telegram that read: "Never dug you before. Dug you last night. You the man. Marlon."

Show business legend Sammy Davis Jr. passed away on May 16, 1990. But, as they say, his name lives on.

T. Brooks Shepard is a writer in Boston.

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