The Curtain Falls: Live at the Flamingo

Bobby Darin | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 10, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1963
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collector's Choice
• ASIN: B00005ABIR
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,297 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Intro/Hello Young Lover

2. Ace In The Hole

3. You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You

4. Hits Medley: Splish Splash/Beyond The Sea/Artificial Flowers/Clementine

5. My Funny Valentine

6. I Walk The Line (Parody)

7. Yellow Roses

8. Mack The Knife

9. Comedy Routine

10. Work Song

11. Michael (Row The Boat Ashore)

12. Mary Don't You Weep

13. I'm On My Way Great God

14. The Curtain Falls

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bobby Darin At His Best, December 26, 2001

By 

Kelli N. "snoops71" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Curtain Falls: Live at the Flamingo (Audio CD)

This one CD alone showcases the depth of Bobby Darin's outstanding talent. He performs every song with feeling and emotion, giving the listener the enjoyment they deserve. In this CD, he covers every genre of music, from the swinging standards to his well known hits, from country to folk to gospel, with his great sense of humor and comedy mixed right in. His impersonations are wonderful, from Jimmy Stewart to Cary Grant. It's all here, at its best. The band backing him up is superb, making this the perfect musical combination. You feel as though you're actually there. One of the best live performances ever recorded, and one of the best CDs ever made. I highly recommend it, and am very grateful it was released after having been stored away for so many years. Whether you love Bobby Darin and/or really good music- BUY IT! It's just as good as "Sinatra at the Sands." Recorded in early November, 1963.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historic recording of Bobby Darin's "last" live performance., September 8, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Curtain Falls: Live at the Flamingo (Audio CD)

Before this live performance--November, 1963, at the Flamingo Hotel--Bobby Darin had announced that this would be "the closing night club performance for me for quite a while." Only twenty-seven and suffering from heart problems, he was already using oxygen between sets, his high-energy live performances so draining that retirement in favor of less strenuous aspects of his career was his only option. Here he gives his all in one stupendous complete performance at the Flamingo.

A mature performer, despite his age, Darin does everything from hot rock and roll to swing, moody ballads, folk, and a bluesy spiritual. Sounding Sinatra-like on the ballads at the beginning of the show--"Ace in the Hole," which he does "dirty," and "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You"--he works the room, progressing into comedy with a "Medley of 'Ballads,'" including "Splish Splash," and "Beyond the Sea," before reverting once again to a real ballad, "My Funny Valentine," the purest and prettiest song on the CD. As soon as the audience is feeling sentimental, however, he hits them with his version of "I Walk the Line," which begins, "I keep my pants up with a piece of twine."

"Mack the Knife," his 1959 Record of the Year, may (or may not) show his failing health. Though he gradually increases the song's tempo and passion, much of the intensity at the climax comes from the band, which becomes noticeably louder, though Darin's voice does not. A ten-minute comedy routine follows, in which he plays a drunk talking with a bartender, giving impressions of Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, among others. The audience participates in the folk songs, "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and "Mary Don't You Weep," and then Darin sings the touching "I'm on My Way, Great God," a bluesy (and sadly ironic) spiritual which he composed.

On the final track, "The Curtain Falls," a song written as a farewell to performing, Darin sings "If I had this to do again, and the evening were new again, I would spend it with you again, but now the curtain falls." I'm sure there was not a dry eye in the house. (Darin felt well enough to return to the stage 2 1/2 years later but died following heart surgery at age 37.) Mary Whipple

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only for die-hard fans, February 21, 2005

By 

L. L. Potter "Gotta have variety" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Curtain Falls: Live at the Flamingo (Audio CD)

If you don't love Bobby Darin All The Way, this is not the "live" CD for you - "Live at the Copa" is much better - this is Bobby just as he was trying some transitional music- can you imagine sitting in a club in Vegas in '63 and this dude starts with "Michael Row the Boat ..." Darin's energy was gone from his act, I think due to personal distractions and his frustration with the changing audience. For DArin die-hards like me, every note the man sang is perfect, but retrospectively this marked the beginning of a difficult period in Bobby's life.