|
|
Article: On the Right - The Crooner, R.I.P.(singer Perry Como)(Brief Article)(Column)(Obituary)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- June 11, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
NEW YORK, MAY 18
Perry Como died in his sleep, and one comments, How else? He was if not the founder of the casual mode, its preeminent prince, and his reputation was made mostly by that attitude towards music. He treated it, evidently (I am not an expert) as a continuing lullaby, and dug in his heels against the modern movement that decreed that only unmusical music is tolerable. One has the temptation, if caught with such music, to level a shotgun at a booster and require him/her to narrate what his clomping enthusiasm was all about. What was the melody he heard? Could he sing it? Write it out? Hum it? No. The nearest reconstruction he could make would be to ...