The song "Mambo Italiano" cannot be called forgotten. It sounds quite often. Dove and memorize the melody very quickly. Judging by the name, the composition is Italian, perhaps even folk. But this is not the case.
The story of the hit began with the fact that a little New Yorker named Henry Robert Merrill Levan wanted to become a singer. The boy grew up, the dream remained with him. However, it was not possible to bring it to life: the Second World War prevented, namely, the departure to the front. After his return, Levan wrote in Hollywood insignificant dialogues for actors for a part-time job.
Where does the dream lead
Once the assistant screenwriter was asked to create a musical number for the then popular Dorothy Shay. The result of the work was an album that quickly became super popular in the country.
Levan shortened the name to Bob Merril and began writing songs to order. There was no shortage of customers, one of them was Barbra Streisand. In 1954, the fashion for dances in the "mambo" style began, which came from Cuba. Immediately Bob received an order to create a cheerful composition in the Latin American style.
Time was running out. The idea dawned on the author while staying in an Italian restaurant. Quickly jotting down the melody and words that came to mind on a napkin, Bob knew the song was ready. The result was a work that entered the world history of pop music as "Mambo Italiano". Italian food, coupled with Cuban motives, had an original effect on the hit.
Star hit
The performance was entrusted to the then popular singer Rosemary Clooney. It was she who made the single famous. Bing Crosby sympathized with Rosemary's work, helping the vocalist at the start and in difficult times. And she had a lot of worries.
A relative of the modern Hollywood star, George Clooney, after a nervous breakdown, decided to leave show business, having witnessed the death of Senator Kennedy.
Rosemary married twice, but for the same man, Puerto Rican actor Jose Ferrere, the first Latin American to receive an Oscar.
The singer performed Mambo Italiano brilliantly. The song has been covered so many times that it's hard to say which version came first. Yes, and often the composition sounded in films without words, in instrumental processing.
Words words…
Text is an original set of words from various adverbs. There is in this stream both English and Spanish, and even a fictional language that never existed.
Maybe the sound will seem chaotic and deliberate, but after all, if you wanted to, everything turned into a semblance of a fully formed thought. Her leitmotif is that in a pizzeria you feel happy when you mambu in Italian.
However, there is a different interpretation. She assures that the text is more than meaningful. The song tells about a Sicilian who returned to his homeland, where instead of tarantella they now dance mambo.
It is now impossible to assert which option Levan chose in his time. But in any case, being transported to 1954, even if not by a time machine, but by means of a clockwork hit, it remains to have a great time enjoying a pleasant melody and a wonderful composition, even if it is in the style of “Uno Momento”. Moreover, the absence of a intelligible text did not harm the national masterpiece from the Formula of Love at all.
