And a Merry Christmas for…
…the late Nick Venet. A few years ago when a Bobby Darin box set came out I heard an interview with Venet, its co-producer and a longtime Darin friend, on NPR’s Fresh Air.
I misremembered part of this interview when I wrote about it in my review of the Aces Back to Back CD/DVD earlier this this year. They played a demo tape of one of Darin’s songs recorded with him just singing and playing guitar into a portable tape recorder. Venet also told a story about listening to Darin whistle another of his songs while at the beach. And in my memory I mistakenly combined the two, thinking Darin recorded the demo at the beach.
But I always remembered the evident love with which the producer spoke of his friend. And something stayed with me since then about Darin as a kind of fluid performer, whose audience didn’t always have time for the A to Z of his interests. This led to my requesting the Aces set for review this year, which led in turn to my becoming a Darin fan.
They rebroadcast the interview this past Friday, and you can listen to it, for the next couple days at least, here. It’s recommended (there are also excerpts from the box set and Aces collection).
