365 Days #312 - The Carmen Canavo Revue featuring Mary June (mp3s)

MP3:
01 She's A Lady (3:35)
02 I Don't Know How to Love Him (5:35)
03 Mala Femmina/Al Di Al/Como Facette Mamma (4:57)
04 Mamma (5:24)
05 Jeremiah (4:03)
06 Candida (2:52)
07 Memories 30s thru 70s (19:01)
08 Ciao Ciao Bambino (2:23)

I don't much about Carmen Canavo, but he seems to be some low level bandleader who, with his bleach blonde sidekick Mary June, did some kind of Louis Prima/Keely Smith thing in their heyday... and then never went away. This album captures their live act in 1972, after their sun had no doubt set, at the Club Sheridan in Buffalo, NY.

Larry Hart, a music writer for the Schenectady Gazette, claims that the evening might well have been recorded "at the Zanzibar in San Juan's plush Puerto Rico Sheratan or the Club Diplomat in Latham, NY, or the Copacabana in New York City or any one of the zillion spots the Canavo crew has enlivened through out several continents." Well, the Latham guess is pretty  on the mark.

Hart describes Canavo as "the Madcap Sicilian" and Mary June as "a love length of female beguilement" and "the group stablilizer." He seems to have the hots for her.

The stage show is classic lounge kitsch, moving from Italian singalongs to bad covers of 70s MOR hits to nostalgic medleys of traditional songs, with lots of schtick and bad jokes in between.

I'm happy to report that my copy of the album is autographed.

- Contributed by: John Mitchell

Images: Front Cover

Media: LP
Album: Carmen Canavo Revue featuring Mary June
Date: 1972

Comments

[Dale Hazelton]

"a love length of female beguilement".....I don't really know what that means, but it does sound hot. If Carmen was in the right place at the right time he could have been another David Clayton Thomas, no? Love that early Conway Twitty 'do he's sporting.

[David]

Mary June looks like Lily Savage...

[bob paxon]

I just picked up a 1975 45 by the The Carmen Canavo Show Band: Bella Signora b/w Love Again (Kathy's Theme). I assumed it was a local release (I'm in Buffalo NY) - often a safe assumption when you find a record under the circumstances in which I found this. I wanted to confirm its local origin which you've now done for me by posting this local LP. Oddly, have never seen the LP, though I have lots of lounge records from these area (FYI, almost all lounge records from here have mainly Ialian personnel and focus; seems it was a prerequisite). My 45 is on the Funkoola label - those with a knowledge of Italian-American kitsch will dig the pun.