This is All I Ask . . .

The Very Thought of You (1958) - Nat King Cole
September of My Years (1965) - Frank Sinatra
A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973) - Harry Nilsson

Three singers, three different decades. What do these albums have in common? More than you might guess. Aside from being three albums you might want to have with you on a desert island, the music on all three of these albums was arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins.

As music director for Decca records Jenkins signed the folk group The Weavers who went on to have one of the biggest hits of the 20th Century with Goodnight Irene. In addition to working with The Weavers and Cole, Sinatra and Nilsson on these three albums, he also provided orchestration and arrangements for the Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald.

The other thing these albums have in common is that they all include a song written by Gordon Jenkins himself entitled This is All I Ask. Written for Nat King Cole, Jenkins must have considered this one of, if not the best song, he'd ever written to persuade Sinatra and Nilsson to also record it. It was also recorded by Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Robert Goulet and Burl Ives.

The song has long been a favorite of Sinatra and Cole fans. Here's a sampling of the lyrics for those not already familiar with the song:

Beautiful girls, walk a little slower when you walk by me
Lingering sunsets, stay a little longer with the lonely sea
Children everywhere, when you shoot at bad men, shoot at me
Take me to that strange, enchanted land grown-ups seldom understand

The Daddy-o Manifest-o

If you believe the golden days of the space-age bachelor lifestyle peaked sometime in the early sixties, you, my friend, have found a haven on the net in Dig-it, Daddy-o. This blog is about the pop culture of the 1950s and 60s and the styles they inspire today. Although we will focus on that time period we could wander further back in time or write about subjects as late as the late 70s.

Although we will be writing on subjects more of interest to the American male, we don't want to dissuade distaff and alien readers, but we are here for readers that understand the social context of the period we survey and appreciate it despite the fact that it wasn't always politically correct by today's standards.

To wit, here's a quick laundry list of our favorite subjects in no particular order: hardboiled crime fiction, cool jazz, exotica, tropicalia, bossa nova, Gold Medal Paperbacks, Frank, Sammy, Dean, cigars, vintage motorcycles, James Bond, guns, pin-ups, black velvet paintings, pop-art, op-art, Tretchikoff, Hitchcock, Carson, Hefner, Playboy, Julie London, Tormé, Mancini, Waylon, Willie, New York City, Vegas, beatniks, bullfighting, Kerouac, Capote, martinis, rye whisky, Paris, country music, Hawaiian shirts, guayaberas, Bardot, French new wave, Roger Corman, James Dean, Rio de Janeiro, Goldwater, Mad Men, the cold war and the space race. You get the idea.

You won't find music downloads here. Just reviews of the latest re-releases of music and of books about and from the 50s and 60s. Although we will occasionally have links to pulp fiction that can be downloaded and read on your ebook reader.

Our official launch date is July 1, 2011