Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Second Hand Rose - Divarin helmi


Kristiina Hautala (see previous entry) recorded "Divarin helmi" (Pearl of the antiques shop) in the summer of 1966. It was on the B-side of her big hit "En koskaan". The song portrayed Kristiina as a budding cabaret singer. This subsequently lead her to doing successful tv- and night club shows. The original song was called "Second Hand Rose", which is an old vaudeville number that surfaced first time in the Broadway show "Ziegfried Follies" in 1921. In the show it was performed by Fanny Brice but - as solo singers were not hitmakers those days - it was recorded and made into hit by Ted Lewis Jazz Band. Ted Lewis was a clarinetist, singer and entertainer (He even was called 'Mr. Entertainer'). The song and the success was reborn in 1965, when Barbra Streisand performed it in a Broadway stage act "Funny Girl" telling the story of afore-mentioned Fanny Brice.

Here's the triple:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The broadway show began in 1964,and was also Barbra's fourth album , which was called,would you believe it, 'Funny Girl', released also in 1964. A busy year for the Second biggest nose in the biz.

DM said...

I'm sorry for my mix-up. "Fanny" and "Funny" are so similar ... Of course in those days the word play in the choice of the title was a gimmick and purely intentional.