GENE PITNEY RARITIES

FEATURED ON HIS

BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 17

ABOVE FROM GENE’S WEBSITE, http://genepitney.com/ . We suggest you check it out. Lots there and like Gene says, he’s ‘giving it away’…lots of free music samples. So, we’ll offer a few of the rarer ones in our birthday tribute feature today as we once again share bittersweet memories of the wonderful artist Gene Pitney. We know it’s trite to say about many of the early artists who never got their due, but in Gene’s case it’s especially true. Gene didn’t fit nicely into one ‘bag,’be it rock and roll, country or even rhythm and blues – he fit all three! It’s a wonder he even made it into the Rock Hall of Fame – finally – a year or two before he passed. As we wrote in our Beatles tribute last week, rock and roll didn’t attain respectability until after the Beatles and Gene fell victim to that during the biggest part of his career.

A true rarity we’d never seen before, from 1961.It has a haunting quality to it, capturing the feeling of the song and the movie, from which it never made the cut.

What can you say about this beauty. We certainly don’t want to put something up that was offered by the fan club, but since it’s on You Tube we figure it won’t hurt. However, we suggest going to the website or Amazon and purchase items.

While we’re in this vein of religious ballads, here’s another unreleased beauty , Ava Maria,in Italian, no less, again , with chilling organ accompanyment. We know nothing about this but you might write to the website if interested.