Sunday 28 June 2020

Cathy Carr born 28 June 1936


Angelina Helen Catherine Cordovano (June 28, 1936 – November 22, 1988), known professionally as Cathy Carr, was an American pop singer.

She was born in The Bronx and as a young girl, Cordovano made her appearance on the television variety show The Children’s Hour, sponsored by Horn & Hardart (which is a now-defunct food services firm which operated the nation’s first food automats — self-service types of restaurant with just vending machines as chief servers). The company had a chain of restaurants in Philadelphia and New York.

As Cordovano (or Cathy Carr by then) grew up, she was part of the United Service Organizations (USO) where she worked as singer and dancer. She also worked with big band orchestras such as those led by Johnny Dee, Larry Fotine and Sammy Kaye. During 1953 Carr ventured into the recording career and signed a contract with Coral Records. She recorded and released some singles but wasn’t able to achieve any hits.


                              

Carr then jumped to Cincinnati, Ohio-based imprint Fraternity Records in 1955. After three flop singles from Fraternity, she was finally able to notch her first hit — and a big one at that — with 
her rendition of the hit song “Ivory Tower.” It reached #2 on the Billboard pop chart; but big it was, “Ivory Tower” was also to be her only major hit. Carr’s first album, also titled Ivory Tower, was subsequently released. Her second charting Fraternity-released single “Heart Hideaway,” was only a small hit at #67.

TV appearances included American Bandstand, The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beechnut Show and also the Perry Como Show. She also performed in Australia with the Lee Gordons Record Star Parade Show Tour. And according to Mellow Larks member Tommy Hamm’s biography, he was married briefly to Carr in the late 50’s.

In 1959 Carr moved to Roulette Records, where she went on to have other minor hits until 1961 such as “First Anniversary” (#42, pop), “I’m Gonna Change Him” (#63, pop), “Little Sister” (#106, pop) and “Sailor Boy” (#103, pop). Her rendition of Phil Spector’s “To Know Him Is to Love Him” was largely ignored in favour of the original take by the Teddy Bears. Roulette released Carr's only LP for the label, Shy, which featured the songs "I'm Nobody's Baby" and "So Near and Yet So Far."

The growing popularity of rock and roll and beat music made it increasingly harder for traditional pop singers like Carr to gain a decent hit. Aside from that, her affinity towards teenage pop 
(despite her age) and not trying to include more mature songs to her repertoire held her back from growing as an artist.

She recorded briefly for Smash Records in her attempt to record more adult-oriented pop songs, but went back to teenybopper tunes again when she recorded for Laurie Records. Her single there “Sailor Boy,” bubbled under the Hot 100 in 1962. She moved to RCA where she recorded pop standards, before RCA released her last single in 1967.

Carr died from ovarian cancer on November 22, 1988 in Fayetteville, New York, aged 52.

(Scarce information edited mainly from Wikipedia & mentalitch.com)

13 comments:

  1. For “Cathy Carr ‎– The Teen Sound Of...” go here;

    https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/v38c0f

    1 Ivory Tower 2:30
    2 Baseball He Loves 2:12
    3 Blame It On My Youth 3:04
    4 Dark River 2:48
    5 Find Me 2:25
    6 For The First Time 2:22
    7 Golden Locket 2:11
    8 Heart Hideaway 2:12
    9 I Really Never Stopped Loving You 2:48
    10 I Waded In The Water 2:04
    11 I Want To Be Your Pet 2:40
    12 I'm Beginning To See The Light 2:33
    13 I'm Gonna Change Him 2:44
    14 I'm Nobody's Baby 2:39
    15 It Looks Like Love 2:05
    16 Knight In Shining Armor 2:14
    17 My Young And Foolish Heart 2:27
    18 Oh Baby 2:11
    19 Personal Secret 2:00
    20 Please Be Kind 2:46
    21 Sailor Boy 2:40
    22 Should I Believe Him 2:25
    23 Shy 2:14
    24 So Near And Yet So Far 2:38
    25 Someone Told You A Lie 2:06
    26 Teach Me Tonight 2:34
    27 The Boy On Page Thirty Five 2:44
    28 The Little Things You Do 2:51
    29 Warm Your Heart 2:50
    30 What Do I Do Now 1:45
    31 Wild Honey 2:23
    32 Ivory Tower 2:32


    For”Cathy Carr ‎– Travel By Carr & Rare Tracks” go here:

    https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/w9l955

    1 A Little Time 2:32
    2 Canadian Sunset 2:45
    3 Chicago 2:17
    4 Deep In The Heart Of Texas 2:30
    5 First Anniversary 2:19
    6 Footprints In The Snow 2:38
    7 Heartbroken 2:20
    8 House Of Heartache 2:25
    9 I Just Can't Get That Melody Out Of My Mind 2:48
    10 I Left My Heart In San Francisco 2:22
    11 I'll Cry At Your Wedding 3:01
    12 In Place Of You 2:37
    13 Johnny's Song 2:35
    14 Little Sister 2:52
    15 Moon Over Miami 2:07
    16 Moonlight In Vermont 3:06
    17 Nein Nein Fraulein 2:49
    18 Old Cape Cod 2:19
    19 Presents From The Past 2:08
    20 Somebody Told You A Lie 2:21
    21 South Of The Border 1:46
    22 Speak For Yourself John 2:51
    23 St. Louis Blues 2:46
    24 The Next Time The Band Plays The Waltz 2:39
    25 The Pennsylvania Polka 2:04
    26 Uno Momento 2:16
    27 Waltzing To The Blues 2:04
    28 With Love 2:07
    29 Yearning 2:41
    30 Ivory Tower 2:32
    31 Heart Hideaway 2:14

    When it comes to discographies it seems only Marginal Records of Belgium, has come the closest in releasing most of Carr’s recordings on two separate volumes containing 63 sides. Their first was The Teen Sound Of Cathy Carr and the second was Travel By Carr. Their "Cedarized" AAD digitally remastered sound quality is quite decent but there's never anything in terms of background information, although they do provide a discography of the contents of both volumes on the reverse. The sales which, so rumour has it, were limited to something like 500 copies per volume.

    And while you do get all four of her Top/Hot 100 charting sides and both Bubble Under entries in the two volumes, completist hits collectors will still be frustrated by the absence of Please, Please Believe Me which is the B-side to only her biggest hit, Ivory Tower. That remains impossible to find in a quality CD format.

    A big thank you To Dusty for the still-active links of the above albums which were posted on the now sadly missed Loadsamusics Forum.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Since posting have stumbled across 5 more tracks not on the 2 CDs

    Half Pint Boogie
    Please Please Believe Me
    My Favourite Song
    To Know Him Is To Love Him
    Put Away The Invitations


    https://www.upload.ee/files/11937564/Carr_xtra_s.rar.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cathy Carr ‎– Travel By Carr & Rare Tracks is not available anymore :(
    Can you repost, please? Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello Pete, Here she is......
    https://www.upload.ee/files/12893665/Cathy_Carr_-_Travel_By_Carr.rar.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. Always helpful... And what an amazing job you're doing here...
    Thanks millions!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice write up. I'll add that Carr was an influence on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. According to David Leaf's bio, before the Wilson brothers went to sleep at night, Brian would lead his brothers in three-part harmonies on "Ivory Tower." You can hear some of that song;s dreaminess in his early work.

    I missed the second download, if anyone want to repost it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hello DBA, here's the second download re-upped as requested with the bonus tracks thrown in for good measure. Regards, Bob.

    https://www.upload.ee/files/12893665/Cathy_Carr_-_Travel_By_Carr.rar.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the link, but it doesn't work either. Since I was able to get Lester Williams and other things, it seems the problem is this link specifically.

    FWIW, I have had good luck with Pixeldrain as a file hosting service.

    ReplyDelete
  9. OOOps! Hello DBA, I cut and pasted the old link just to see. A while back I lost about 60% of my files due to a fire at the server storage. but I still use the service most of the time.
    I did re-up it with workupload but for some reason the cut and paste stayed with the old link and in my haste I did not check...... The wonders of technology.

    Here is the new working link. (I just checked) Regards, Bob

    https://workupload.com/file/xeKvXDJjRVS

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks, Bob. The link worked this time.

    By the way, I just realized we've been in touch for years. Back in 2017, I contributed the Andrea Carroll collection. I put it together that summer and originally had it on my blog, which is now defunct.

    I've since done a similar one on Peggy March. Maybe around the time her b-day rolls around next March I'll send you a link to it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you for all the information on Cathy Carr! is there anyway you could re-upload the first album For “Cathy Carr ‎– The Teen Sound Of? i was able to download the second album but the link for the first album is dead. thank you in advance if you can.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hello dukiejosh, Your wish is my command...

    https://mega.nz/file/4nJzGaoZ#uQ5JP3SQuqI5qwg5WJ9KfgYESel2yQPmW1qrGPbWLMY

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks again Bob for re-uploading that for me!

    ReplyDelete