David Allyn born 19 July 1919

David Allyn (19th July 1919* - 22 November 2012 in West Haven , Connecticut  ) was an American pop and jazz singer who was admired by many in the business. Frank Sinatra was a friend and supporter. Sammy Davis Jr. wrote liner notes to one of his later albums. But for one reason or the other, Allyn never quite caught on with the public—sometimes it was his own fault, other times it was for reasons outside of his own control. 

David Allyn was born Albert DiLello in Hartford, Connectict. His father played French horn with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, his mother was a singer. Influenced by Bing Crosby, he began performing as a singer in high school. From 1940 to 1942 he recorded with Jack Teagarden's Big Band and in 1945 in the studio orchestra of Lyle Griffin. Allyn was rising fast in the band-singer sweepstakes, but his career was cut short by World War II. Drafted into the army, he fought in North Africa with the First Division until he was seriously wounded at El Guettar. Discharged from the army, he sang with the Van Alexander Orchestra. 

By now he had given up his Bing Crosby style, and was listening with interest to Sarah Vaughan, Dick Haymes, early Al Hibbler, Peggy Lee, and Frank Sinatra, but was developping his own style. David moved next to the early Henry Jerome band, with sidemen such as Al Cohn, Tiny Kahn, Harry Biss, Ollie Wilson, and most of all, Johnny Mandel. After the Jerome band broke up, David sang at WHN and WNEW radio and spent a short stint with the Bob Chester band, before joining Mandel in the new experimental Boyd Raeburn Band in 1945, a job that brought him considerable renown and should have catapulted him to the top. 

Boyd Raeburn Orchestra

But Allyn had developed a taste for pain-killing drugs while being treated for his war wounds, and he became a heroin addict during his Raeburn days--continuing down that dark path for the next decade until his life as an addict ended with a two-year jail term. A decade before, Allyn had been among the most celebrated pop-jazz vocalists, thanks to such Raeburn gems as ''Forgetful'' and ''I Only Have Eyes For You.'' But now, in the late-1950s, he was a forgotten man--not only because he had been off the scene for so many years but also because his nobly straightforward style of singing was being shunted aside by rock `n` roll. 

                             

But some old friends did not forget, and in 1957 one of Allyn`s former Raeburn band- mates, composer-arranger Johnny Mandel, collaborated with Allyn on an album of Jerome Kern songs titled ''A Sure Thing.'' This vocal masterpiece is an essay in romanticism so deeply felt, that it comes as no surprise to learn that tears were streaming down Allyn`s face when he recorded his trancelike version of ''Dearly Beloved.'' By this time, Allyn was a better singer than he had been during his Raeburn days, darker in tone and more emotionally mature. And his ability to sing a ballad remained unique, for Alyn favoured the slowest tempos imaginable and seemed to place no distance between himself and the song. 

Allyn with Tony Curtis

The 60’s saw Allyn with the Stan Kenton Orchestra and in 1964 with Count Basie in Lake Tahoe. He also frequently appeared in clubs such as the Playboy Club, but recording dates for jazz singers of Allyn's ilk were scarce. Then his career got into a crisis again due to drug problems. But the state of the music business was such that for the most part Allyn`s efforts fell on deaf ears--so much so that his second album with Mandel, ''In the Blue of the Evening,'' wasn`t even released at the time. Then his career got into a crisis again due to drug problems. 

So Allyn settled in Los Angeles, working in small clubs when he wasn`t serving as an addiction counsellor at a Veterans Adminstration hospital, until he finally gave up on professional singing altogether--except for a superb but long-out-print 1975 album, ''Don`t Look Back'' , that paired him with pianist Barry Harris. By the 1980s Allyn was living in Minneapolis, working as a night manager in a hardware store, when his fate began to turn around. ''No one knew I was a singer,'' Allyn says, ''but then I came home one night and heard one of my sides being played on the local jazz station. I called the disc jockey to thank him, he said `Let`s do an interview` and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I was singing with a couple of good big bands.'' 

In the early 1990s he lived in Minneapolis, but then moved to New York, where he performed at Gregory’s. Also in the 1990s he was still active as a singer and appeared with a big band in Spain. In 2005 he published his autobiography There Is not No Search Word as Can’t, in which he also reports about his forty years of drug addiction. Allyn last lived in New Rochelle, New York. 

He retired in 2010  and struggled with his health, especially in his later years. He died November 21, 2012 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 93. 

(Edited from Wikipedia Chicago Tribune & Discogs) * (1923 is mainly given by many sources, but 1919 is stipulated from information via US Census sheets)