Rosemary Clooney & Perez Prado: Sway

A few weeks while being sick, I was scanning through the channels and landed on a horrible movie named “Repo Men.” Starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, the plot has the two primary characters repossessing transplanted body parts when their new owners defaulted on their payments. Quite dark and bloody, it was strange and unusual.

What drew me to the movie was the opening theme – Rosemary Clooney and Perez Prado and their recording of “Sway.” Originally written as an instrumental named “¿Quién será?” by Pablo Ruiz in 1953, English lyrics were added in 1954 by Norman Gimble and the song became a Top 20 hit for Dean Martin.

This mambo was recorded for Clooney and Prado’s 1959 collaboration, “A Touch of Tobasco.” I prefer Clooney’s vocal interpretation to Dean Martin’s. Her version is our TV Thursday selection for this week. Only 60 more posts until Reading Between the Grooves exits stage left.