Cover Songs / Music Awards

“Mack the Knife” – Grammy Covers

randydafoe23 Comments

Bobby Darin (1936-73) with “Mack the Knife” from 1959. The original English version was written by composer Marc Blitzstein. Darin’s interpretation was incredible and it remains a true classic. Darin was an award winning actor and a recording artist since 1956. He is known for his Rock and Roll hit “Splish Splash” and great songs like “Dream Lover” and “Beyond the Sea”. He had life long illnesses and a weaken heart and would die of complications from heart surgery at age 37.

1959 was the first year for the Grammy Awards, they held two ceremonies, the first in May to honour songs from 1958, then again in November, focusing on songs from 1959. It was at the latter of the awards that Bobby Darin won the Record of the Year Grammy. This was also the first cover song to win the award.

There are few songs with a more complex past than “Mack the Knife”. I will present the short story today.

It is based on “Moritat von Mackie Messer” written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, first performed in the German play Die Dreigroschenoper. While it is not necessarily a straight line, the song has many versions with even the first few English ones having slightly different lyrics. Many of them are in German of course and most versions are instrumentals, currently a total of 686 recordings.

Bobby was the tenth person to record the English version, first done as “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” by Gerald Price in 1954. This was from the cast performance of The Threepenny Opera, which is the English adaptation of Die Dreigroschenoper by Marc Blitzstein. Not really fitting this all in, did I mention it was complex?

Bobby Darin’s interpretation was inspired by the first person to cover it and move it away from a show tune to a pop song, Louis Armstrong. The recording was meant to promote the play.

Here is “Mack the Knife” by Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars from 1954. Not a part of the song in the play, the name of Lotte Lenya appears in the lyrics. It was an ode to the Actress who was in the original play in Germany (1928) and won a Tony Award (1956) for her role in the Off-Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera. Lotte Lenya was present in the studio as Louis Armstrong was recording, hence he adlibbed the lyric.

23 thoughts on ““Mack the Knife” – Grammy Covers”

  2. I’ve heard so many versions of this absolute classic song, though incredibly, I can’t be sure I’ve ever heard Bobby’s interpretation… what rhythm. It’s marvellous!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. Bobby Darin’s version of “Mack the Knife” definitely is a classic. I also love Satchmo’s take. Every time I heard Louis Armstrong, I see a guy with a big smile before my eyes.

    As for the similarity between the German and English lyrics, I haven’t compared them. Based on a quick glance I just took, the English lyrics definitely took plenty of liberties. I guess it also depends exactly which English and German versions you compare! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Good point and that’s my understanding between the song and the original script, as you say liberties were taken. Bottom line the spirit of the original produced one heck of a song in English!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  4. I’ve heard many versions of this, but I tend to agree with Dave – the Darin version is paramount! I liked Ella and Louis’ versions as well. Michael Buble’ covered it no too long ago and it was good in that it was a swinging style, but far enough removed that it didn’t sound like a Darin copy.

    Like

    Reply

  5. interesting history. Calling Christian – how close is it to the original German ? I don’t think anyone’s going to better Darin’s take on it though.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  8. I really like the Louis Armstrong version…I never heard it before. Darin’s version of course is the one I know…I like it and I usually don’t like this kind of pop as well…something about it that I like. What a history!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment