Matt Monro 'From Russia With Love'

Matt Monro (1 December 1930 -- 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.

He was born Terence Edward Parsons in Shoreditch, London and attended Duncombe School in Islington. Affectionately nicknamed "the singing bus driver" (because one of his many occupations prior to achieving fame was driving the Number 27 bus from Highgate to Teddington), he got his first break in 1956 when he became a featured vocalist with the BBC Show Band. An important influence on his early career was the pianist Winifred Atwell, who became his mentor, provided him with his stage name, and helped him sign with Decca Records.

In 1957 Monro released Blue and Sentimental, a collection of standards. Despite the album's critical acclaim, Monro languished among the young male singers trying to break through at the end of the 1950s, many of them emulating Frankie Vaughan by recording cover versions of American hits. (Monro even recorded a version of Vaughan's "Garden of Eden" during this period.) A short recording contract with Fontana Records followed.

By the end of the 1950s, Monro's mid-decade fame had evaporated, and he returned to relative obscurity. He and his wife Mickie lived from her wages as a song plugger and his royalties from a TV advertising jingle for Camay soap. In 1959 he recorded a country pastiche song, "Bound for Texas", for The Chaplin Revue, a feature-length compilation of Charlie Chaplin shorts. It would be the first of many Monro soundtrack themes.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• matt
• monro
• from
• russia
• with
• love
• moscow
• 007
• classical vocals
• broadway
• classical music
• opera
• bolero
• instrumental
• classical
• incubus
• leona
• leona lewis
• soviet
• ussr

[SBY8104]

Do you know what year this was recorded in?

[faqirsilki]

@SBY8104 1963

[Thorneycroft1937]

@faqirsilki 1963 is the original recording of the song, but when was this show recorded?

[faqirsilki]

@Thorneycroft1937 well, I'm not sure...

[faqirsilki]

@Thorneycroft1937 must be Live at the BBC 1974

please, see another video

watch?v=lX_V5BtE75w

[jahue94]

before i heard of any promotions, any what ever, in hoboken new jersey, this movie show case, i saw a man carrying a briefcase with a secret knife sticking out of it , started what already in my imagination rolling. it took the cake with my interest, so what my insight seem , to have seen have come alive. this movie lit the fuse. thanks faqirsilki

[325982668]

see that justin beiber? kesha? usher? black eyed peas? THAT is how you put minimal effort into music and still outperform some of the most popular musicians of the modern era.

[SVGuss]

Noone does, true. Sit on your island and shut up. Even French'es are more important. Even Hungarians are.

[FlammenderRing]

@SVGuss ??? dont know what cha mean but who cares.... ???

[SVGuss]

@FlammenderRing

So was that you who killed Hitler?

[FlammenderRing]

now its "from russia with hate" ty the nazi in russia

[nigelnire]

That man was the greatest singer Britain (Perhaps even the world) has ever produced. So sad he is no longer with us.

[Thorneycroft1937]

@faqirsilki Thanks for the link, a great english cover of a german song by Udo Jürgens from Austria who sang this once at the Eurovision song contest. Thanks for the date, 1974: singing is wonderful, but he looks older than 44....