The same old tingle that I feel inside

It's our last week in the office, and the Festering Season is in full swing - we're off to see Follies at the National Theatre tonight, there's another Xmas get-together with former work colleagues tomorrow, and one cannot escape Mariah-fucking-Carey wherever one goes.

However, we waved a sad farewell to another of our fabled Patron Saints on the weekend, the effervescent Miss Keely Smith. So, on this Tacky Music Monday, it is to the great lady herself we turn (with then-husband Louis Prima of course) to get our juices flowing and out into the darkness...

Louis Prima and Keely Smith - That Old Black Magic

That old black magic has me in its spell
That old black magic that you weave so well
Those icy fingers up and down my spine
The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine

The same old tingle that I feel inside
And then that elevator starts its ride
And down and down I go, round and round I go
Like a leaf that's caught in the tide

I should stay away but what can I do?
I hear your name and I'm aflame
Aflame with such a burning desire
That only your kiss can put out the fire

'Cause you are the lover I have waited for
The mate that fate had me created for
And every time your lips meet mine

Darling, down and down I go, round and round I go
In a spin, loving the spin that I'm in
Under that old black magic called love

Have a swinging week, dear reader!

RIP Keely Smith (born Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, 9th March 1928 – 16th December 2017)

How else can I explain those rainbows, when there is no rain?

From SFGate:

She was the hippest doll in America, a real cool cat before they called it that. While live wire Louis Prima put everything he had into his mad, frantic style, his taciturn counterpart never batted an eyelash, just stood around, her ankles crossed, waiting for her turn to sing. It was heat and ice, yin and yang, thrust and parry, an age-old give and take dressed up in the swinging style of '50s jive, when Prima and Smith ruled the scene from the lounge at the Sahara.

"I was far from hip and cool," she says. "I'm basically a square. I've led a very normal life."

The marvellous Miss Keely Smith is eighty-five years old today.

Why not kick off your heels, settle down and enjoy the great lady herself singing a superb medley of her hits (including I Got a Right to Sing the Blues, I Wish You Love, That Old Black Magic, I'll Walk Alone, and It's Magic), by way of a celebration?

Keely Smith - Hit Medley (1983)

That voice...

We love her.

Read my tribute to Miss Smith on the occasion of her 80th.

I can see Keely now

Miss Keely Smith (the one-time Mrs Louis Prima) celebrates her 81st birthday today!

Thank heavens another of our Patron Saints is still alive... Here's All Night Long

Keely Smith - All Night Long

Keely Smith on Wikipedia

My blog on Miss Smith's 80th last year

Have you met Miss Smith?

The wonderful jazz vocalist Keely Smith, perhaps most famous for her musical partnership with the late Louis Prima, celebrates her 80th birthday today.

To mark this auspicious occasion, lets have a couple of her finest performances...

Louis Prima and Keely Smith - That Old Black Magic

Keely Smith - When Day is Done (Frank Sinatra show 1958)

Facts about Keely Smith:

• She was was born Dorothy Jaqueline Keely in Norfolk, Virginia of part Cherokee descent.
• At the age of eleven, she had her first break into showbiz when she became a regular on Joe Brown's Radio Gang.
• Keely first met her future husband Louis Prima when she was just fifteen. They married in 1953, and divorced in 1961.
• On their first appearance on the Dean Martin Show, one of the producers wanted Julie London to replace Keely until Louis refused to go on without her.
• She continues to tour today.

Keely Smith biography on AllMusic