Alex Bird Discovers & Saves Earliest & Lost Bobby Darin Recordings

Today would have been Bobby Darin’s 88th birthday. I’m very excited to announce this incredible news!!! I recently found and saved what we think are Bobby Darin’s earliest recordings, on acetates recorded at Nola Recording Studios in New York in 1955, when he was about 19 years old! 3 years before he became a star with “Splish Splash”. Bobby started out trying to make it as a songwriter alongside his songwriting partner, the great Don Kirshner. The first acetate contains their “Orange Furniture Jingle”, the very first song they sold for money, thought lost to time. If that wasn’t enough…also discovered on the acetate were lost Bobby Darin originals! Some Rock ‘n’ Roll type tunes, and some Jazz. Unpublished and never copyrighted.

Also, in my find I acquired and saved Bobby’s original demo for “Dealer in Dreams”, which helped get him signed to Decca Records! And then I was also lucky enough in this find to save Bobby’s original demo for “Don’t Call My Name”, which helped get him signed to ATCO records (Atlantic Records)! These wildly historical songwriting demos help fill in the early part of Bobby’s career and show a direct line leading up to his 1958 break with “Splish Splash”. The acetates were originally found in a record bin in Baltimore, and then taken all the way over to Germany, where they sat for many years until making their way to me. I’m currently working with Bobby’s estate to give these a proper release.

Special thanks to Mariana Hutten for helping me clean and restore the very time-weathered and delicate acetate recordings (which you can hear in the near future!) I’m also looking at rearranging & finishing off two of Bobby’s lost originals with Ewen Farncombe. Kind of weird that the very first song Darin sold for money was acquired and saved by me with money that I got from the very first song I sold… “The Sweetest Moments”. Bobby and his music mean a lot to me…that must be some kind of fate. So, I’ve put together a special 88th birthday journey for you.

Bobby was just a kid trying to make a name for himself with his own music, and he ended up doing just that and much more in his short 37 years on this Earth. Come with me for a bit as I take you through these extraordinary finds and also the beginning of Bobby Darin’s career.