Don McLean: On the Amazon
[purchase On the Amazon from Amazon]
I am not a big fan of Don McLean. He is an artist I know mainly for American Pie, and it has taken me many years to come to appreciate him for that. However, my wife was a big fan at one time. That is why I knew about the song On the Amazon. The song is a deep album track from McLean’s self titled 1972 release. It is best considered to be a novelty song, with the singer presenting a catalog of imaginary Amazonian denizens with some highly unlikely names, and the song is quite amusing. On the Amazon also presents us with a musical mystery. Unlike most of the material Don McLean recorded, On the Amazon is a cover, and a very unlikely one.
Bobby Howes: On the Amazon
[Not available for purchase]
The original version was recorded by Bobby Howes in 1929. It was written for the musical Mr Cinders, but was apparently left out of the London production that was mounted that year. Still, the song was considered to have enough merit to warrant a recording by Bobby Howes, who played Jim, the character who would have sung the song in the show. Mr Cinders is a gender reversed version of Cinderella. Jim goes to the ball disguised as a famous explorer, and On the Amazon supposedly boasts of his adventures in a place Jim has actually never visited.
The question I can not answer is, how did Don McLean come to hear the song? The show was a modest success in London, playing for about a year and a half. It made its way to Europe, where a translation into German was also successful. But the show never made it to Broadway. On the Amazon was not even the best known song from the show. That was Spread a Little Happiness, which did become something of a standard in England. So maybe McLean heard that song and wondered what else the songwriters had done. He would have had to do some research, at a time when there was no internet to help. It is clear to me as well that McLean didn’t just find the sheet music for On the Amazon. His performance includes some vocal mannerisms that are clearly from the Bobby Howes recording.
On the Amazon is still hardly a standard today. Spread a Little Hapiness and the show Mr Cinders have however seen some renewed interest. Sting had a minor hit with his recording of the song for the film Brimstone and Treacle. That may have led to a London revival of the show in 1983. The only record I could find of a US performance of Mr Cinders was a 1988 production that was mounted in Connecticut. There have been a number of covers of Spread a Little Happiness since then, although none have come near charting.
One final note: On the Amazon by New Riders of the Purple Sage is a completely different song.
