Steve has been talking (in between tool and cabinetblogging) about music, and his interest in it, and the type of reproduction you get with vinyl.

I have only one vinyl album left, and that is “The great Caruso” with Mario Lanza.

Now, I often think that 700,000 Pall Malls ago, I might have been an OK tenor. Maybe even a little better than OK. Maybe I might even have gotten called on to sing at mass, or in local stage productions. I’ll never know, because it’s impossible to undo the damage of all those cigarettes.

Mario Lanza was a very young man when he died, under forty. Fact is, he abused his body, his voice, didn’t like to play the political games that would have landed him the good screen roles, and generally butted heads with everyone.

Scuttlebut at the time was he made enemies with the mob, and his “heart attack” amounted to a poisoning. I don’t know, maybe nobody ever will.

But the voice. He had a 50 inch chest, the man was built to control a great deal of wind. And could he ever. While few recordings of Caruso exist, plenty do exist of Mario Lanza, and even if you don’t like opera you owe it to yourself to either listen to some of his music or watch a few of his films. He does the singing voice for “The Student Prince”. He played Caruso in “The Great Caruso”A great part, and a great film, that you should see. When he sings “Be My Love” you will get a glimpse of how good that voice is, and when he sings “Ave Maria”, if you are a Christian, and you still have a soul, you will weep.

In my mind, and in the mind of many others, the unquestionable Grand Master tenor. A voice so intense and well controlled that it astonishes people today. God love Pavarotti et al, but compare the same piece by Pavarotti and Lanza, and be amazed. He was capable of oversinging an orchestra- imagine a tenor who can sing loud enough to drown out an orchestra, and still be crystal clear and in control, and display those sweet pipes.