BESAME MUCHO
Created on 20/11/2008Latest update on 04/09/2024
Artist: Emilio Tuero
Author: Consuelo Velázquez
Label: RCA
Year: 1941
Mexican baritone and actor. The female composer was also Mexican. Opening line came from Spanish opera Goyescas (1916) by Enrique Velazquez, more precisely from aria La Maja y el Ruiseñor (The Girl And The Nightingale), inspired by a painting of Francisco Goya (see footnote).
Covers:
- 1941:
- 1942:
Trio Servando Diaz [vocal trio from Cuba for Victor in Puerto Rico]
- 1942:
- 1942:
Johnny Rodriguez [in New York for Decca; not country singer Johnny Rodriguez who was born in Texas in 1951]
- 1943:
Jimmy Dorsey [n°1 US; vocal: Bob Eberle & Kitty Kallen; English lyrics: Sunny Skylar]
- 1944:
Andy Russell [top 10 US]
- 1945:
- 1945:
- 1945:
Marie-Jose [in French]
- 1951:
Pedro Infante [in film A Toda Maquina]
- 1953:
- 1953:
Lucho Gatica [best remembered Spanish version]
- 1954:
Arthur Rubinstein [as The Maiden And The Nightingale from Goyescas]
- 1955:
- 1955:
Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormé [hit B]
- 1958:
- 1958:
- 1960:
- 1960:
Coasters [instrumental B-side starring King Curtis inspired the Jet Harris version]
- 1960:
- 1961:
- 1962:
Jet Harris [Shadows bassist; hit UK]
- 1962:
Beatles [with Pete Best]
- 1962:
Yvonne Carré [as Küss mich beim Bossa Nova]
- 1963:
- 1963:
- 1967:
- 1973:
- 1973:
Apollo 100 [as instrumental; ripping off Jet Harris' version; hit NL]
- 1976:
- 1976:
- 1979:
- 1982:
Carmen McRae [with Cal Tjader]
- 1982:
- 1984:
Christophe [as Dernier baiser]
- 1990:
- 1991:
Gonzalo Rubalcaba [with Charlie Haden & Jack DeJohnette for Blue Note]
- 1993:
- 1996:
- 2000:
- 2000:
- 2001:
- 2006:
- 2009:
- 2013:
Natalie Cole [with Andrea Bocelli]
- 2017:
Yoonie Han [plays Granados' Goyescas on Steinway piano]
Goyescas didn't receive the success it deserved. The opera was created in Paris in 1914, but the première was cancelled when WW I broke out. So the creation was postponed and moved to the Metropolitan in New York, where it was first staged in 1916, with composer Granados and a cast of famous European singers. Their triumph was well deserved but short: on the way back their ship was torpedoed by the Germans along the coast of France. A few survived, but Granados sank like a stone. As paper money was a risky currency in war circumstances, he had been paid in full gold in America, which he probably kept around his waist.
