Mick Hartley

Gosh. A strange dark vision of what American pop music was like in the early Fifties, before Rock'n'Roll:

Would Perry Como have ever been party to this sort of carry-on? I think not. You reckon with just one Jezebel, but then at the end there are two…three…four of them! Phew!

Frankie, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio, was one of the stalwarts of the music scene before Elvis came along and changed everything. Known as "America's Number One Song Stylist", "Mr. Rhythm", or, less flatteringly, "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils", he was famous for those big Western ballads like Ghost Riders in the Sky, High Noon, Rawhide – not forgetting Champion the Wonder Horse. When Mel Brooks was looking for a singer for Blazing Saddles, there was only one choice.

For a truly spectacular B-movie-style piece of schlock, check out Kiss of Fire, from 1954. The same devil-woman theme as Jezebel – but those strings! I couldn't make it past the two-minute mark.

For a glimpse of the older performer, here he is at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, after the snooker tables after have been cleared away, with Jezebel again, and the tango-esque Jealousy - an unlikely 1961 hit for Ronald Wycherley aka Billy Fury.