Steve Lawrence RIP

I've seen no coverage of the death of singer Steve Lawrence at the age of 88. Yet he was one of the founding fathers of pop music in many ways. He was perhaps best known as the husband of Eydie Gorme who recorded a series of duets including 'I Want To Stay Here'. a UK number three in 1963, 'I Can't Stop Talking About You' and 'The Honeymoon Is Over'. But in the 1950s and early sixties he was a major solo star. He had success with a cover of Buddy Knox's 'Party Doll', 'Pretty Blue Eyes' (covered in the UK by Craig Douglas), 'Footsteps', which made it to number four in the UK in 1959, 'Why Why Why', 'Portrait Of My Love' (a cover of Matt Munro's hit), and 'Go Away Little Girl', which was first recorded by Bobby Vee, sold a million for Steve and was later covered by Donny Osmond and Marlena Shaw. As well as releasing numerous albums Steve was also a TV star and actor and appeared as Maury Sline in 'Blues Brothers' and 'Blues Brothers 2000' as well as several other movies. Top photo shows a UK demo copy of 'Fabulous', which rather quaintly describes the backing group as 'Dick Jacobs and his Skiffle band'.