Tommy Edwards: "It's All in the Game"

September 29, 1958 (3 weeks)

Fears on my part that the CHUM chart might resemble the American Hot 100 a little too closely have happily been proven to have been misplaced. From Jimmy Dorsey's mostly wonderful "So Rase" right up to Robin Luke's just okay "Susie Darlin'", there have been a number of Canadian number ones which failed to repeat the trick down south. There has been plenty of crossover as well but not nearly enough to render this blog to utter pointlessness. Unfortunately, this divergence between the Canadian and US number ones mostly took a pause for the remainder of 1958. So much for trying to be different from our neighbours to the south.

As many people know, "It's All in the Game" was already an old song in 1958, having been initially written by future American vice president and Nobel laureate Charles Dawes as the instrumental "Melody in A Major" way back in 1911. It was even an old Tommy Edwards song by the late fifties. The singer had previously recorded it seven years earlier and it had been a sizable hit for him, peaking inside the US Top 20. This recording also happens to be a good deal stronger than the present — and far more famous — version of the same song which topped the charts around the world.

The original puts Edwards' gorgeously expressive voice at the forefront, something which must have been obvious to the single's producers and/or engineers considering they had the next best thing to Nat King Cole at the mic. The only backing he needed was a tasteful string section, a piano part that doesn't need to draw attention to itself and the odd woodwind popping up. Nothing else was added because nothing else was needed.

Seven years later the decision was made to have "It's All in the Game" redone so that it would transfer better over to the new stereo format. They could have just had Edwards give his vocal another go and hired either the same orchestra or another one to replicate what had been done the first time round. Instead, it was decided that it needed to address the recent rock 'n' roll boom despite the fact that Edwards being in his early thirties had no use for that noise the youngsters had been subjecting themselves to. This time there's a mere string quartet to accompany a guitar, drums and a piano that suddenly wished to stand out. Oh, and there's a group of backing singers present, no doubt trying (but ultimately failing) to emulate The Jordanaires. Plus, someone had the bright idea to toy with the sound of Edwards' voice, giving it a needless echo. So many additions that ultimately add nothing. 

The whole thing would be an even bigger mess had the composition not been so outstanding. A good song can withstand a great deal and this is far from the worst example of drenching a tune in far too many frills. Had there not been the '51 version, there's a pretty good chance I'd be every bit as impressed by the '58 rendition as its many fans are to this day. But the classy simplicity of the former makes it an easy choice over the former which just has way too much going on for its own good.

This re-recording of "It's All in the Game" was not unlike when The Beach Boys ended up re-tooling deep cut "Help Me Rhonda" from their album Today! and giving it a commercial sheen for its single release — as well as the curiously pointless editing of the girl's name to 'Ronda'. It's understandable why they chose to do it but something was lost in having done so. In fact, it's probably worse than The Beach Boys since "Ronda" was only revamped in order it rid it of the kazoo, hokey guitar part and needless drop outs; removing the clutter makes far more sense than adding to it.

'51 Version Score: 8

'58 Version Score: 5 (which, sadly, is the one we're going with)