Bobby Darin and Joanie Sommers Have a Musical Conversation
In the early 1960’s Joanie Sommers was on a meteoric arc toward stardom. Her clear, strong vocals with Tommy Oliver Band in the late 1950’s attracted Warner Brothers, and the record label quickly signed her to a contract. Sommers’ grounding was in jazz and traditional standards with a big-band sound. However, the Warner label had recognized that they youth market wanted its stars to appear on TV and films, as well as on the radio. Warner set out to make cross-over content available to youth and Sommers was to be part of that content.
Warner sought openings to use its cross-over strategy and early, strange pairings for Sommers placed her with Edd Byrnes on a spoken-word record, “"Kookie's Love Song." The record was enough to gain Sommers some attention, and eventually led to a top-10 hit, the teenage heartthrob song with which Sommers would forever be associated, “Johnny Get Angry.”
In 1962, Sommers was tagged to sing Pepsi’s latest commercial jingle, “Pepsi, for those who think young,” beginning a whole new career for Sommers, now known as “The Pepsi Girl.” Sommers would also voice a second ubiquitous Pepsi jingle, "Come Alive! You're in the Pepsi Generation" on radio and television, making her voice known to a generation, if not her name.
This clip is from the era where Sommers was just beginning her rise. She and entertainment legend Bobby Darin have a musical conversation through a medley of standard hits.