May 14, 1936
“Mack The Knife,” which held the #1 spot on the
Billboard pop chart for an incredible nine weeks in 1959, was a big enough hit for Bobby Darin that it cemented him in many people’s minds as the consummate cool-cat crooner. But Bobby Darin was no mere lounge act. His knack for keeping people guessing first showed itself in his shift from rock-and-roll teen idol to finger-snapping Vegas headliner, but his tendency to move in and out and back and forth among diverse musical genres also took him through phases as a writer-performer of protest-folk, folk-rock and even country-western music. Bobby Darin, one of the most versatile pop stars of his generation, was born Walden Robert Cassotto in the Bronx, New York, on this day in 1936.