Top Shelf: Eydie Gorme

Edith Gormezano, better known as Eydie Gormé, sang on Broadway, television, and on the road as half of the husband-and-wife team Steve and Eydie. Gormé was born in the Bronx, and made her radio debut on a Spanish-language show called Cita Con Eydie. 

Eydie met her soon-to-be husband Steve when they were staff singers on Steve Allen's Tonight Show. 60 years ago this week, Steve and Eydie were just finishing their year-long Broadway debut run in Golden Rainbow. That show gave the world - and Sammy Davis, Jr. - a surprise hit with the song "I've Gotta Be Me." Davis recorded the song while Steve and Eydie were still singing it on Broadway, and it became his anthem. Sammy Davis also took Steve and Eydie on the road with him for years.

For singer and bandleader Michael Mwenso, the road to appreciating Eydie Gormé as a vocalist, apart from Steve and the Rat Pack connections, was paved by... the Blues Brothers.

Michael Mwenso was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in London. His band Mwenso and the Shakes are a Harlem-based collective of artists from all around the world. At last fall's New York Hot Jazz Festival they  performed a Fats Waller revue called The Joint Is Jumpin’.

The Blues Brothers (1980), directed by John Landis

((Courtesy of BAMcinématek/Photofest))