The Great Pretender

"The Great Pretender" is a popular song recorded by The Platters, with Tony Williams on lead vocals, and released as a single on November 3, 1955. The words and music were created by Buck Ram, the Platters' manager and producer who was a successful songwriter before moving into producing and management. The Great Pretender reached the number one position on both the R&B and pop charts in 1956.^[1] In 2004, the song was voted 351st greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone.

Freddie Mercury cover

The song was repopularized in 1987 by Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock band Queen. Mercury's version reached #4 on the UK Singles Chart. His music video for the song became one of the most well-known of his career. It featured Mercury in many of his Queen guises through video medium over the years, including visual re-takes of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "It's a Hard Life", "I Want to Break Free" and "Bohemian Rhapsody". It was directed by David Mallett in February 1987, and also featured fellow Queen member Roger Taylor in drag. Mercury also shaved off his moustache, which had been his trademark feature since 1980. There was also an extended video version which appears on the videosingle on VHS, Freddie Mercury The Video Collection on VHS and DVD and Lover of Life, Singer of Songs on DVD. The song has been re-released on many compilations including Lover of Life, Singer of Songs, and on Queen's Greatest Hits III album. In one of his last videotaped interviews in spring of 1987, Mercury explained that the song was particularly fitting for the way he saw his career and being on stage.^[2]

Other cover versions

• There is a 1969 cover version by Gene Pitney; this version is clearly the model that Freddie Mercury used for his much later version, although demos of Mercury's 1987 song sound like the original Platters take.
• It was covered in 1984 by Dolly Parton, who made it the title song of an album of covers from the 1950s and 1960s (The Great Pretender)
• There is also a cover by Roy Orbison and a soulful cover from Sam Cooke.
• Kathy Young and the Innocents covered the song in 1961.
• Stan Freberg made a parody version in 1956.
• Pat Boone covered it on his Moody River album in 1961.
• Gene Summers included it on his 1997 album The Ultimate School of Rock & Roll issued on Crystal Clear Sound Records.
• The Band covered it on Moondog Matinee, an album of covers.
• Perhaps most radically, it was tackled by Lester Bowie in 1981 and extended to nearly seventeen minutes of improvisation on his album of the same name.
• It was covered in the UK by Jimmy Parkinson, an Australian vocalist. It entered the Top 20 on 3 March 1956, six months ahead of the Platters' version; Parkinson's hit peaked at No 9 and remained in the Top 20 for 10 weeks.
• Jackie Riggs, a US doowop singer also covered it in March 1956
• George Faith covered the song on his album Reggae Got Soul.
• The Statler Brothers covered the song on their final live CD.

Popular culture

• In 1999, National Public Radio included the song in the "NPR 100," in which NPR's music editors sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century.
• The song inspired the naming of Chrissie Hynde's band, Pretenders.
• The song was used in a Volkswagen Golf advert in 2007, focusing on how a man has been so humbled by the understatement that is the Golf.
• The song played an important part in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
• The song was featured in the 2003 film Evil.
• The song was also played in a scene in the film The Buddy Holly Story.
• In the 1973 film American Graffiti, Richard Dreyfuss' character sings along to the song while he stares into the window of an appliance store.
• Perkin Warbeck (c.1474-1499), pretender to the throne of King Henry VII, was known as The Great Pretender.

External links

• http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6596196/the_great_pretender (dead link as of 20110818)

References