Best Dean Martin Songs: Dino’s 20 Greatest Musical Moments
The Italian American singer dubbed ‘The King Of Cool’ was a multi-skilled pop master.
“In a tuxedo, I’m a star. In regular clothes, I’m a nobody.” So said Dean Martin, a man of many faces. Velvet-voiced crooner of some of the best songs of the 20th century. Hollywood movie icon. Genial TV show host. Wise-cracking comedian. Golden Globe winner. Welterweight boxer. Celluloid secret agent Matt Helm. The list goes on. Though his accomplishments were many and varied, his jokey demeanor and casual manner often masked the fact that he was a supremely talented all-round entertainer. Debonair Martin didn’t have to try hard to be cool, it came naturally and effortlessly, along with his vocal talent, comedic timing, and good-natured affability.
“It’s Frank’s world, we just live in it,” Martin once famously quipped. Perhaps because of that, some regarded Martin as little more than a satellite orbiting around the shining sun that was Sinatra. But one look at his career stats reveals that he never lived in Ol’ Blues Eyes’ shadow. He appeared in 58 feature movies, hosted 264 episodes of the Golden Globe-winning The Dean Martin Show, and enjoyed more than his fair share of hit records during a storied music career that saw him release 125 singles and 35 studio albums between 1948 and 1985. Since his passing in 1995, Martin hasn’t been forgotten, and his music, which has appeared in countless movie soundtracks in the last 30 years, ranging from Casino to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, has inextricably woven itself into the fabric of popular culture.
Ranging from lush, Italian-style romantic ballads and cool, finger-clicking big band swingers to easy-listening lounge pop and storytelling country and western songs, Martin could do just about anything. Just how versatile he was is reflected in the songs highlighted below, a mixture of familiar signature songs, fan favorites, and some overlooked gems. They are all rendered with the cool panache that became synonymous with the singer whom Sinatra once described as “the best partner I ever had.”
Looking for the best Dean Martin songs? Order Dean Martin’s Greatest Hits on vinyl now.
Rising to the top
Born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, in 1917, Dean Martin was the son of an Italian barber who arrived in America four years earlier and married a local Italian-American girl. Music captured young Dino’s attention at an early age, but when he quit school at ten, claiming he knew more than his teachers, pursuing a music career seemed the last thing on his mind. As a teenager, he went through many unfulfilling jobs, from being a drugstore soda jerk to a gas station pump jockey. He also bootlegged liquor on the side, and earned a few dollars as an amateur welterweight boxer under the alias “Kid Crochet.”
Martin’s career path changed to music when he worked as a blackjack croupier at a local gambling joint. Relaxing after work at Walker’s Cafe, he was overheard singing by bandleader Ernie McKay, who was struck by Martin’s smooth Bing Crosby-influenced baritone croon and offered him $50 a week to sing with his band. Adopting the stage name Dino Martini, Martin was quickly poached by another bandleader Sammy Watkins, who signed him to a ten-year contract and persuaded him to become Dean Martin. He cut his first record, “Which Way Did My Heart Go,” a single for Diamond Records, before joining Capitol Records in 1948. By then, Martin had also teamed up with comedian Jerry Lewis to create a slapstick double-act. Their growing popularity rapidly saw them go from nightclubs to radio broadcasts, TV, and eventually, movies. Martin had already begun his ascent as a popular solo artist before they split in 1956. By 1962, when he joined Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label, Dean Martin – already a pop idol and bankable movie star – was the undisputed king of cool.
Dean Martin’s biggest songs
Dean Martin racked up an incredible 56 US hit singles between 1949 and 1985. The biggest of them all was 1964’s “Everybody Loves Somebody.” Martin originally recorded the song with a jazz quartet for his fifth Reprise album, Dream With Dean, before re-recording a more upbeat single version with strings and syrupy background vocals. It became his most successful song, toppling The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” from the US No. 1 spot. In 2024, proof of the song’s undying popularity came when “Everybody Loves Somebody” was certified platinum.
Martin’s first international No. 1 single was 1953’s “That’s Amore” which rose to the top spot in Australia; it hit No. 2 in the US and UK. Martin first sang it in The Caddy, his 1953 movie with Jerry Lewis before cutting it for a Capitol EP Sunny Italy. A go-to entry in Martin’s canon, it has appeared on the soundtrack to several movies, including 1987’s Cher-starring Moonstruck.
Recorded the same year, “Sway (Quien Sera)” was also a big hit in Australia, reaching No. 1. Co-written by the Mexican bandleader Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, the infectious track framed Martin’s silken voice with swooning violins and a Latin-style bolero-meets-mambo groove.
Two years later, Martin scored his biggest 50s smash with “Memories Are Made Of This,” a nostalgic ode first recorded by US pop chanteuse, Mindy Carson. Featuring the tune’s composers – Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dehr, and Frank Miller – singing background vocals behind Martin’s immaculate velour croon under the name The Easy Riders, the song reached No. 1 in the US, UK, and Australia in 1956.
Any discussion of Martin’s biggest hits must also include “Volare (Nel Blu Di Pinto Di Blu),” his swinging remake of Italy’s 1958 Eurovision Song Contest entry by its co-writer Domenico Modugno. “Volare” topped the US magazine Cashbox’s chart and peaked at No. 2 in the UK where Martin enjoyed a large, enthusiastic fanbase.
Dino The Swinger
Few would dispute that Dean Martin’s forte was wrapping his caressing croon around luxurious romantic ballads. With his smooth velvety tone, he built his career on slower numbers, but he showed in 1960 via an exciting collaboration with Sinatra’s famed arranger, Nelson Riddle, that he was more than comfortable singing alongside a swinging, horn-heavy big band.
The pinnacle of Martin’s satisfying dalliance with big band swing was the gloriously punchy “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head,” where the singer sounded cooler than a Scotch on the rocks. Recorded during sessions for the Riddle-arranged LP This Time I’m Swingin’, the song appeared in the soundtrack to the 1960 Rat Pack movie Ocean’s 11. Capitol released it as a non-album single but the tune flopped. In later years “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head” grew in stature, seen as a quintessential Martin tune.
From the same recording session came Martin’s pitch-perfect versions of the standards “Just In Time” and “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You,” the latter a cover of a 1946 hit for its co-writer Russ Morgan. Both cuts had Vegas showroom-style razzamatazz, and this was even more apparent on the 1962 Dean Martin song, “Baby-O,” a hilarious playboy anthem arranged by Neal Hefti with echoes of “Mack The Knife” in its vocal phrasing and addictive rhythms.
Dino The Cowboy
As a child, Dean Martin avidly watched cowboy movies and, according to his daughter Deana, loved listening to country music. “He talked about country music all the time,” she remembered. “Country songs really appealed to him. He would say, ‘They just feel right, as if you’re singing from your soul.’”
In 1956, Martin realized a childhood dream by starring in his first Western, Pardners, with Jerry Lewis but his first serious cowboy role was in 1959’s Rio Bravo opposite John Wayne. Martin crooned the film’s plaintive title song but it was his evocative rendition of “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me” – accompanied by a lonesome harmonica, a male chorus, and soft guitar chords – that caught most people’s ears. The Western Writers of America voted the tune one of the all-time Top 100 Western songs.
After joining Reprise in 1963, he donned a Stetson, morphed into Dean “Tex” Martin, and cut Country Style, the first of many full-length country-inflected albums. One of his most famous country tunes was 1967’s “Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me,” rendered in a style dubbed “countrypolitan,” a hybrid of big-city pop and Hollywood’s take on Nashville music. In a similar vein was 1965’s “Houston,” a track with twangy guitar and howling harmonica penned by Lee Hazlewood. Martin’s leisurely version strolled to No. 21 on the US Hot 100.
Martin’s biggest success with country music, however, came in 1969 with the smooth makeover he gave to Glen Campbell’s Grammy-winning 1968 hit “Gentle On My Mind.” A modest chart entry in the US, in the UK, Martin’s version proved a surprise smash, rocketing to No. 2.
Dean Martin’s Italian Songs
With its sumptuous velour contours, Dean Martin possessed a voice that could reduce the hardest-hearted Mafioso to tears. Especially when he sang sentimental Italian ballads. Several of his early singles – including his playful 1955 take on Rosemary Clooney’s “Mambo Italiana” – emphasized his Italian roots but in 1962, he devoted an album to songs from the “old country.”
Reaffirming his connection to his musical heritage, Dino: Italian Love Songs contained the cheerily romantic “On An Evening In Roma (Sott’er Celo de Roma),” whose arrangement featured an accordion, which added a touch of Roman atmosphere. Two of Martin’s finest Italian-style songs were non-album singles from 1962: the pleading “From The Bottom Of My Heart (Dammi Dammi Dammi),” and the dreamily luminous “Senza Fine,” featuring one of Martin’s most sensuous vocal performances as a balladeer.
The Christmas Classics
Dean Martin’s vocal idol Bing Crosby pioneered the now-commonplace Christmas album, which was an innovation that blossomed with the introduction of the 33 rpm LP in 1948. One of the highlights of Martin’s first Christmas album, 1959’s A Winter Romance, was his inimitable refashioning of the Yuletide evergreen, “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow.” His version has become the signature take. Also included on the album: Dino playfully finding his way through Frank Loesser’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” In 1966, the singer released a second Holiday long-player, The Dean Martin Christmas Album, whose standout was a glistening interpretation of “Silver Bells” enlivened by candy-cane strings and glowing choral harmonies.
Dean Martin’s Legacy
When Dean Martin passed on Christmas Day 1995, the world lost one of its most distinctive and immediately recognizable voices. Behind the easy-going playboy persona he created for the public was a hard-working husband and father. Though he was a bonafide Hollywood movie star and ubiquitous TV personality, it was as a singer that he perhaps resonated most. From lush romantic ballads and glitzy big-band pizzazz to polished MOR and catchy country-pop excursions, the best Dean Martin songs reflect the easy-on-the-ear charm of a singer who found the perfect balance between a natural, unpretentious self-assuredness and urbane sophistication. Or what some people might call “cool.”
Looking for the best Dean Martin songs? Order Dean Martin’s Greatest Hits on vinyl now.
