On this day in 1955: Pérez Prado had a #1 hit with “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White”.

While almost no one knows his name today, or the name of his biggest hit, this tune is immediately recognizable.

As the Wiki is quick to tell us:

Dámaso Pérez Prado (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpeɾes ˈpɾaðo]; December 11, 1916 – September 14, 1989) was a Cuban bandleader, singer, organist, pianist and composer, who also made brief appearances in films. He is often referred to as the King of the Mambo.^[1][2] He became known and professionally billed as Pérez Prado, his paternal and maternal surnames respectively.

Crank it up and D A N C E ! ! !

The tune was used as a them for the Jane Russell movie Underwater! in which producer Howard Hugues had her running around in a bathing suit for almost the entire move:

A Wiki page about the song itself says:

“Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” or “Cerezo Rosa” or “Ciliegi Rosa” or “Gummy Mambo”, is the English version of “Cerisiers Roses et Pommiers Blancs”, a popular song with music by Louiguy written in 1950. French lyrics to the song by Jacques Larue and English lyrics by Mack David both exist,^[1] and recordings of both have been quite popular. However, Perez Prado‘s recording of the song as an instrumental with his orchestra featuring trumpeter Billy Regis,^[1] whose trumpet sound would slide down and up before the melody would resume, was the most popular version in 1955, reaching number one for 10 weeks on the Billboard chart. It became a gold record. Perez had first covered this title for the movie Underwater! (1955), where Jane Russell can be seen dancing to the song.^[1] Billboard ranked this version as the No. 1 song of 1955.^[2] The most popular vocal version in the U.S. was by Alan Dale, reaching No. 14 on the chart in 1955.^[3]

I never even knew the tune had lyrics.