More Music for Spring, Plus 50s-60s Soundtrack Compilations and a Passover Song

Today we bring you another springtime compilation from David Federman - aptly titled "There'll Be Another Spring." Just the thing for this period of tense idleness when we should be enjoying nature's annual renewal of life. Also, I've added another double-header of my movie music transfers, made long ago but never posted here. This outing includes two vintage compilations, one from the 50s and one from the 60s.

Details follow.

There'll Be Another Spring

I'll let David have the floor to explain his contributions. As he says in his notes, "I’ve brought a sequel spring music mix that tries to enumerate the many benefits of global quarantine. There is a synergy to be harnessed from plague-induced isolation and idleness. We share a contemplative leisure that few of us ever had time for individually and now find forced upon us collectively. What better time to seize the many days allotted to us for beauty rather than boredom? See these songs as beatitudes of insomnia."

As usual, he has put together 32 vintage recordings from the finest artists - Peggy Lee, Lee Wiley, Annette Hanshaw, Jimmy Reed, George Metaxa (just saw him in a movie the other night) and many others. Sheer pleasure.

Main Title

This 1956 compilation from the Coral folks is all kinds of fun. It collects 12 film themes of the period as issued on singles by the label's two main arrangers, George Cates and Dick Jacobs.

The films surveyed include The Man with the Golden Arm, The Catered Affair, Congo Crossing, Seven Wonders of the World, East of Eden, The Proud Ones, Picnic, Away All Boats, The Proud and Profane, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, While the City Sleeps and Nightfall.

Billboard ad (click to enlarge)

The LP takes its name from a Jacobs single capitalizing on the 1955 Sinatra film The Main with the Golden Arm. In it, Jacobs contrasts Elmer Bernstein's swaggering film theme with a tune called "Molly-O," also heard in the score. The conglomeration doesn't work very well - but Bernstein's theme is the greatest!

In a somewhat similar, but more elegant way, George Cates wove together the Hudson-DeLange oldie "Moonglow" with the gorgeous theme of Picnic written by George Duning.

I believe this counterpoint could be found in the original film scoring. A single version from the soundtrack was issued under Morris Stoloff's name, and vied with the Cates record for chart supremacy. (I believe Stoloff won.) Either way, it makes for one of the best instrumentals of the 1950s.

None of the other sides reach these heights, but they will be enjoyable to anyone who loves this period of music, especially movie music. The sound is excellent.

Silver Screen '63 / Magic Screen '63

Half of this collection for 20th Century Fox records and Fox music director Lionel Newman is devoted to the film themes of 1963, the other half to television theme music.

Appropriately, it is one of the few records I own with two front covers and no back cover. Silver Screen '63 can be seen above; Magic Screen '63 way down below.

Lionel Newman

The films include Cleopatra, Papa's Delicate Condition, The V.I.P.s, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Irma la Douce. On TV, the selections include Mr. Novak, The Phil Silvers Show, Breaking Point, The Bill Dana Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Frankly, 1963 was not a vintage year for theme music, and most of these items may be unfamiliar to you. They were to me, and I lived through the period. The most familiar film theme may be "Call Me Irresponsible" from Papa's Delicate Condition. The Jackie Gleason vehicle was not terribly well received, but the Cahn-Van Heusen song won an Oscar and was widely heard at the time.

Billboard ad (click to enlarge)

In my view, the best film music here is "Look Again" by Dory Langdon and André Previn, a beautifully pensive song from Irma la Douce. Otherwise, you will find music by Alex North, Johnny Mercer, Miklos Rozsa, Ernest Gold and Mack David.

On the little screen, surely the best remembered theme is Earle Hagen's from The Dick Van Dyke Show, which is instantly ingratiating. The other composers are all well known figures - Jeff Alexander (recently heard here as young crooner Myer Alexander), Lyn Murray, David Raksin and Harry Geller.

Newman coaxes fine performances from Fox's orchestra and the sound is good.

Happy Pesach!

Reader Eric was kind enough to provide a recording of the Passover song "Dayenu" in the comments to my recent Easter post. He notes, "This is from 'Happy Soul of a People' on Time records, with Harry Ringler and his Orchestra. Among the pseudonymous personnel is the accordionist Izzy Cortesky who may be a paisan but is not a landsman - Domenick Cortese."

The links to this song and the rest of today's items are in the comments, as usual.

Happy Passover to Eric and to all!

Where There's Life, There's Beer - and Music

These days, the big beer brands sell mainly via ads that punctuate the televised exploits of professional athletes. But sixty years ago, easy listening music was part of the marketing mix, as this 1960 LP demonstrates.

It represents a promotional tie-in between Anheuser-Busch, brewers of Budweiser beer, and RCA Victor, purveyors of vinyl records. The LP is titled Where There's Life..., which happened to be the first part of Budweiser's tag line, "Where There's Life, There's Bud." And the awkwardly posed model seems to be eagerly anticipating the frothy Budweiser being offered. Either that or the off-camera male has no pants on. It's hard to tell, no pun intended.

Magazine ad

Other than the label on the bottle, there is no other mention of Budweiser or Anheuser-Busch on the album. Even so, the brewery went all out in support of the LP. Billboard reported that it pushed out 40,000 display cards, 12,000 streamers and 4,000 coasters, plus it sprung for a big ad buy in the major magazines of the time, with all items featuring the album art. There even was a promotional single.

But what of the music, you may ask, this being a music blog and all. There is a melodic tie-in as well - the first song is "Where There's Life," which turns out to be (no surprise here) a glamorized version of the then-current Bud jingle. All the other tunes have "life" in the title as well.

The proceedings were under the direction of Russ David, who it turns out, wrote the Bud jingle back in 1956 with arranger-conductor George Cates, Lawrence Welk's music director and a mainstay of the Coral catalog. Cates recorded "Where There's Life" first, on a 1957 Coral single that went nowhere, probably because it didn't benefit from 40,000 display cards, etc. George is nowhere in evidence on the LP, and his name is spelled "Catz" on the songwriter credits. I've included Cates' single in the download.

Russ David as radio personality

David did not have a national presence - this is his only LP, as far as I can tell - but he was well known in St. Louis, the home of Anheuser-Busch, where he had radio and television shows and where he led a band. I get the sense that he also did other work for A-B through the years.

The record is a credible affair, with David doing a Gordon Jenkins-style single-note solo over the opening of "Where There's Life," accompanied by accordion, followed by clarinet, tenor sax and trombone. It's all very pleasant, even if several years out of style in 1960.

On other songs, David brings in a vocal group and a terrific female soloist, who remains unnamed. I wish I knew who it is - I first thought it might be Jamie Silvia of the J's with Jamie, but comparisons suggest that it is not her. The vocalist is particularly good in her "Give Me the Simple Life" solo spot, but then I am partial to that Rube Bloom-Harry Ruby composition. Less effective is the male vocal chorus on "There's a Lull in My Life," which has a peculiar robotic quality.

Cover of 1957 promo

As I mentioned, the Budweiser jingle dated back to 1956. I've included a Bud promotional record from 1957, with seven ads in different musical styles. The first one, to my ears, features the same female vocalist as on the Russ David record. Also included are a waltz, a Dixieland arrangement, a Glenn Miller-style rendition, and a lounge version a la Jackie Gleason's records with Bobby Hackett on solo trumpet. (The latter arrangement is  reminiscent of Gordon Jenkins' style. David was apparently a fan - I am assuming David did these charts.) No rock 'n' roll on the LP or the promo record, though. Bud was not aiming to be up-to-date or hip at the time.

The LP is my transfer; the other items are courtesy of the web although remastered by me. RCA's sound is very good, although lushly reverberant in the style of the times.

This post is a result of a discussion that I had with my pal Ernie not long ago, where we differed on which RCA record had a beer on the cover. I opted for this one, although I said it was by Larry David, while acknowledging that couldn't be right. Ernie claimed it was a Boston Pops record. It turns out we were both right - there is a two-LP Pops set, "Everything But the Beer," that has two Anheuser-Busch beer steins on the cover. I have that album as well.

To go back to the Where There's Life cover, it is an example of the "Droste effect," that is, a picture within a picture of itself. It's not perfectly executed, though.

If you want more beer music - and who doesn't - a decade ago I uploaded a Schlitz promotional record with Nelson Riddle at the helm and featuring Jamie Silvia on vocals. Riddle turned the Schlitz jingle "The Real Joy of Good Living" into "The Joy of Living," the title tune of a 1959 LP. So the Milwaukee brewer or its ad agency had the idea first. The Riddle record is still available if you haven't had enough brew for the evening.