1960s

Ray Conniff and the Singers - It Must Be Him

Ray Conniff and the Singers – It Must Be Him

Sleeve Notes:

The contemporary music of today is undergoing the most radical and exciting change I have witnessed in the entire twenty-five years I have been associated with the recording industry. The harmonic structures, melodic lines and rhythmic backgrounds used in these new songs are most refreshing, and chord structures and melodies like those found in Yesterday, A Man and a Woman, Don’t Sleep in the Subway, Music to Watch Girls By and It Must Be Him, to give a few examples, show each thought and portray fine musicianship on the part of the young writers of today. Personally, I find the radical departure from the old, stereotyped chord progressions very uplifting and stimulating, and I do hope you will enjoy the performances of the singers in this album of today’s contemporary music as much as we enjoyed recording it for you.

Sincerely yours,
Ray Conniff

Ray Conniff and the Singers - It Must Be Him

Label: CBS 63247

1968 1960s Covers

Jackie Gleason - Love Embers and Flame

Jackie Gleason – Love Embers and Flame

Sleeve Notes:

This album, needs very few words of explanation. To millions it’s another superb package of mood music to add to a record collection that probably includes several, if not all, of Jackie’s previous albums.

For over the past few years Gleason has established himself rather firmly as the undisputed master of a special kind of “listenin’ music” — lush instrumental music that not only helps to create an atmosphere of relaxation, but also frequently proves to be the ideal complement to a quiet, romantic setting.

Once more it’s the unmistakable sound of the famed Gleason strings — here, two string orchestras — imparting their rich, full-voiced beauty to a dozen lovely ballads. Solo phrases are exchanged from opposite sides of the Stereo stage by piano and celeste on some tracks, mellow trombones and trumpets on others, and each orchestration is varied in mood and color, even as the moods of love so often vary from smoldering embers to bright-burning flame.

It’s music in the very best Jackie Gleason tradition, smooth arrangements designed to suit an evening of dancing, romancing, or easy listening.

Jackie Gleason - Love Embers and Flame

Label: Capitol SW 1689
Cover Photo/Capitol Photo Studio/Ken Veeder

1962 1960s Covers

Magic of the Minstrels - Tony Mercer, Dai Francis and John Boulter and the Black and White Minstrels

Magic of the Minstrels – Tony Mercer, Dai Francis and John Boulter

These days we look upon the “Black and White Minstrels” as a ludicrous and overtly racist form of entertainment. It’s hard to believe it commanded huge viewer ratings during the sixties when it was prime time programming in the UK. For more background history see this Wikipedia entry on The Black and White Minstrel Show.

Sleeve Notes:

Here they are again–one of the most remarkable phenomena to appear on the British show business scene for many, many years—the Black and White Minstrels! What makes them so remarkable —indeed, unique?

Well, in the first instance, it is incredible that a minstrel show should have taken this country by storm in an age when this form of entertainment was generally considered a relic of the past—the only comparable team in recent decades was the famous Kentucky Minstrels, who were at their peak as recording artists and broad-casters during the 1930’s and 1940’s. It has been suggested by a few cynics that black-faced minstrels are out of place in these days of more enlightened attitudes towards the coloured races—but this theory presupposes that the minstrel show is detrimental or derogatory to coloured folk, and certainly the Black and White Minstrels cannot be accused of any such approach; and their overwhelming acceptance throughout Britain and the Commonwealth would indicate that the vast majority of people accept them for what they are—honest-to-goodness entertainers. Anyone who is looking for political overtones in a situation such as this must, I feel, be deliberately striving to provoke trouble—and, happily, such complaints are restricted to a meagre few.

How can we analyse the Minstrels’ success? In a nutshell, it boils down to good, clean family entertainment which virtually no-one—irrespective of age, sex, or personal taste—can resist. To see the show on stage or television, one is first struck by the colour of the production—if I may use a paradox, in applying colour to black-and-white television and, indeed, Black and White Minstrels! It is vital, exuberant, sparkling, dynamic and alive—plus practically every other similar adjective you may care to apply. They move with an immaculate precision, which in itself is an education in the art of presentation and choreography. And this absorbing spectacle is one of the major reasons why the Minstrels have, seemingly, taken up residence at London’s Victoria Palace—where they have been one of Theatreland’s biggest box-office attractions for countless years. And it accounts for the similar success enjoyed by other Minstrel companies in theatres as far apart as Morecambe (where they have played several record-breaking summer seasons) and Australia. But in the final reckoning, the over-riding success factor of the Minstrels is their music—their choice of tunes, and the straight-forward uncomplicated manner in which they are performed. For these are the tried-and-trusted evergreens, the cream of the popular repertoire of the past century—from the Stephen Foster ballads of one hundred years ago, to the pick of today’s Tin Pan Alley output. They are songs we can all join in—and invariably do —whether participating in a sing-song at a party, or quietly enjoying the Minstrel’s brand of nostalgia in the relative quiet of our own homes. Nothing persuades the Briton to unwind more than an opportunity to “join in the chorus” and, in their skilful selection of long-lasting favourites, this is precisely what the Minstrels achieve.

It is this aspect of their widespread appeal which has made them such consistent favourites on disc—they rank among Britain’s top-selling album artists, with every one of their releases having reached the Top Ten LP Chart. Of these, three have—for varying periods—occupied the No. 1 position. No-one will be surprised by these facts—for the Minstrels’ albums are so infectious, so charged with compulsive entertainment, so durable in the lasting pleasure they create, that the issue of every new LP by this scintillating team is regarded as a significant event in every collector’s calendar. And those who don’t collect records—well, they continually request the Minstrels on “Housewives’ Choice” and “Family Favourites”, hadn’t you noticed? This latest programme is typical of the team’s own particular brand of bonhomie, and again features those three distinctive soloists who have become such an integral part of the Minstrels’ success formula—Tony Mercer, Dai Francis and John Boulter.

DEREK JOHNSON New Musical Express

Magic of the Minstrels - Tony Mercer, Dai Francis and John Boulter and the Black and White Minstrels

Label: HMV CLP 1917

1965 1960s Covers

Eric Johnson and his Orchestra - The Music of Ivor Novello Glamorous Nights

Eric Johnson and his Orchestra – The Music of Ivor Novello Glamorous Nights

Sleeve Notes:

ROSE OF ENGLAND (“CREST OF THE WAVE”) LOVE IS MY REASON (“PERCHANCE TO DREAM”) TAKE YOUR GIRL (“KING’S RHAPSODY”) LEAP YEAR WALTZ WALTZ OF MY HEART (“THE DANCING YEARS”) WE’LL GATHER LILACS (“PERCHANCE TO DREAM”) FOLD YOUR WINGS SHINE THROUGH MY DREAMS (“GLAMOROUS NIGHTS”) SOMEDAY MY HEART WILL AWAKE (“KING’S RHAPSODY”) GLAMOROUS NIGHT (“GLAMOROUS NIGHTS”)

Ivor Novello, son of a distinguished actress, decided at a very young age to make the theatre his life, and was fortunate in having his name brought to the notice of the public right at the start of his career. This was in 1915 when he wrote the patriotic song “Keep the home fires burning”. He followed this, six years later, by music for the sophisticated revue, “A to Z”, which opened inauspiciously at the Prince of Wales Theatre during a heat wave, but which held on until its success was assured and which contained the number, “And her mother came too”, which soon became the rage of London. In 1924 he wrote a satirical number, “The Rat Step”, a sidelight on the somewhat ridiculous dances then in fashion, as well as music for the revue, “The Punch Bowl”.

However, it was undoubtedly in the sphere of the spectacular musical that Ivor Novello became known and loved by millions of theatre-goers. For some years it had become increasingly difficult to find the right type of show to fill the vast Drury Lane Theatre for a reasonable run. On May 2nd, 1935, his first large scale musical, “Glamorous Nights” opened there and was an immediate success. One of the chief contributions to this success was clearly the musical score, which rapidly built up a great popularity among light orchestras and the larger dance bands. Thereafterwards, until the outbreak of the 1939-45 war, Ivor Novello was ready with a new spectacular show
whenever business showed signs of slacking off, and in yearly succession produced, “Careless Rapture”, “Crest of the Wave” and “The Dancing Years”, the Drury Lane run of the last only being interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities, but was soon to re-open at the Adelphi Theatre where it played continuously until after the end of the war. All of them had much in common—a lush score played by an orchestra with an opulent string section, a heavily romantic plot and a setting which was usually in some Ruritanian kingdom, with the composer himself playing the monarch or prince as required. During this period he also somehow managed to find time to take the chief part in the staging, at His Majesty’s Theatre, of the musical version of Max Beerbohm’s “The Happy Hypocrite”—one of the most exquisite and tasteful productions seen in pre-war London, and in which he presented Vivien Leigh for the first time to a delighted public, while he himself played the role of Lord George Hell.

After the war, he transferred his activities to the Hippodrome (“Perchance to Dream”) and tO The Palace Theatre, where the equally successful “King’s Rhapsody” was produced in Septerliber 1949, while his last production was a light-hearted musical comedy, “Gay’s the Word”, which he wrote for his friend of many years’ standing Cicely Courtneidge, and which opened at the Saville in February 1951.

No appraisal of Ivor Novello would be complete without reference to his many additional successes both as an actor and an author of straight plays—he was truly a man of the Theatre. Among the most successful were those light comedies which starred the most accomplished actresses of the day—such as the delightful “Fresh Fields” in which Lillian Braithwaite and Ellis Jeffries demonstrated the role of the comedienne to perfection.

Ivor Novello was much respected in the world of the theatre, and was very loyal to the stars he made famous and to his company. One has only to think of Vanessa Lee, Roma Beaumont and Olive Gilbert, among others, whom he brought before the public.

His sudden death, after no illness, on March 6th, 1951, came as a great shock not only to the world of the theatre, but to the general public to whom his name had become a household word. Every star of the London theatre, as well as many thousands of the public, flocked to his funeral, for it was understandably felt that his death had removed much of the sparkle from the London scene.

ART & SOUND LTD., LONDON, 1965.

Eric Johnson and his Orchestra - The Music of Ivor Novello Glamorous Nights

Label: Society SOC 965

1965 1960s Covers

Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin - Le Nozze Di Figaro - The Marriage of Figaro

Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin – Le Nozze Di Figaro

Sleeve Notes:

Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro” provided its composer with one of the greatest triumphs of his short lifetime; this event took place about six months after the world premiere in Vienna on the 1st May 1786, when the opera was performed for the first time in Prague.

“The enthusiasm (of the Prague audience) was on a scale hitherto unparalleled,” wrote a contemporary. “It was impossible to hear too much of it.” In consequence Mozart received a commission to write another opera for Prague. “Don Giovanni” is therefore a result of the success of “Figaro”, which, like its later sisterwork, had its origin in a literary work which was very skilfully adapted to form its libretto. “Figaro” is based on the comedy, full of social criticism, “Le mariage de Figaro ou la folle journee” by Beaumarchais, which had appeared in Paris two years earlier. In Vienna this satire on the age was banned, but Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo da Ponte was clever enough to overcome the difficulty by means of diplomacy and his acting ability.

In da Ponte’s version the barbs of the “storm-bird of the revolution”, as Beaumarchais’ “mad day” had been called, were clipped a little so as to appear harmless. The libretto nevertheless follows the play in its tensions between members of different classes of society. This is the second of three loosely linked comedies. In the first of them, “The Barber of Seville”, which has remained alive on the musical stage through Rossini’s masterly setting, Count Almaviva, with the assistance of the sly Figaro, abducts the beautiful Rosina from her guardian’s house. The “mad day”, as the first part of the original double title indicates, concerns the marriage of Figaro, who has been promo, ed to become the Count’s personal servant, to the Countess’s maid Susanna, who has to foil the Count’s designs on her. In this apparently superficial comedy of intrigue expressed in music there is embedded a fundamental conflict between social superiors and inferiors. While Figaro, as the Barber of Seville, was a colleague, a fellow-schemer with the Count, now that he is a personal servant he challenges his master, who has become a rival favoured by birth and position, to “dance to his tune”.

Lorenzo da Ponte described his libretto for Mozart as “un quasi nuovo genere di spettacolo”, a virtually new kind of stage work; he called this comic opera a “commedia per musica”. Indeed Mozart’s opera buffa goes far beyond the bounds of Neapolitan operatic farce such as Rossini was to create three decades later in its purest form. Comedy and tragedy, the marionette-like mechanics of the buffa tradition and genuine, deep human emotions, heightened by music, have never been more fully integrated in the sphere of comic opera than in “The Marriage of Figaro”, this early yet perfect comedy of character in music.

Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin - Le Nozze Di Figaro - The Marriage of Figaro

Label: Deutsche Grammophon 136 272 SLPEM

1962 1960s Covers

Jackie Gleason - Love....... Silk 'n' Brass

Jackie Gleason – Love……. Silk ‘n’ Brass

Sleeve Notes:

Among the many bestselling albums of music by Jackie Gleason, few have been more enduringly popular than “Velvet Brass” on Capitol. That collection of familiar melodies played by twin sections of trumpets and trombones was a smashing success when it was released eight years ago and has been a steady favourite with listeners ever since.

Now Jackie presents on WRC a superb companion album to stand beside it. Once again, twin orchestral sections, each consisting of four trumpets and four trombones, spread a warmly glowing sheen of brass over such beautiful melodies as “The Girl from Ipanema,” “If I Ruled the World,” “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You”, and other delightful favourites. Four additional trombones, four French horns, euphonium, tuba, and rhythm section bring added warmth, brilliance, and mascularity to the overall sound.

The tempos range from softly lilting, to medium, to fast, the styles from bossa nova and jazz waltz through ballads with a beat. The arrangements are by George Williams, and the solo passages are by two first-rate horn men who have been featured in previous Gleason albums, Pee Wee Erwin on trumpet and Charlie Ventura on tenor sax.

Two songs in this collection will have special interest for Gleason fans. Matty Malneck and Robert Maxwell’s “Shangri-La” had a previous recording by Jackie in his album “Music, Martinis and Memories” on Capitol. There he interpreted it in a lush setting of romantic strings. In this album he gives the haunting melody a tangy, upbeat attack that is bursting with excitement. “It’s Such a Happy Day” is, of course, Jackie’s own composition. “If I Ruled the World” is, of course, from “Pickwick” written by WRC’s Cyril Omadel.

Jackie Gleason - Love....... Silk 'n' Brass

Label: WRC ST 970
Design: Norman Batley
Photograph – Alan Willmoth

1965 1960s Covers

Ray Conniff and The Singers - It Must Be Him

Ray Conniff and The Singers – It Must Be Him

Sleeve Notes:

The contemporary music of today is undergoing the most radical and exciting change I have witnessed in the entire twenty-five years I have been associated with the recording industry.

The harmonic structures, melodic lines and rhythmic backgrounds used in these new songs are most refreshing, and chord structures and melodies like those found in Yesterday, A Man and a Woman, Don’t Sleep in the Subway, Music to Watch Girls By and It Must Be Him, to give a few examples, show each thought and portray fine musicianship on the part of the young writers of today.

Personally, I find the radical departure from the old, stereotyped chord progressions very uplifting and stimulating, and I do hope you will enjoy the performances of the singers in this album of today’s contemporary music as much as we enjoyed recording it for you.

Sincerely yours,
Ray Conniff

Ray Conniff and The Singers - It Must Be Him

Label: CBS 63247

1968 1960s Covers

Caravelli - The World Of Caravelli - Great Instrumental Interpretations Of Today's Hits

Caravelli – The World Of Caravelli – Great Instrumental Interpretations Of Today’s Hits

Sleeve Notes:

It’s very much an international hit parade these days, with songs from nearly every country in the world at times, all fighting hard to win those coveted places high up in the top twenty.

This latest Caravelli album has taken due notice of the trends, of course. In bringing you this happy selection of recent hits the Maestro has picked a round dozen of the best from at least half as many countries and has given them all that magic Caravelli treatment.

Setting a romantic mood to open side one, we begin with one of this year’s most haunting new melodies. John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas wrote ‘San Francisco’ which proved to be a Number One hit for Scott McKenzie. Also from across the Atlantic comes an old Cuban song, which turned up in the Pete Seeger repertoire and recently scored for the Sandpipers. That’s right, we mean ‘Guantanamera’.

European writers are well featured throughout this album. From Britain’s Martin and Coulter comes ‘Puppet On A String’ which took them, and Sandie Shaw, right to the top at Monte Carlo in the ’67 Eurovision Song Contest. John Barry is heard, too, in ‘Wednesday’s Child’, which he wrote for the film ‘The QuiIler Memorandum’.

Maurice Jarre, the French film composer whose ‘Lawrence Of Arabia’ score was and is so popular has two of his more recent compositions included. On side one you will find an up-to-the-minute treatment of his ‘Grand Prix’ theme, and on side two a nostalgic setting for the ‘Doctor Zhivago’ love theme ‘Somewhere My Love’.

Germany’s Bert Kaempfert is here with ‘The World We Knew’, this one given a fresh, glowing arrangement, and the theme from one of the more memorable French films of late, ‘A Man And A Woman’ proves Francis Lai well worthy to be included.

Finally, from our Venetian-born Maestro’s own talented pen comes ‘Toi, Tu Es Loin De Moi’, the last but by no means the least track in this exciting new and cosmopolitan collection of Today’s Hits freshly presented in the inimitable Caravelli manner.

Caravelli - The World Of Caravelli - Great Instrumental Interpretations Of Today's Hits

Label: CBS SBGG 63159

1967 1960s Covers

Ludmila Dvořáková - Soprano - another beautiful record cover from Coverheaven

Ludmila Dvořáková – Soprano

Sleeve Notes:

Ludmila Dvořáková, the eminent Czechoslovak soprano, was born in 1923 in Kolin. Since childhood she was learning to play the piano and the violin and between 1942-1949 studied solo singing at the Prague Conservatory. After graduation she became a soloist of the Ostrava Opera and, since 1954, sang in the Prague and Bratislava National Theatres.

Even as a Conservatory student she represented Czech art of singing abroad, e. g. in France and Belgium, and in the Soviet Union during Antonin Dvořák commemorative festivities in 1954. She is an eminent interpreter of Wagner’s operatic heroines (Tannhauser, The Twilight of the Gods), of which she gave yet another proof last year during her guest-performances in Bayreuth where the critics have highly praised her voice as “one of an unusual viola colouring, plastic in expression and absolutely perfect as regards technique: it is unique even among first class singers of this category”. Ludmila Dvořáková is now a permanent member of the Berlin Opera and sings regularly also in the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the State Opera in Vienna, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Hamburg State Opera and in the operas in Lausanne and Berne in Switzerland.
Ludmila Dvořáková - Soprano

Label: Supraphon 50 799
Cover: Josef Kalousek

1967 1960s Covers