Chartbusters Salute the Hits of Gilbert O’Sullivan
Sleeve Notes:
The songwriter-singer has always played a strong role in the development of popular music, yet few individuals have gifted it with quite the imagination that Gilbert O’Sullivan brings to his work.
His songs, performed on record with consistent success readily lend themselves to a variety of treatment, whether it be orchestral or vocal. They do so because like all good songs they possess faultless construction and lyrical imagination. Gilbert certainly packs his songs with words and they tumble out in a profusion of ideas that find a ready marriage with the melody he chooses for them. “Nothing rhymed” “No matter how I try” “We will” and “Claire” will always be numbered among the O’Sullivan classics and they’ll continue to be revived long after the initial chart successes have passed.
Now The Chartbusters, who have paid tribute in the past to a host of top recording artists, make their own musical definition of the music of Gilbert O’Sullivan. In doing so they have taken the care to preserve the basic appeal that has led to such universal success for this likeable young man, and we trust that your enjoyment of this album will be heightened by the knowledge that what you’re listening to will still be as enjoyable many years from now.
Label: Pye Records PCB 15102
Rock Gently with Beethoven, Bach and Brahms
Sleeve Notes:
The music of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms has been heard in many settings, but none surely more distinctive than on this album. Here such well known works as Beethoven’s ‘Song of Joy’, Bachs’ ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’, and Brahms’ ‘Lullaby’, are given a sensitive and gently rocking treatment which makes for superb stereo listening.
Label: Contour Records
The World of Easy Listening Vol. 2
Sleeve Notes:
“THE WORLD OF EASY LISTENING” – how dull the world would be without the magic of music! Though we don’t always realise it with the pace of modern living music is often there in the background, calming our nerves and subtly raising our spirits. This series has been designed, either for enjoyable listening. or for use whenever background music is desired. The melodies featured – some instrumental, some vocal – are modern imaginative arrangements by leading musical directors.We hope, in fact we know, that these six volumes will bring you many hours of delightful listening pleasure.
Eric Lotinga © 1973, The Decca Record Company Limited, London.
Label: Decca
Harry Stoneham – Hammond Hits the Continent
Harry Stoneham probably gained most fame from his theme tune for the UK’s chat show legend Michael Parkinson. Every week his theme opened the show but few ever got to hear the full version. You can now hear it below if you wish together with an example of his work on this marvellous record which was recorded in the same hallowed rooms that gave the world Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. The cover features model Suzy Shaw who graced many a cover during the seventies including several Top of the Pops covers featured here in Cover Heaven such as this
Sleeve Notes:
It is apt (though coincidental) that this album should have made its debut in the year of Britain’s entry into the Common Market, as it forms a salute to the songwriters of Continental Europe.
Here are 27 superb tunes with the accent on those bright and bouncy two-beat melodies which sweep the Mediterranean discotheques and beaches each summer insidious tunes which we come back humming after lazy sunny fortnights in Majorca, France and the Algarve.
Yet back home, if you’re like me, you forget the title (and couldn’t pronounce it anyway); you never discovered the singer’s name, and your local record dealer is singularly unimpressed by your la-la-ing of the song in question! And a surprising number of Continental hits never find their way across the Channel, except to special import order.
Harry Stoneham and I thought a goodly cross-section of these tunes would make a pleasing format for a toe-tapping, sun-filled album. Many, of course. have found their way into the British hit parade too; one or two were even written in Britain yet achieved much greater success on the Continent than they did here.
Popcorn is somewhat surprisingly an American composition for synthesiser. It says much for Harry Stoneham’s mastery of his instrument that the ‘Popcorn’ sounds he produces on this disc are all from two electronic organs not a synthesiser in sight! But then I could fill a book with my admiration for Harry’s music. However, there isn’t enough space here so put on the LP and let that speak volumes!
BOB BARRATT
Label: Studio2Stereo TWO 405
Raymond Wallbank At The Organ – Relax & Listen
Raymond certainly knew how to relax. He simply sat, exuding man smells, on the pier at Blackpool and within minutes if not seconds scantily clad young women were drawn to him to like a bee to a flower. Look how she longs for his gaze, thwarted by his narcissistic love of the camera. Even the tempting offer of a lick on her lolly does nothing to tempt the organ man to look her way. Raymond by the way was a charitable guy with a kind heart when he wasn’t performing for his adoring audience (Mr and Mrs Bartholomew of Braintree) as the sleeve notes inform us – “Like many top-class artistes Raymond makes time to do special charity performances, including regular broadcasts for local hospitals.” To hear a sample of Raymond’s legacy see below.
Sleeve Notes:
As well as his popular programmes in the Sun Lounge on the North Pier at Blackpool Raymond Wallbank has also appeared as a concert organist in many parts of the country, including performances on the fine organ at the Gaumont, Manchester.
During the winter months Raymond plays for dances almost every evening. His recent engagements include appearances at the Floral Hall, Southport on the same bill as Victor Sylvester and his Orchestra and as successor to Reginald Dixon as organist at the official switch-on of Blackpool Illuminations carried out by Danny La Rue.
Label: Contour 2870 317
Parade of Pops
This edition from Windmill Records is typical of their repertoire in that it features no established artists. It is instead another collection of cover versions of songs of the day, no doubt hurriedly put together to grab the moment before the charts changed. We have several Windmill Record covers in Cover Heaven – check them out here if you’re curious.
Sleeve notes:
HERE IS THE LATEST AND GREATEST SUPER STEREO, SOLID GOLD, PARADE OF POPS.
We have put together twelve smash hit songs direct from today’s charts that are certain to match your every mood. The nostalgic YESTERDAY ONCE MORE is featured; The happy sounding SMARTY PANTS specially for the dancers; and the melodious SPANISH EYES for the romantics.
Collect your Pops The Best Way in …SOLID GOLD.
Label: Windmill WPP5010
Royal Latin Orchestra – Golden Latin Brass
Sleeve Notes:
Before the conquest of South America in the sixteenth century there were large highly developed civilizations where Brazil and Mexico now lie. Their customs and cultures were quite different from those of the Spanish who conquered them and who subsequently imposed their own customs. The Spanish also brought Negro slaves from Africa to work on the plantations. The musical sum of these conflicting influences is the unmistakeable sound of Latin American music, depending largely on its intricate cross-rhythms and strong syncopations for its uniqueness. In fact, Edmundo Ross, one of the first men to introduce the music of Latin America to this country insists that ‘The melody section is unimportant. It can still be effective played on a broken-down piano so long as the rhythm section is strong.
The first of the Latin dances to become popular was the tango which swept the world just prior to World War One. But it was when the rhumba arrived in the ballroom straight from its native Cuba in the early 1930s that Latin – American music and rhythms became firmly entrench-ed as international favourites. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced The Carioca’, from Brazil came Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian Bombshell, and with her came the Samba. The Conga established itself as a favourite party dance.
Latin American orchestras flourished. Xavier Cugat, Roberto Inglez, The Lecuona Cuban Boys and then, in the 1950s, along came the great Perez Prado who added to the standard Latin American instrumentation a biting brass section that was strongly influenced by the swing bands of the U.S.A. From this combination came the mambo and then the irresistable cha-cha-cha.
This is the sort of sound you will hear in this album – all the wild heat and tingling excitement of ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, ‘Patricia’. ‘Mambo Jambo’ and many other favourites captured in vivid stereo. If this doesn’t get you you’d better reserve your plot in the cemetery before it’s too late!
Label: MFP 1349
Magic Strings – Moonlight Party
Sleeve Notes:
Since 1971, when Norman Candler presented his first “Magic Strings” LP, the young arranger and bandleader has been amongst the recognized and most popular representatives of a romantic and melodically emphasized style in contemporary pop and light music. Before he came along the sound of a big string orchestra backed by a strong rhythm section could only occasionally be heard in American films. From this he developed his own special sound – and found success from the start. The BBC gave him the “Three Star Award” for the best imported record and chose his version of “Many Times” as the signature tune for the popular programme ‘Album Time”.
Label: Teldec SLE 14727-P
The Best of the Waikiki Beach Boys
Sleeve Notes:
Another album by The Waikiki Beach Boys means a return once more to that get-away-from-it-all music. A return to the peace and splendour of those romantic islands in the Pacific. One wonders just how many times over the years these heavenly islands of Hawaii have been described in words coldly calculated to create envy and longing in the hearts of those suffering a humdrum, commuter-type existence in suburbia Suburbia here. suburbia almost anywhere. But, however calculating those words may have been – and several hundred thousand must have been written on the subject – the inescapable fact is that they have painted a picture that is true.
Hawaii is blue skies. surf and sunshine. Hawaii is gentle breezes and swaying palm trees. Hawaii is a paradise on earth. a lovely land to which to escape. Hawaii today, of course, is also more than a travelogue scriptwriter’s dreamland. Hawaii is city. And people. And. more likely than not, with commuter problems of Its own. But. in its quieter moments and In its quiet corners. Hawaii remains the land upon which the gods have surely smiled.
One thing that has remained unchanged Is the traditional music of the islands. Hawaiian-styled music grabbed the imagination of people In less blessed corners of the world many years ago. The languid rhythms and the steel guitars still do more than any tourist bureau, any holiday poster or airline advertisement to conjure up the sheer magic of the islands. This is the fifth Waikiki Beach Boys’ LP released on the Music for Pleasure label. The total sales of the previous four in this country and in many other parts of the world have now topped the half-million mark.
On this LP they play in varying moods. from the march tempos of “Tiger Shark”, “Hilo March” and “Menehune March” to such long-time Hawaiian ‘standards’ as”On the Beach at Waikiki”, “Honolulu” and “Blue Tahitian Moon”.
There are original compositions. too. In “Moonlight Hawaii” and “Coral Reef”. for example. Most of it, if not all of it, calculated to set you on a course which adds up to escape. From this or that. If only in the mind.
Label: MFP 50077