Random mumblings and mundom ramblings on music (mostly), and whatever else pops into my mind . . .
[The files attached here are for review only, and should be deleted after two weeks. If you like the bands, go buy the albums . . . like I did!] . . .
And yes - EVERYTHING posted here is still available!
Another November 2nd (Day Of The Dead) - another Grateful Dead offering for you all!
In celebration of the original album's fiftieth anniversary, The Dead's vaults were thrown open to provide Wake Of The Flood: The Angel's Share, the third installment of the celebrated Angel's Share series, featuring more than two hours of previously unreleased studio chatter, outtakes and alternate versions recorded during the band's August 1973 Wake Of The Flood sessions, held at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California. Some great additions to this release include:
Takes of “Let Me
Sing Your Blues Away,” Keith Godchaux’s first and only vocal on a
Grateful Dead studio record;
Bobby Weir’s continually evolving
“Weather Report Suite”; and
The track “Phil’s Song
(Unbroken Chain)”, released on the group's later album The Mars Hotel.
Eyes Of The World (Run-through) [Not SLATED] [8/10/73]
Eyes Of The World (Take 1) [SLATED] [8/10/73]
Eyes Of The World (Take 6) [Not SLATED] [8/10/73]
Eyes Of The World (Take 15) [Not SLATED] [8/10/73]
Eyes Of The World (Take 16) [Not SLATED] [8/10/73]
Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (TAKE 1) [Not SLATED][8/15/73]
Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (TAKE 2) [SLATED] [8/15/73]
Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (TAKE 3) [SLATED] [8/15/73]
Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (TAKE 4) [SLATED] [8/15/73]
Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (TAKE 13) [Not SLATED] [8/15/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 1] [Not SLATED] [8/16/73
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 2] [Not SLATED] [8/16/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 3] [SLATED] [8/16/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 4] [Not SLATED] [8/16/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 5] [Not SLATED] [8/16/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 6] [Not SLATED] [8/16/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 7] [SLATED] [8/16/73]
Phil’s Song (Unbroken Chain) [Take 8] [SLATED] [8/16/73]
Weather Report Suite (Take 10) [Not Slated] [8/16/73
Weather Report Suite (Take 11) [Not Slated] [8/16/73
Weather Report Suite (Take 16) [Not Slated] [8/16/73]
Weather Report Suite (Take 8) [Slated] [8/17/73]
Sort of not much else left to say here about this album - so I'll just shut up and offer up the music. Here for your Dias De Los Muertos listening pleasure, here's Wake Of The Flood: The Angel's Share, released by Rhino Records on August 18, 2023. This one's for all the Deadheads out there!
Enjoy, and... well, you know!
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
No long-winded Halloween stories this year; I couldn't think of any that were of any import or interest. But during the year, I gathered up a few more releases related to the holiday, and wanted to get a couple of them posted here before Friday - so here you are.
The first, These Ghoulish Things - Horror Hits For Halloween, was released in 2005. It contains some superb selections of horror rock from the Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll, between 1957 and 1964. Artists both renowned (like Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Bo Diddley) and obscure are featured here. But what makes this release unique is that it also contains several 1962 radio station plugs recorded by Mr. "Monster Mash" himself, Bobby "Boris" Pickett. In all, many of the tunes on this disc had never before been released on CD, making this an essential album for connoisseurs of this genre. Here's the lineup:
1 Radio Plug for Monster Mash on Station KFWB - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett 2 Screamin' Ball (At Dracula Hall) - the Duponts 3 Drac's Back - Billy Demarco & Count Dracula 4 Midnight Stroll - Revels 5 Ghost Train - Virgil Holmes 6 The Mummy's Ball - The Verdicts 7 Frankenstein's Den - The Hollywood Flames 8 I'm the Wolfman - Round Robin 9 Spooksville - The Nu-Trends 10 The Munster's Theme - Milton Delugg & the All-Stars 11 Coolest Little Monster - John Zacherle 12 Monster Party - Bill Dogett 13 The Creature (From Outer Space) - The Jayhawks 14 Mr. Were-Wolf - The Kac-Ties 15 Radio Station Promo for Bill Gavin - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett 16 My Son, the Vampire - Allan Sherman 17 The Monster - Bobby Please & the Pleasers 18 Theme from the Addams Family - The Fiends 19 Nightmare Mash - Billy Lee Riley 20 The Voo Doo Walk - Sonny Richard's Panics W/Cindy and Misty 21 Feast of the Mau Mau - Screamin' Jay Hawkins 22 Frankenstein's Party - The Swingin' Phillies 23 Legend of Sleepy Hollow - The Monotones 24 Bo Meets the Monster - Bo Diddley 25 Rockin' in the Graveyard - Jackie Morningstar 26 Radio Plug for Monster Mash on Station WCOP - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett 27 Monster Mash - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett 28 The Vampire - Orvin Yoes
The second one here, Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween, coming out a few years later, was a follow-up of sorts to These Ghoulish Things. All of the music on this album is from the same general time period as the earlier comp, i.e., late '50s/early '60s. Allmusic.com put together a great summation of this compilation that I really can't add much to or refute:
If you're looking for a non-run-of-the-mill soundtrack to your next Halloween party, this disc, and its predecessor, These Ghoulish Things: Horror Hits for Halloween,
should just about tide you over the first round of trick and treat. Devoted wholly to rock/horror novelties from the mid-'50s to the
mid-'60s, just a couple of these 25 tracks... were hits. And as a matter of fact, just a few of the other artists... will be familiar to the average knowledgeable rock fan. Since these
are essentially novelty songs, you might not feel much like pulling them
out on occasions other than Halloween, much like you only play
Christmas albums at a certain time of year.
The songs are longer on
novelty than musical value, but if nothing else, they're entertaining
relics of just how outrageously silly early rock & roll performers
(and labels) would get in search of a quick hit. Some of the songs, too,
are pretty strong in their own right, especially Sutch's "'Til the Following Night" (one of the best pre-Beatles rock & roll records from Britain), "Haunted House," and the Moontrekkers' instrumental "Night of the Vampire" (one of Joe Meek's best productions). It doesn't get much weirder than Gary "Spider" Webb's
"The Cave, Pt. 1," consisting mostly of a boy and a girl sporadically
calling out to each other in a cave as guitars twang and drums throb.
Beatles'
novelties, to stretch the thread more, don't get much weirder than Gene
Moss & the Monsters' "I Want to Bite Your Hand," issued in the wake
of the Fab Four's invasion of the U.S. For Cramps fans, there's the original version of "The Goo Goo Muck," as first heard on Ronnie Cook & the Gaylads' 1962 single.
Here's the track list for this one as well:
1 Dracula's Theme - The Ghouls 2 Til' The Following Night - Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages 3 Do The Zombie - The Symbols 4 Haunted House - Jumpin' Gene Simmons 5 Dinner With Drac - John Zacherle 6 The Goo Goo Muck - Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads 7 The Mad Scientist - Zanies 8 The Cave - Chuck Holden 9 Spooky Movies - Roy Clark 10 They're Here - Boots Walker 11 Black And Hairy - Screaming Lord Sutch 12 The Hearse - Terry Teen 13 Terrible Ivan - Art Roberts 14 Night Of The Vampire - The Moontrekkers 15 The Mummy - The Naturals 16 I Was A Teenage Creature - Lord Luther 17 The Cave - Gary 'Spider' Webb 18 The Cat - Rod Willis 19 Zombi - The Monotones 20 Alligator Wine - Screamin' Jay Hawkins 21 Morgus The Magnificent - Morgus & The Three Ghouls 22 Sleepy Hollow - The Last Word 23 Rockin' Zombie - The Crewnecks 24 I Want To Bite Your Hand - Gene Moss & The Monsters
So, that's that. For your enjoyment this holiday weekend, here are two superb and lauded Halloween-themed releases put out on the Ace Records label: These Ghoulish Things - Horror Hits For Halloween in 2005, and Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween in 2012. Have a spooky, scary, fun listen, and as always, let me know what you think.
Happy Halloween!
Please use the email links below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Various Artists - These Ghoulish Things - Horror Hits For Halloween: Send Email
Various Artists - Mostly Ghostly: More Horror for Halloween: Send Email
(Oh, and just in case you were wondering - yes, there WAS a recording of "The Cave, Pt. 2" by Gary Webb, a follow-up to the original. For the sake of completeness, here it is for your listening pleasure - however, you won't find it as being much of a variation of "Pt. 1":)
An old elementary school classmate of mine died a couple of weeks ago. I can't call him a "friend", per se, but he was an essential presence in my childhood experience.
I've mentioned in previous postings that my Navy officer dad's next duty station after the conclusion of our time in Wisconsin was serving as a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We arrived there that summer, and settled into a two-story townhouse in military housing across from one of the main academy gates, directly behind the neighborhood pool and adjacent to the neighborhood of West Annapolis.
West Annapolis is about a forty square block area, bounded by Rowe Boulevard to the south, Weems Creek to the west, the Severn River to the north, and government property along its eastern edge. The neighborhood is pretty much cut off from the rest of the city of Annapolis proper due to its proximity to said "government property" - namely, the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy and the adjacent housing areas for officers and their families stationed there, where I lived. As such, West Annapolis has over the decades developed a somewhat insular, go-it-alone stance among the longtime residents there, not mixing much with regular Annapolitans and maintaining a cool attitude towards the "interloping" military families living just on the other side of the old wooded Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad right-of-way.
However, the young children of area officers had to go to school somewhere. And since the Naval Academy Primary School, a K-through-5 private school located across the Severn at the Naval Station, had limited enrollment, for many years the majority of kids living in Arundel Estates and Perry Circle (the military housing areas) were required to attend local facilities, the first and closest one being West Annapolis Elementary School (WAES). So in 1974, that's where the majority of my siblings and I began our latest academic year.
For the most part, relations between the local youngsters and the relatively more transient military offspring at the school were tranquil. I know that some of the West Annapolis boys and girls considered many from my area as "rich kids" and elitist snobs (believe me, we were most decidedly not!), while some of my Navy acquaintances thought many of the locals were lower-class lowlifes (again, not remotely true). But in those years, that tranquility was constantly being roiled by one boy, Frederick, the Terror of West Annapolis.
Frederick (or "Freddie" as he was more commonly known) was a short, wiry redhead with a fiery temper and rock-hard fists that he seldom hesitated to make use of, if the situation called for it. He was a year behind me in grade; however, for a few years in the early/mid '70s, WAES administration decided to experiment with a new teaching approach whereby instead of having the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades in four separate classrooms, each classroom would contain a combination of ALL FOUR GRADES. So each individual teacher was were forced to provide instruction to all of the learning levels simultaneously, every day - which must have been a nightmare for them. In hindsight, it was a nutty idea, and I don't recall learning very much that year. WAES finally abandoned that practice before the 1970s ended, segregating the grades into separate classrooms, like most other schools in the nation do. But I went to school there through the brunt of this experimental period... and as 'luck' would have it, Freddie was one of my classmates.
Freddie's fearsome reputation, cultivated by classroom and schoolyard incidents that landed him in the Principal's office several times that year, and nurtured by juvenile word-of-mouth, was such that he became, in many of our minds, the pre-teen 'crime boss' and 'bete noire' of West Annapolis. Outside of attending school there, most Navy kids avoided the neighborhood, especially the area close by Freddie's house, lest they run afoul of "Freddie's gang" of area kids he reportedly controlled.
There used to be a little neighborhood store directly across the street from WAES, on the corner of Melvin Avenue and Annapolis Street about a block away from his home, called Waxman's Grocery. Mr. Waxman was the sour and crotchety proprietor of this old-fashioned one-room store, and he seemed to hate kids (many years later, I learned that Mr. Waxman's son, a WAES graduate, had been killed in Vietnam in his teens shortly after arriving over there as a new enlistee in the late 1960s... so it was then I began to understand Mr. Waxman's demeanor and feel some sympathy for him). Despite his cantankerous nature, children flocked to his shop after classes ended for the day, as Mr. Waxman stocked every brand and variety of popular candy then available - Atomic Fireballs, Mike & Ikes, Lemonheads, Pop Rocks, Marathon bars, Chunky Bars, you name it. The store owner was well aware of the individuals who kept him in business. The market was Ground Zero for the local Wacky Packages craze of the mid-70s; students would buy the packs by the dozen, trading the adhesive parody renditions of popular consumer products with others in the school or otherwise sticking them to their school folders and lockers.
Bubble Yum, the first soft chunk bubble gum, was released by LifeSavers (in limited quantities) in the Western U.S. in late 1974, and the company began a gradual national rollout later that year, with the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area serving as an early East Coast test market. When it initially appeared, it was shipped to only a few stores in our area in very small quantities, and Waxman's Grocery, with its proven track record of moving vast amounts of confectionery product, was one of the stores selected. When Freddie and his boys discovered this, they staked out Waxman's for hours on end, watching for the delivery trucks and, by their presence, "discouraging" (so to speak) non-neighborhood kids from going there. Freddie's gang would buy up every pack of Bubble Yum available, at 30 cents for a pack of five pieces, then take them to school and resell them to children craving the new gum for upwards of fifty cents to a dollar for each individual chunk. Those guys ended up making a small fortune that winter and spring, until increased product distribution and availability put Bubble Yum in more local stores. But for a long while, they were the preteen Gum Mafia.
As much as I've detailed the fearsome, threatening antics and actions of Freddie and his gang here, I did have some normal interactions with him from time to time. More that once, I recall heading over to West Annapolis to hang out and play with him and his friends, and during the winter he and his crew gathered with the Navy kids sledding down Suicide Hill directly adjacent to Perry Circle, the only decent place to slide in the immediate area. In our few playtimes, a sort of detente existed between us, as it does between kids. Still, Freddie would sometimes suggest we do activities that I wasn't comfortable with, such as shoplift sweets at the local 7-11. In those situations, I would demur, then try to quickly and quietly remove myself from his presence and head back home, as the unspoken threat of drawing the ire of "Freddie's gang" was always present.
The mid-70s period was a transitional period for music. AM radio fare, consisting of lite rock, novelty songs and other lightweight fare, still ruled the airwaves, but harder-edged punk, reggae and hard rock music was bubbling just below the surface, ready to break out. Songs that were giant hits and schoolyard favorites during that time included "Up In A Puff Of Smoke" by an obscure (for the U.S.) British singer named Polly Brown:
For some reason, this song was HUGE as WAES - never did much for me, though (in a related story, Polly Brown never had another charting song in America...).
Another massive song from that time was "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods:
Although the premise was hokey and overly sentimental (a young woman begs her love not to go off to war, but stay and marry her; he goes anyway and, of course, buys the farm in his first battle), this song still went to #1 in America in the summer of 1974, selling nearly four million copies. However, it was hated as much as it was loved, voted No. 8 on Rolling Stone magazine's readers' poll of "10 Worst Songs of the 1970s".
What I didn't know at the time was that this song was a remake of a British hit from earlier that year. Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods were an obscure group of journeymen from Ohio who hadn't had much success in the prior ten years of their music career, until they glommed on to "Billy, Don't Be A Hero", originally penned by a British group, Paper Lace, who took their version to the top of the UK charts just three months prior. Understandably pissed at seeing their thunder and stateside glory stolen by Bo Donaldson et al., Paper Lace quickly released their follow-up single, which made it to US #1 six weeks later that midsummer, the group's first (and only) American hit - "The Night Chicago Died":
Children couldn't get enough of songs like this back then!
The potential menace of Freddie and his gang overall did little to affect the fun times I had living there in Annapolis. There was a great group of kids on my street and up the hill in Perry Circle, and we were a close-knit bunch. We would all hang together at the pool on warm days, playing Marco Polo and basking in the sun. The winters were marked by building huge snow forts, from which we would choose sides and have intense snowball fights. There were birthday parties, slumber parties, football games, and expeditions into the restricted areas near Shady Lake or through the old Civil Defense tunnels and shelters under the apartments. During the holiday season, we would practice Christmas carols together, then put together a chorus and go door to door singing to our neighbors. Or we would head over across the street through the Naval Academy gates, to play baseball on the diamonds there, hang out on the platforms and structures of the old Academy obstacle course on Hospital Point, or try to sneak into the "Midshipmen/Authorized Staff Only" areas throughout the Yard.
After years of requests, I was finally awarded the paper route in my neighborhood, delivering the Evening Capital each night after I got home from school (I was one of the paper's youngest newsboys). I worked that route like a dog, doubling the subscriptions on my street inside of a few months, and by Christmas that year I was making a fortune (well, a relative fortune for a preteen in the 1970s). The Evening Capital provided me with a few extra over-the-shoulder newsbags, and there were always a few extra papers in my stack each day. So with them, my friends and I devised a game called Dogfight: each of us would have a bag filled with newspapers tightly wrapped with rubber bands, then we would get on our bikes and ride circles around each other in a big field, whipping papers at other riders to see who we could knock off! Sounds kinda brutal now... but it was a very fun, looked-forward-to activity, and I never recall anyone getting seriously hurt.
Great memories.
Freddie and I weren't close friends, only casual acquaintances at best, and I didn't keep in close contact with him after I left elementary school and moved on to Bates Junior High across town the next year. I would, however, continue to hear stories about him from some of my younger friends who still attended WAES - from all reports, his attitude and demeanor didn't change an iota. And after my family left Maryland in the late 1970s, he all but completely faded off of my radar. I learned more about him in recent years through my contact via Facebook with his older brother, who I didn't know at all back during my Annapolis childhood but got to know later. Through him, I learned that after Freddie left high school, he served a short stint as an enlisted Navy man, then quickly returned to the Annapolis area, where for decades he worked as a local handyman and house painter.
My lone interaction with Freddie since the end of our school days together occurred a couple of years ago, when I repeated to his brother a funny (and probably apocryphal) story about a practical joke Freddie reputedly played on one of his West Annapolis cronies, that quickly made the schoolyard rounds. Freddie fired off a blistering response through his brother's thread, angrily denying the legend and castigating me up and down for even INSINUATING that it was true. Mind you, I was retelling the tale of a harmless and minor childhood prank that allegedly occurred... but still, almost fifty years later, it managed to set him off. Apparently, some things - and some people - never change. Freddie's brother is friendly, stable and accomplished, and managed to put together a pretty good life for himself and his family - in other words, the complete opposite of Freddie.
So, as such, I don't have any particularly deep feeling of loss regarding Freddie's demise - he was a bully, and sort of a dick, and from all reports and indications remained so up to his dying day. I wasn't the only one with this reaction; for decades, I've remained in close contact with several of my old Arundel Estates childhood friends. Their feelings on Freddie's death can be summarized in a single comment one of them made to me: "He was the 'bogeyman' for a lot of kids back then." Can't really refute that assessment.
With that being said, Freddie was an integral part of that fondly remembered time and place in my life, and his presence and actions have done little to obscure the happy times I recall living in Annapolis as a child (prior to my return there as a Naval Academy midshipmen almost a decade later). If anything, Freddie was like a grain of sand in an oyster shell - an irritant whose presence still ended up creating something lasting and cherished.
So, in honor of his passing, and in homage to that time, here are a few music compilations from that period that will give you a sense of what was being listened to in the mid-70s. These are part of a forty-volume(!) series of recordings released by Time-Life Music between 1989 and 1999, covering the entirety of the 1970s. I only picked up a few of these, since I had other compilations that covered this same general time period. But the ones provided here, covering 1974 and 1975, are an excellent summation of music from that time.
In case you're wondering, here's the lineup:
Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974:
Can't Get Enough – Bad Company
Show and Tell – Al Wilson
Come and Get Your Love – Redbone
I Shot the Sheriff – Eric Clapton
Help Me – Joni Mitchell
I Can Help – Billy Swan
Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy) – Al Green
Rock the Boat – The Hues Corporation
Bennie and the Jets – Elton John
Midnight Rider – Gregg Allman
Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Loco-Motion – Grand Funk Railroad
Smokin' in the Boys' Room – Brownsville Station
Rikki Don't Lose That Number – Steely Dan
Rock On – David Essex
Midnight at the Oasis – Maria Muldaur
Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
Keep on Smilin' – Wet Willie
Then Came You – Dionne Warwick & The Spinners
The Bitch Is Back – Elton John
Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974 - Take Two:
Lookin' for a Love – Bobby Womack
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
The Joker – Steve Miller Band
Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do) – Aretha Franklin
Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe – Barry White
Mockingbird – Carly Simon with James Taylor
I've Got to Use My Imagination – Gladys Knight & The Pips
Sundown – Gordon Lightfoot
Everlasting Love – Carl Carlton
Shinin' On – Grand Funk Railroad
Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer
Takin' Care of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Rock Your Baby – George McCrae
Sideshow – Blue Magic
Haven't Got Time for the Pain – Carly Simon
Tin Man – America
Dancing Machine – Jackson Five
Jungle Boogie – Kool & the Gang
Nothing from Nothing – Billy Preston
I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song – Jim Croce
Radar Love – Golden Earring
Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975:
You're No Good – Linda Ronstadt
Jackie Blue – Ozark Mountain Daredevils
That's the Way (I Like It) – KC & the Sunshine Band
Must of Got Lost – J. Geils Band
Why Can't We Be Friends? – War
Sister Golden Hair – America
Philadelphia Freedom – Elton John
Black Water – Doobie Brothers
Love Is a Rose – Linda Ronstadt
How Long – Ace
Dance with Me – Orleans
Free Bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
You Are So Beautiful – Joe Cocker
Feel Like Makin' Love – Bad Company
Lady Marmalade – Labelle
Pick Up the Pieces – Average White Band
Island Girl – Elton John
Some Kind of Wonderful – Grand Funk Railroad
The Hustle – Van McCoy & Soul City Symphony
Let's Do It Again – Staple Singers
Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975 - Take Two:
When Will I Be Loved – Linda Ronstadt
Bad Time – Grand Funk Railroad
Roll On Down the Highway – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Movin' On – Bad Company
Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) – The Doobie Brother
They Just Can't Stop It (The Games People Play) – The Spinners
L-O-V-E (Love) – Al Green
Shining Star – Earth, Wind & Fire
Get Down Tonight – KC & the Sunshine Band
I'm on Fire – Dwight Twilley
SOS – ABBA
Shame, Shame, Shame – Shirley & Company
Cut the Cake – Average White Band
You're the First, the Last, My Everything – Barry White
Low Rider – War
Fight the Power (Part 1 & 2) – Isley Brothers
Bungle in the Jungle – Jethro Tull
Only Women Bleed – Alice Cooper
Can't Get It Out of My Head – Electric Light Orchestra
Poetry Man – Phoebe Snow
I'm Not in Love – 10CC
Enjoy these discs, released in 1990 and 1991 (for the "Take Two" versions), and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email links below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974: Send Email
Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975: Send Email
Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974 - Take Two: Send Email
Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975 - Take Two: Send Email
Sixty years to the day since The Beatles played Shea Stadium in New York on their second American tour... hard to fathom that it's been THAT long since that watershed moment in rock history.
I was going to pen one of my extended screeds in celebration of and in relation to this day... but it appears that Rolling Stone magazine beat me to it. I don't think I can improve upon this article, which contains the following summation:
"...Shea was more than just the first high-profile stadium concert. It
showed everyone how huge, untamable, crazed pop music could be. It
destroyed the hopes of everyone who still thought the Beatles — and
their young female audience — were just a passing fad, which was still
the conventional adult wisdom in 1965. The Fabs couldn’t be dismissed
anymore, and neither could the girls. It shattered all the cliches about
how show-biz was supposed to work. Never before had that many humans
joined together in one place to celebrate music — and on a deeper level,
to celebrate each other. That’s why “Shea Stadium” is still the
two-word code for the culmination of pop dreams at their loudest,
lustiest, scariest, and most deranged."
Can't add much else to this phrase, or the overall writeup in general... so I'll just shut up and provide the music!
I was thinking about posting the venerable Purple Chick Sheaken Not Stirred two-disc set - but I think that the one offered here is better. Here's the Shea! Stadium Ultra Deluxe set, a fan-generated compilation that popped up on a Beatles bootleg site a couple of years ago. This set features the ENTIRE concert, with music from opening acts including King Curtis, Brenda Holloway, Sounds Incorporated and Cannibal & The Headhunters; 1991 stereo versions and 2003 remix/remastering of the Fab Four's set; and bonus tracks.
And speaking of bonuses...
Knowing that the Shea Stadium show was going to be a big deal, NEMS Enterprises (band manager Brian Epstein's holding company) and Sullivan Productions (television host and show presenter Ed Sullivan's firm) arranged for the concert to be intensively documented on film. More than a dozen cameras were deployed in and around the stadium and backstage to capture the frenzy of the moment. The hours of tape generated were then edited down to a fifty-minute-long documentary, The Beatles At Shea Stadium, which premiered in England in early 1966, but not shown in America until January 1967.
The Beatles At Shea Stadium should not be considered a "true documentary", however. A couple of songs played that night were not included due to concerns about the film's length. The remaining songs were heavily edited.in post-production - some being overdubbed, and a couple replaced with studio versions already existing on record or rerecorded by The Beatles at a London session in early January 1966. The Shea! Stadium Ultra Deluxe set includes the soundtrack from this movie (in mono format)... and I included the film here as well, for your review and amusement.
So, again, for this post, I'm providing:
Shea! Stadium Ultra Deluxe, a five-disc bootleg set released in 2023; and
The Beatles At Shea Stadium concert film, released to television and theaters in 1966
I hope these offerings help you to either relive or experience for the first time the revelry, euphoria and hysteria from one of the landmark shows in music history! Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
The Beatles- Shea! Stadium Ultra Deluxe (5-disc set): Send Email
The Beatles - The Beatles At Shea Stadium: Send Email
R.I.P. to the great Brian Wilson... a true visionary, innovator and musical genius who with his group The Beach Boys, in my opinion, saved American rock - and indeed rock music as a whole - in the early sixties after the demise/sidelining of some of the genre's early stars (Buddy Holly, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, etc., as I mentioned here earlier). Wilson used his deep musical knowledge and melodic sense to craft, at first, seemingly simple but sonically advanced anthems to the beach life and culture of Southern California, then began to expand his musical palette and subject areas into more intense, personal areas and compositions. He put every iota of his being into his search for crafting the perfect pop song, miniature "teenage symphonies to God". It's an open debate as to whether this intensity of focus was the cause of his subsequent mental breakdowns, or if tensions and situations outside of music (such as drug abuse, or his relationship with his father and early band manager Murry Wilson) were the reason. But Brian Wilson LIVED, FELT, and SAW music... clearer than almost anyone else.
In regards to his celebrated output, many reviewers and critics reference Smile, The Beach Boys' unfinished 1967 concept album, as Wilson's peak. However, I feel that the praise regarding Smile is somewhat overblown, heavily influenced by its aura of being a "legendary" 'lost" album (true, the original album sessions were finally released in 2011 as a multi-disc box set that included an approximation of what the finished album would have sounded like... but in my opinion, it's not quite the same thing as having the thing appear in its proper time and place back in the 1960s).
For my money, however, Brian Wilson's magnum opus was and will always be Pet Sounds, released in 1966. Although ostensibly a Beach Boys album, Wilson was the sole producer and arranger, and primary composer (along with guest lyrical collaborator (and ad man/jingle writer) Tony Asher) of every song on the disc. Brian put his heart and soul into this release; he basically considered Pet Sounds to be a solo album - reportedly, somewhat to the chagrin of his bandmates, who generally weren't consulted regarding compositions and lyrics, instead being presented with completed arrangements they were expected to follow explicitly.
Although the album met with "meh" reviews and middling sales in the U.S., Pet Sounds was lauded by critics in the U.K., and was a major hit over in England, reaching #2 on the national charts and remaining in the English Top Ten for over six months. Eventually, critics around the world caught up with what was heard and felt about this album in Britain. Today, Pet Sounds is widely recognized as an innovative, groundbreaking, revolutionary rock release, and is considered one of, if not THE, greatest album of all time (currently #2 on the Rolling Stone 500).
I distinctly remember purchasing my copy of this album at a record store in Austin, Texas in the late '90s, while on a road trip to that city. Strangely, despite my voluminous music collection even back then, I had yet to add this one to my stacks. As such, that day on the road in Central Texas, for some reason I was COMPELLED to acquire this album IMMEDIATELY, and went out of my way to find a local music store that carried it. And after all these years, I still love the music it contains. I consider "God Only Knows" to be one of the greatest, most beautiful songs ever composed.
Call me crazy... but I am convinced that, should the Earth come to an end hundreds of millions of years from now, on the day it occurs at least one of our successors (whether humanoid or not) will be listening to this song on the way out.
1997 saw the release of The Pet Sounds Sessions, containing detailed excerpts of the recording sessions and remastered mono and stereo mixes of the original album. The original plan was that Sessions was to have been released in May 1996 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Pet Sounds. But Beach Boys vocalist Mike Love took exception to the box set's planned liner notes, which he felt diminished what he claimed was his more active involvement in the making of the original album (an observation and attitude that, for all intents and purposes, existed solely in his own head...). So modifications were made to Sessions' essays to include Love's self-serving and generally nonfactual comments, which delayed the set hitting store shelves by eighteen months.
Allmusic provides this review of the set:
"Part of the fascination with Pet Sounds
lies in its detailed, multi-layered arrangements, in which all the
parts blend together into a symphonic whole. The richness of the music
is one of the reasons hardcore fans have desired a set like The Pet
Sounds Sessions, a four-disc box that presents an abundance of working
mixes, alternate takes, instrumental tracks, and rarities, as well as
the first true stereo mix of the album. Certainly, a set this exacting
is only of interest to serious fans, and even they might find the
endless succession of work tracks tedious. Nevertheless, there's
something fascinating about hearing the album broken down to its
individual parts; after hearing horn lines, vocals, and percussion
tracks out of their original context, the scope and originality of Brian Wilson's vision becomes all the more impressive."
'Nuff said.
So in memory of the late, great Brian Wilson, who passed away earlier today, I hereby provide you with The Pet Sound Sessions, a four-disc compilation of alternate mixes, instrumental track, isolated vocals, and other pieces and parts that made up the whole of one of the most influential and celebrated rock albums in history, released by Capitol Records on November 4th, 1997. Have a listen and revel once again in Brian's genius... and, as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
[I've been writing this doggone post off and on for over two years now... could never seem to find a time to finish it before the holiday, so I kept holding it over. Finally time to put this one to bed!]
It’s that time of year again - time to me to settle in on cold winter evenings and enjoy one of the many, many holiday movies, cartoons, specials and extravaganzas dedicated to and associated with the Christmas season... with a few exceptions, as noted below.
My Christmas go-to shows have always included the old Rankin-Bass
stop-motion animation specials that I first saw as a kid and still enjoy
to this day - not only the early ones like Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (a timeless classic) and Frosty The Snowman, but later productions like Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town and The Year Without A Santa Claus (which presented the immortal Heat Miser and Cold Miser) (I'm not a big fan of their '60s special The Little Drummer Boy,
however - probably because the title character in the story is such a
mopey, whiny little bitch...). And of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas
rates high on the holiday "must-see" list.
In regards to longer-form holiday narratives (i.e., Christmas movies), I personally have never had much use for or interest in the plethora of holiday movies that the Hallmark Channel inundates the airwaves with every year - in my mind, they all seem to have the same basic plot: cold, spiritless, workaholic guy/girl gets into a situation that removes him/her from the hectic, unfeeling city/palace/posh life to a more warm and rustic location, where gradually he/she finds love, happiness, and the true spirit and magic of Christmas dwelling in the hearts and lives of the people he/she is thrust upon and made to interact with. It's the same old formula, time and time again (summed up in this this hilarious (but spot-on) article from a few years ago, "Every 2020 Hallmark Christmas Movie Has One of Twelve Plots"). That hasn't stopped Hallmark from cranking these cliched flicks out over and over - I read somewhere recently that the channel was releasing FORTY-TWO "new" ones this year along alone, on top of the thirty-one premieres last year, and the scores of others released in the years prior to that.
Lord have mercy. Enough already!
The period films I like during this time of year are things like the original Miracle on 34th Street from 1947 (were you aware that this movie not only was nominated for Best Picture at that year's Academy Awards, but Edmund Gwenn, who played Santa Claus, won Best Supporting Actor?) and the immortal It's A Wonderful Life. And I've recently gotten into another classic Hollywood musical, White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye; it's fairly enjoyable, although I still cringe inwardly during the scenes when the duo fondly reminisce in song about the "good ol' minstrel show days"...
But for me, the holiday story that stands the test of time over and over again is Charles Dickens' archetypal yuletide yarn A Christmas Carol. There have been seemingly dozens of versions of this tale committed to film, starring the likes of Reginald Owen, Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, George C. Scott, etc., etc. All of these takes have their proponents, and rightfully so; Dickens' story is so well-written, that it's almost impossible to make a bad movie of it. But if you were to watch just one Christmas Carol this year, which would it
be?
In my mind, a good case could be made for — believe it or not — Mr. Magoo’s Christmas
Carol, starring the voice of Jim Backus as the comically myopic Quincy Magoo.
Not merely a superior musical version, it is a pioneer among animated Christmas
traditions. Before Charlie Brown, before the
Grinch, and even before Rudolph, Magoo
was the go-to Christmas special everyone watched. In fact, it is considered the FIRST animated holiday television special.
But before we go into the show itself, let's start with a not-so-brief history of the production arm that ended up producing this classic.
United Productions of America (UPA) origins began at the Walt Disney studio in the late 1930s and early 1940s. During that time, as Disney expanded into feature films beginning with Snow White, he rapidly expanded his staff with young art school graduates who were generally more progressive and artistically aware than the older, more established, but generally less academically trained bullpen of Disney animators. This led to a schism between the "anti-art", "we owe Walt for where we are" old-timers and the change-oriented, Depression-era molded newcomers who had fewer stars in their eyes about Walt's influence and importance.
This schism came to a head during the infamous Disney animators' strike in the spring of 1941, a result of Disney's resistance to the progressive employees' attempt to form a union. Walt responded to the strike by firing many of his animators (although he eventually was pressured into reinstating some of them and recognizing the new union, the Screen Cartoonists Guild). Many of these fired employees found new positions with other studios (for instance, Frank Tashlin was given creative control of the Screen Gems studio and hired practically his entire staff off of the Disney picket line) or struck out on their own, doing freelance work (safety filmstrips and the like) for industrial corporations.
Shortly after their voluntary exodus from the studio, two former Disneyites, Zach Schwartz (then at Screen Gems) and David Hilberman (with Graphic Films), began renting a small space in a Los Angeles warehouse where they could paint in their spare time. Another former Disney colleague of theirs, Stephen Bosustow, was working in design at Hughes Aircraft. Bosustow convinced his superiors at Hughes to commission a filmstrip on safety, and he brought the idea to Graphic Films - but Graphic turned the job down. Hilberman then talked his way into doing the job with his partner Schwartz, and the resulting product was well-received by the corporation. The three men then formed a loose partnership, calling themselves Industrial Film & Poster Service, and began seeking other production work.
Around that time, the United Auto Workers (UAW) began considering sponsoring a pro-Roosevelt campaign film in the run-up to the 1944 general election. The union got in touch with the Screen Cartoonists Guild, and members of that organization put together a storyboard and began shopping it around to various studio animation production houses. But due to its political content, no major studio would touch it. As a last resort, the unions approached Schwartz, Bosustow and Hilberman's tiny shop to see if they could handle the job. They were awarded the contract for the film, called Hell Bent For Election, in January 1944, with the caveat that it be completed by that August, just six months away.
Overnight, their little warehouse hideaway became a beehive of activity, as all of the trio's friends and professional colleagues heard about what they were doing and ran to help - some working their regular jobs in animation during the day, then spending all night moonlighting on this exciting project. Most of them worked for free, including director Chuck Jones, musician Earl Robinson and lyricist "Yip" Harburg (of The Wizard Of Oz fame). The resulting film was stylish, modern, and a bold move away from "Disney-style" animation. It was also a great success with the UAW. Here it is:
After Hell Bent For Election, the little studio began receiving steady commissions for work on industrial and government films and slides, and started building a full-time staff of animators (including names revered in cartoon history to this day, including John Hubley, Bobe Cannon and Bill Hurtz). It was also around this time that it was decided that the name of the company should change from Industrial Film & Poster Service to United Productions of America, or UPA for short. The new concern was established as a three-way partnership, with Schwartz, Hilberman and Bosustow all owning equal shares. However, by 1946, the partners had a falling out, resulting in Schwartz and Hilberman selling out their interests in the company, making Bosustow initially the sole, then later (as he parceled out shares to key staff) majority shareholder in UPA.
It was also in the late 1940s that UPA took over Columbia Pictures animation duties out from under Screen Gems; Columbia had been dissatisfied for years with the Screen Gems product and was looking to make a change, provided that UPA continue using the studio's signature characters, the Fox and Crow. The new cartoon studio produced two releases with the characters: 1948's Robin Hoodlum and 1949's The Magic Fluke. Both were well received by Columbia, and both were nominated for Oscars for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) in subsequent years. But UPA wanted to get away from "funny animal" cartoons and begin creating its own characters. In the spring of 1949, they proposed a story that Columbia reluctantly accepted, only because the short had an animal in it, as well as a human character. The cartoon was titled Ragtime Bear, released in September 1949, and the star of the film was the curmudgeonly, near-sighted Mr. Magoo, featuring the voice of character actor Jim Backus:
Mr. Magoo was UPA's first successful series (six more Magoos were rapidly produced in the following year), but the film that made the studio a household word and put them in the forefront of the "animation as art" movement was Gerald McBoing Boing, released in January 1951.
With Gerald McBoing Boing, UPA made a clean break from Disney-style animation, and reviewers and the public noticed and approved. From a Time magazine piece in February 1951:
"Everything about the film is simple but highly stylized: bold line drawings, understated motion, striking color and airy design in the spirit of modern poster art, caricatured movements and backgrounds as well as figures... In his own way, [little Gerald's] 'Boing!' may prove as resounding as the first peep out of Mickey Mouse."
Gerald won similar raves from newspapers, highbrow critics and film trade reporters. And that spring, the cartoon won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject, UPA's first Oscar.
The praise and popular success the studio received for Gerald McBoing Boing and the early Magoo cartoons carried through for several years, and kept UPA a dynamic and financially-viable concern. Columbia increased their budget per short by more than 25 percent, to almost $35,000 each, an amount that UPA sorely needed; the firm was run by artists committed to putting a quality product up on screen. Few UPA staff members were budget-oriented; they were film-oriented. As such, the extra money was used to refine and enhance what seemed to outsiders to be "simple" drawings and "limited" animation, but didn't lead to any increased profitability in the company.
However, this approach led to some remarkable releases in the mid-1950s, including a delicate adaptation of Ludwig Bemelmans' popular children's story Madeline (1952); the amazing Rooty Toot Toot (also in 1952; still one of the best-known and remembered UPA cartoons); a faithful reproduction of James Thurber's distinctive drawing style for 1953's A Unicorn In The Garden; and a striking and disturbing version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, also in 1953 (I remember seeing this one in junior high school English class, and it made a deep impression on me at the time). The Magoo series, however, was the studio's bread and butter, and UPA continued to churn out shorts featuring the character (while also toning down/softening much of his cantankerous ways), in the last half of that decade producing six to eight Magoo shorts a year. Despite the increase in volume, these cartoons did not lack for quality; in fact, two Magoo shorts - When Magoo Flew in 1954 and Magoo's Puddle Jumper in 1956 - both won Academy Awards in their respective years.
UPA established a satellite studio in New York in the early 1950s to handle exclusively commercial and nontheatrical work, and initially it was very successful, as businesses were eager to work with an Academy Award-winning company. The commercial studio's biggest triumph was the Bert & Harry Piel beer commercial campaign, featuring the voices of radio greats Bob & Ray. The New York office was so successful, in fact, that much of its profits were siphoned off to keep the theatrical division of UPA afloat (seems that that $35,000 budget increase from Columbia still wasn't covering costs).
However, by the late 1950s, the wheels were starting to come off of at UPA. In 1956, CBS Television commissioned The Gerald McBoing Boing Show, the very first Saturday morning program made especially for network TV. By agreeing to it, the studio committed to producing much more animation than had ever been put out at any one time, and required an immediate hiring frenzy. The resulting show, a mixture of old UPA cartoons and new bits, came off as disjointed, 'soft' and generally unfunny, but it managed to air for two years before CBS pulled the plug. It was also around this period that the New York office, inundated by competition for commercial work, closed its doors, shortly after an ambitious but poorly-conceived London branch was established and also failed within a year.
1958 was also the year work began on a Magoo feature film. There had been talk regarding an animated feature ever since the early award-winning years at the studio, but Columbia would not commit to financing any of UPA's ideas, which included adaptations of Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore, Ben Jonson's Volpone, and/or Cervantes' Don Quixote (all of which, frankly, were probably too highbrow for Columbia executives to understand or grasp). Finally that year, Columbia provided the funds to animate a version of The Arabian Nights. Production of 1001 Arabian Nights did not go smoothly - the director quarreled with Bosustow and quit, resulting in a frantic search for a viable replacement (the job went to Disney veteran Jack Kinney). And there were issues with the story - Mr. Magoo's character was sort of shoehorned into the tale of Aladdin, and he comes off as inconsequential and tangential. The film was released in late 1959 to lackluster reviews and tepid box office, and failed to recoup back Columbia's investment.
By the time of the feature film's release, many of the main/founding staff of UPA had by then left the company to create their own studios, including Format Films (future producers of The Alvin Show) and Jay Ward Productions (producers of the hilarious Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons for television). Bosustow saw the handwriting on the wall, and in 1960 he sold his controlling interest in UPA and rights to all characters to producer Henry G. Saperstein.
Saperstein was a longtime cinema owner/operator who had branched out into tie-in/licensed of merchandising of Western TV characters like Wyatt Earp and Roy Rogers, and entertainment personalities such as Rosemary Clooney, The Three Stooges and Elvis Presley. As such, he showed little concern or regard for the artistic pretensions and commitment to perfection of the old UPA; he was just interested in utilizing the remaining staff to churn out as much product as possible, milking the studio's established characters and his animators' talents for all they were worth. Saperstein quickly entered the TV market, producing a Mr. Magoo series for NBC in late 1960 and a syndicated Dick Tracy series in early 1961. The studio cranked out more than 125 episodes of each program over the next two years, destroying the last vestiges of UPA's once renowned reputation for quality - these shows made the contemporary Hanna-Barbera product look lavish by comparison.
But Saperstein and UPA still made one last stab at repairing/retaining their artistic mojo with critics and the public. The studio prepared two major releases for late 1962. The first, Gay Purr-ee, a tale of a feline's adventures in Paris in the late 19th century and featuring the voices of Judy Garland and Robert Goulet, was released to theaters on December 17th of that year. The very next day, the second production, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, made its television debut on NBC. While Gay Purr-ee was critically savaged for both its animation style and story (one magazine's review felt that the film's subject matter was too sophisticated for an
animated film, drily noting that its target audience seemed to be "the
fey four-year-old of recherché taste") and an outright box-office failure, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol was immediately hailed as a classic, a reputation which has lived on to this day.
The following is excepted from a 2012 New York Times article celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the venerable program:
At the time [of its debut] “Magoo” was a big enough event to warrant extensive
and positive media coverage. As soon as it was over Walt Disney telephoned Mr.
Orgel [the show's producer] to tell him, “Not only is this generation going to watch it, but your
children, your children’s children and your children’s children’s children will
watch this show.”...
“It has the quality of a cozy quilt,” said Adam Abraham, author
of When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA (Wesleyan
University Press). “It’s like figurines of your imagination playing out a very
familiar story against a dreamlike Victorian design.”
“Magoo” is hardly definitive Dickens. Much of the original tale,
especially the entire subplot of Scrooge’s relationship with his nephew, Fred,
was cut to fit the 60-minute running time. For no apparent reason the Ghost of
Christmas Present precedes the Ghost of Christmas Past.
“Magoo” also offers a curious framing device whereby the whole
story is treated as a Broadway production, with Magoo as an actor portraying
Scrooge. The producer, Lee Orgel, feared that audiences wouldn’t accept Magoo
being plucked out of his cartoon context and plopped into the 19th century
without explanation. In retrospect this concern seems absurd. But the result is still good enough to have lasted 50 years.
Alas, the success of the Magoo special wasn't enough to save UPA. Saperstein gradually wound down animation production during the 1960s, finally shuttering the cartoon studio in 1970, and he also sold off the studio library of films (which shrewdly retaining the rights to Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing and other characters). The studio then entered into a partnership with Toho Co., Ltd. of Japan, and for the following decade helped distribute the firm's "Giant Monster" movies in the States. After Saperstein died in 1998, his family sold off what remained of UPA two years later. Thus closed the saga of a once-innovative and ground-breaking studio.
Throughout the 1960s, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol was a network staple, appearing on NBC every year until 1969. The show then entered syndication, and for the next couple of decades you had to be lucky enough to catch it on one of your local stations... That's how I came upon the program - I was browsing the stations as a kid one December, stumbled across it, and was immediately charmed, so much so that for every year afterward, I made an effort to track down when and where the cartoon would be played. The show moved to cable TV in the '90s. However, to mark the program's golden anniversary, NBC presented it in 2012, its first prime-time network appearance
in decades.
A lot of the greatness inherent in Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol lies in the excellent songs created for the show by the celebrated Broadway composers and lyricists Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, who between them provided the music for the stage hits Carnival!, Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Funny Girl, and penned such classics as "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "(How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window?" and "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked A Cake". Again, from the NYT 2012 article:
The magic of “Magoo” begins with rich songs by Jule Styne and
Bob Merrill. “Ringle Ringle,” a celebration of money, and “The Lord’s Bright
Blessing,” about the true meaning of Christmas, might easily have worked for a
live-action staging.
“Styne and Merrill really understood the characters and brought
them to the surface,” said Darrell Van Citters, author of “Mister Magoo’s
Christmas Carol: The Making of the First Animated Christmas Special” (Oxberry
Press).
One song in particular underscores this mature sensibility: “Winter
Was Warm,” the lament of Scrooge’s former love, Belle, over how he lost her to
his pursuit of wealth. Mr. Van Citters calls this number “the story’s emotional
core.”
The showstopping number “We’re
Despicable,” a grotesque march of the human maggots who plunder the dead Scrooge’s
estate, features goofy lyrics like “We’re reprehensible/We’ll steal your
pen/And pencible.”
(For years, it was rumored that the song "People" from the musical Funny Girl, a huge hit for production star Barbra Streisand in 1964, was originally written by Styne and Merrill for inclusion in Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. But both composers denied this in their memoirs.)
The music in Magoo... is SO superb, in fact, that it's somewhat surprising that no official soundtrack was ever released by any label. These songs by the two honored composers were slated to be lost Christmas classics, appearing only during rare broadcasts of the program. But in 2010, intrepid individuals released bootleg copies of tunes from the show. It wasn't done in a technically sophisticated manner; they basically just copied the overall narrative/soundtrack into audio and separated/sequenced the tracks. Still, it's nice to have this music available.
So here for your holiday listening pleasure is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, the unofficial soundtrack of the now sixty-two year old(!) program. Enjoy some woofle-berry cake and razzleberry dressing this holiday with your family and friends! And, as always, let me know what you think.
God bless you, every one! Expect more to come here in 2025.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Can you BELIEVE this TV Christmas special is FIFTY YEARS OLD today? Out of all the holiday specials released by producers Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass from the early '60s to the late '80, this show is, in my opinion, part of the great triumvirate of classic Rankin/Bass productions, along with 1964's Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and 1969's Frosty The Snowman. When I was young, I always looked forward to seeing this one the most (to be honest, I always found Frosty to be a little annoying, as the main character seemed borderline mentally impaired - and having Jimmy Durante as the narrator seemed sort of an odd choice to me... Rudolph is redeemed by the presence of the great Yukon Cornelius and the Burl Ives snowman character).
This program is chock-full of beloved scenes and songs... probably none more memorable than the outstanding Snow Miser introduction and song, performed by the great Dick Shawn::
(that little cymbal 'stinger' that plays as Snow Miser sits in his chair has ALWAYS had a special place in my heart!)
Not to be outdone by his brother Heat Miser's entrance:
I was going to put together a longer, more detailed writeup regarding this show's golden anniversary... (un)fortunately, People Magazine already beat me to it - I can add nothing further to this story, located here.
Unlike a couple of other Rankin/Bass Christmas specials (including Frosty, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, and 'Twas The Night Before Christmas), no official soundtrack for this program was ever produced. However, over the years, a number of bootleg versions of the tunes from this show, culled from the audio track, have been released. Here's the lineup of songs provided here:
1. Leroy Anderson - Sleigh Ride (Instrumental)
2. The Wee Winter Singers - The Year Without A Santa Claus
3. Shirley Booth - I Could Be Santa Claus 4. Ron Marshall & Mickey Rooney - I Believe In Santa Claus 5. Ron Marshall (ft. The Wee Winter Singers) - It’s Gonna Snow Right Here In Dixie 6. Dick Shawn - The Snow Miser Song 7. George S. Irving - The Heat Miser Song 8. Christine Winter - Blue Christmas 9. The Wee Winter Singers - Here Comes Santa Claus
10. Mickey Rooney – There'll Be No Year Without A Santa Claus
11. The Wee Winter Singers - The Year Without A Santa Claus
So here for your listening pleasure is the unofficial soundtrack to The Year Without A Santa Claus, originally released in 1974. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Saying "Thanks" for the music you receive from here costs you absolutely nothing, and yet is worth quite a bit to me… If you can't bother leaving a comment on this blog for the first album/set we send you, don't bother making a request For a second album…
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