This is an augmented 2020 repost (I added three more numbers) featuring six selections from the 1974 J.C. Penney box set, The Unforgettable Years (specifically, the "Dance Time Discotheque" side--which, like the rest of the set, features '60s-era material), and 18 from the 1968 boxed set Young and Warm and Wonderful, another Columbia label mail-order set (This time, "a product of Columbia Musical Treasuries").
And my main reason for reviving this post was my nostalgia for (and wish to reshare) the "Dance Time Discotheque" selections: Delightful big band treatments, much like Enoch Light's on Command and Si Zentner's on RCA, only minus any credit. My favorite: Downtown, whose arrangement pleases me to no end, with Satisfaction's a close second. Despite the 1974 release date, it's hard to imagine this session not occurring during the '60s. As to what Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goodbye) is doing here, I can't begin to guess, but it's well done, so what the heck. The remaining 114 (!) Unforgettable Years selections didn't make the cut, though I almost included Blowin' in the Wind and Mr. Tambourine Man from the "Folk Festival" disc. However, those are done in a silly, sing-along "hootenanny" style--plus, they're in rough shape. No great loss.
Next, from the seven-disc Young and Warm and Wonderful, we start with the New Dance Band, which gives us Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, This Guy's in Love With You, Yesterday, and three more. I'd have included California Dreaming, but that track is marred by distortion (either an instance of needle damage or a pressing flaw).
And I ripped all but two of the eleven selections by the In Group (I banished Misty, which--imo-doesn't belong with Land of 1000 Dances and Respect, while I can live without Hang On Sloopy in any version), and they are very much in the "fake" hit/sound-alike category (we could call them authentic fake hits)--and each very well done. Light My Fire, it should be noted, copies the excellent Jose Feliciano version, though an imitation-Doors knockoff might have been interesting. All would work nicely for my "Lee's Fake Hits" YouTube channel, except that they're not contemporaneous knockoffs. That's one of my rules.
There's also the International Hits Orchestra (another likely-sounding appellation) with the world's worst fake of It's Not Unusual, along with superior sound-alikes of Don't Sleep in the Subway and Downtown. Winchester Cathedral is an instrumental cover--and quite good. As opposed to the Starlight Strings' Alfie and Strangers in the Night, two of my all-time favorite numbers, but rendered (even by easy-listening standards) indifferently. Both seemed like can't-miss tracks, but... they missed.
A nice mix of fake hits and instrumental hit parade covers--all from Columbia House. A mail-order special.
UNKNOWN ARTIST
Downtown
I Want to Hold Your Hand
I'm Telling You Now
Satisfaction
She Loves You
Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goodbye)
The Unforgettable Years: Dance Time Discotheque (Columbia Special Products CSS 375-84; 1974)
THE NEW DANCE BAND
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In
This Guy's in Love With You
Yesterday
The Sound of Silence
What the World Needs Now
Up, up and Away
THE INTERNATIONAL HITS ORCHESTRA
It's Not Unusual
Don't Sleep in the Subway
Winchester Cathedral
Downtown
THE IN GROUP
The "In" Crowd
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
Land of 1000 Dances
Respect
Both Sides, Now
Mrs. Robinson
Anyone Who Had a Heart
Those Were the Days
Light My Fire
Young and Warm and Wonderful (Columbia Musical Treasuries P7S 5114; 1968)
Lee
11 comments:
I sometimes try to imagine who bought record sets like these. I never come up with a good answer, but there sure are a lot of them out there.
Looks like a real good post! With a lot of songs that don't quite necessarily show up on Easy Listening albums of the period. The Si Zentner RCA LP you referenced without naming the title in your description, My Cup of Tea, is a great Big Band British Invasion offering that I am planning to order online in CD-R format soon on ccmusic.com; I have been checking selections from it on YouTube.
And where is the 1974 copyright on The Unforgettable Years? If that set actually did come out in 1974, the labels would be red with the CSP label on top; Columbia Special Products phased out the label shown at the end of 1970.
Same here. We know that there was a very profitable market for these, and because I'm someone who questions any and every popular trope, I'm open to the possibility that some of the customers for these things could have been younger people. We always think in terms of the Boomer/Greatest Generation divide, but it seems totally possible that some number of young listeners didn't mind owning the latest hits in "Muzak"-style renditions. Many--if not most--of our presumptions re a given generation are after-the-fact observations. The youth-vs.-Archie-Bunker narrative was one which evolved over time, as was the idea that buying a Byrds LP necessarily meant that the buyer was 1) a liberal Democrat and 2) passionately opposed to postwar middle-class values. For one thing, that's too epic a generalization to likely be so.
musicman1979,
Good question! Looking at the box itself, there's no year indicated. Discogs identifies the year as 1974, so maybe that was my source. And it could well be in error...
The 1974 date appears to have been entered by whoever created the entry at Discogs all those years ago. There's no backup for it, so who knows. Could be right, could be wrong, but you'd need to come up with a credible source to pin it down. A period ad or something. I suppose you could remove the date based on the label style, I've seen data removed on flimsier evidence.
Really enjoyed the Dance Time Discotheque sides, especially the Les Elgart-styled take on "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye", plus the unique take on "She Loves You" in which the band starts with the verse instead of the classic "Yeah Yeah Yeah" line of the Beatles original, plus the meaty beaty take on "I'm Telling You Now." Some of the horn players on Dance Time Discotheque sound like the same ones that played on Crown's Mexicali Brass albums!
The "In Group" sides sound more like the kind of fake hits the Columbia Record Club produced two years prior to the release ot this set. "The In Crowd" is excellent and could even be slightly Jazzier than the Ramsey Lewis original. I don't know if like this version of "Respect"; the lead singer doesn't even close to matching Aretha's amazing vocal chops. "It's Not Unusual" sounds like a drunk version of the Ray Conniff Singers, while "Anyone Who Had A Heart" has a great backing track that would have been perfect for one of Petula Clark's albums, while the singer sounds like a combination of Petula, Shirley Bassey, and Vikki Carr.
Excellent version of "Don't Sleep In the Subway". This could easily the best letter-perfect fake hits version of this Petula Clark classic as it captures every great nuance of the original and the female singer does an excellent Pet imitation here. Hopefully, it will meet your ground rules and will get paired up with something else on Lee's Fake Hits soon. Also great is "Up Up & Away." Had Percy Faith actually attempted to record this tune on one of his Columbia cover albums, this is probably what it would have sounded like.
Other favorites are the excellent instrumental version of "Yesterday", the Young and Warm and Wonderful take on Downtown which sounds as if they are copying the Ray Conniff cover from the Somewhere My Love album, and the instrumental potpourri of styles featured on Those Were the Days, one of the few covers of this tune that I actually like, unlike the version of Both Sides Now, in which the fake Judy Collins sounds more like Mrs. Miller than Judy. Will most certainly be looking for this set in my record hunts.
musicman1979,
Thanks for the detailed review! "A drunk version of the Ray Conniff Singers" is about right--That's a so-awful-it's-good classic. And maybe I should share some of these at YT--I doubt anyone would accuse me of departing from my format. Also, to go with Ernie's comment, it's wholly possible that these DO date from the time of the originals. And, yes, an astonishingly fine "Don't Sleep in the Subway." I've come to like Petula Clark more as I get older... er, I mean, as I become less young. For a long time, I enjoyed her as nostalgia, but I think I've been underrating her for all these years. And her '60s hits are all masterfully arranged and produced. And they take me back to my childhood, listening to the latest Top 40 numbers.
And not just the label style, but the '60s-style cover art. The couple certainly doesn't look very 1974! Yes, a contemporary ad would be nice to have. Of course, nobody reviewed these Columbia House sets when they came out.
Oh, and just now taking in your comment re the label style. That's interesting. It certainly wouldn't have been utilized in 1974...
Post a Comment