I'd hoped to get this up earlier, but things got in the way, I guess. Foul, evil things. Grotesques. Creatures from another place, another time. Nasty, loathsome, dreadful beings.
No, wait--that was only a dream. Never mind. Anyway, I would have assumed that this 1965 Hugo Winterhalter Kapp LP was worth just about what I paid for it: 75 cents. But over at eBay, a dealer in India is asking $51. Fifty-one bucks?? Plus postage. And I also see it up for $8.40, $10, and $18. Hmm.. Maybe it is collectible. Oh, and a still-sealed copy for $39.99. But, seriously, please. What is with these crazy Buy It Now prices? Are they posted in the hope that people will check out eBay and conclude that a pop instrumental LP by Hugo Winterhalter is a goldmine find? How many people even know who Hugo was nowadays?
And I want to rate this album as excellent in every way, but it's hard to be objective about this song lineup, because (despite its mere one or two rock and roll numbers) it really brings me back to the time and place. Well, save for maybe two titles. Anyway, ever since Mary Poppins (which I watched twice in 1964), I was epically aware of Chim Chim Cheer-ee. As written, the song has a slightly dark tone, being in C minor, and with a spooky, chromatically descending bassline, but Hugo's arrangement goes full Halloween, sounding in spots like a precursor to Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. Ingenious scoring, though I think this would have frightened me at age seven or eight.
And, boy, do I remember Red Roses for a Blue Lady, which was on constant AM rotation--and it could have been the same local station which played the Beatles, Beach Boys, and Manfred Mann, because in those days a hit was a hit. Was a hit. I don't remember when radio got formatted. Nor do I remember whose Red Roses version I heard over and over--Vic Dana's? Wayne Newton's? Anyway, I recall not knowing what "blue" meant, so maybe I thought the song was about a female Martian. And I know A Walk in the Black Forest, if not from its initial chart success, then certainly from nonstop oldies play throughout the 1960s, though of course not with the near-Herb-Alpert vibe Hugo gives it here. An interesting touch.
And of course Petula Clark's marvelous Downtown was, for a while, THE Top 40 hit, at least in our market--and former big band arranger HW expertly gives it a very big-band sound--along with ample strings, of course. As for Elvis' Crying in the Chapel, I don't have a firsthand memory of it, though I came to know the tune quite well (courtesy of the Orioles?). Hugo's arrangement has none of the contemplative quality of EP's take--it's brassy, with sharply accented triplets, but not the worse for it. I'm still deciding what I think of this one.
I remember Goldfinger and King of the Road as constant-rotation hits, and Hugo gives them faithful and outstanding charts. I remember being enchanted--a little spooked, even--by Goldfinger's main chord progression, which is just the simple tonic-to-minor-sixth-chord cliché that goes back to Chopin. The trick, in pop, is to go from a tonic triad to a dominant seventh on the bVI. A feeling of suspension happens because bVI is taking the place of ii in the context of tritone chord substitution.
I don't remember Dream on Little Dreamer from its day, but I've loved the Perry Como record since I first heard it (circa 1982). Winterhalter goes for a lighter feel, and with a faster tempo, and it works quite well. As for Who Can I Turn To and Forget Domani, I kind of, sort of remember them from their chart time--Hugo's scoring of the latter is very sprightly, with something of a The Longest Day feel at the start. As for Charlotte, I mainly knew it from the movie (when it aired on TV), though I later thrifted the Al Martino Capitol 45 and liked it. Winterhalter's treatment very much recalls the Patti Page hit.
And I know Cast Your Fate to the Wind from the days of the Sounds Orchestral hit; Hugo slows it down and gives it a EZ-Mexican feel (you've heard of EZ-Mexican, no?), totally removing any Vince Guaraldi feel. I don't know that anyone would guess its Guaraldi origin from this treatment. It drags a bit, but I like it.
Superior charts, and a title list which, for the most part, takes me back to 1965 (or thereabouts), and ten of that year's biggest chart successes. Minus the two which I only sort of, kind of recall. The stereo fidelity is great.
DOWNLOAD: The Big Hits of 1965--Hugo Winterhalter and His Orch. (Kapp KS3429; 1965)
Chim Chim Cher-ee
Dream on Little Dreamer
Red Roses for a Blue Lady
Who Can I Turn To
King of the Road
Forget Domani
Cast Your Fate to the Wind
Goldfinger
A Walk in the Black Forest
Crying in the Chapel
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte
Downtown
(Musical arrangements by Hugo Winterhalter)
Lee
14 comments:
In stereo. Great!! Thanks a lot
I love Hugo, but it's a shame he'd been demoted to stuff like this on Kapp from his glory days at RCA.
I never noticed the similarities between "Chim-Chim-Cheree" and "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite"!
There were some great instrumentals that year - "A Walk in the Black Forest" was a hit for Horst Jankowski. Another German leader, Bert Kaempfert did well with an orchestral version of "Red Roses for a Blue Lady". "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" was terrific, too.
I'll happily sell my copy of this LP for $51 to anyone interested. (Plus shipping.)
RonH,
You're welcome! And pretty awesome stereo, too, at least through my headphones.
Ernie,
I'm just happy he had steady work after his glory days at RCA, though yes, it was a step down for him. But he did such fine work, post-RCA--when I see his name on an album, I know it's worth thrifting. As with Franck Pourcel and Frank Chacksfield.
Buster,
Right--don't forget the shipping! And I agree--it was a fine year for instrumentals, which is almost kind of odd, given how rock and roll (esp. the British variety) was taking over the charts. There was still room for "adult" pop. I fondly remember the days when AM stations hosted both teen and grownup sounds. With the exception of "People," that is...
You posted another one that I have in my collection! However, unlike you, I wound up paying 99 Cents for this over at Goodwill--and my copy is Mono!
This is one of the harder to find Hugo Winterhalter albums; it is the follow up-LP to "The Best of '64", his first LP for Kapp which has great versions of Chad & Jeremy's "Yesterday's Gone" and a vocal version of "The Crooked Little Man" that is a lot better than the original hit version from the Serendipity Singers over at Phillips.
It has been quite a while since I listened to this album in full, so I will have to dig out my copy and listen to it. However, I can tell you for a fact that my favorite cut on the record is Hugo's take on "Cast Your Fate to the Wind"; it is a slightly different arrangement from the two best-remembered versions from Vince Guaraldi and the Sounds Orchestral over at Cameo/Parkway Records; the flutes really stand out on the Winterhalter version.
Hugo could have used the Herb Alpert Going Places arrangement for "A Walk in the Black Forest", however, the big hit version of this song was by a German Pianist named Horst Jankowski over at Mercury Records. And I do have that Al Martino 45 you mentioned with a picture sleeve; I bought it the same day that I purchased the mint Edd Byrnes 45 and picture sleeve I mentioned a couple of posts back. Actually, the flip, "My Heart Would Know" was actually the plug side, and both sides of the 45 showed up on Al's Somebody Else Is Taking My Place/With All My Heart album, which I also purchased for a dollar in an antiques and collectables store in a nearby town where I live sometime in either December of 1994 or January of 1995.
Who Can I Turn To originally is from the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd. Several great vocal versions were recorded with my three favorites being John Gary on RCA (The Nearness of You with Gordon Jenkins), Sammy Davis Jr (on his If I Ruled the World album) and Carmen McRae (on the Mainstream albums Haven't We Met and Alfie, the latter of which I added into the collection July of last year).
This a great album! More comments later when I re-listen to it.
Hugo's last major record stop was Musicor, where several of his recordings for the label showed up on the Skokie, Illinois-based Musico subsidiary. I did find one LP from that label last year--Pop Parade--that I need to finish listening to as well.
Hopefully soon you will please post Biggest Hits of '58 Volume Two from the RCA Camden Rockers. Thanks in advance.
I pulled up my copy of this album yesterday, and I was surprised to find out that my copy is Stereo, like yours, and not Mono.
I only have re-listened to four of the tracks so far from this record, but I have liked what I heard. One good thing about this record is that it is slightly different from the kind of standard Easy Listening sound that Hugo was known for over at RCA in the '50's.
"Dream On Little Dreamer" is quite the re-imagining. It has more of a Rock edge than Perry Como's original hit recording, which used the harmonica of Charlie McCoy to somehow bring the Rock/Blues element to the piece (it was recorded in Nashville, documented in the liner notes for his RCA LP The Scene Changes.) It is certainly edgier than Como's original, yet just as delightful.)
"Who Can I Turn To" is a real surprise. I totally did not expect the electric guitars in Hugo's arrangement, yet it does bring quite a touch of youthfulness to the piece. With you being a Ferrante and Teicher mega-fan, I was totally surprised that you did not mention in your essay the signature "Watery guitar" sound of Vincent Bell, whose guitar work in that style is promienently featured in the first minute or so of F&T's recording of "Midnight Cowboy", which Hugo also recorded for Musicor/Musico.
More comments coming soon!
musicman1979,
Re "Dream On," I had to do track comparison to verify that it was the same song! You're right--Hugo's treatment is quite different, but just as effective. And I have to confess that, though I've surely heard it, I can't bring F&T's "Midnight Cowboy" version to mind. I think there's a two-fold reason why Art and Lou (F&T) don't get the love they deserve: They made a ton of recordings, and 2) They were great sports when it came to posing for campy covers: I love it when an artist or an act are willing to go full-novelty. That was part of Merv Griffin's greatness as a performer: He went the limit with his novelties, from "Twenty-Three Starlets" to "Call Out the Engines" to "House of Horrors" and "The Screamin' Meemies From Planet X." Neither Merv nor F&T regarded themselves as too good to poke fun at themselves, and I admire that. Anyway, I look forward to the rest of your report.
musicman1979,
Oh, and I found my copy of "Biggest Hits of '58, Vol. 2" and plan to post it next (after a possible Sunday gospel entry, if I can get it done in time).
Great!! Looking forward to it.
One notable thing about the version of "Near You" on Biggest Hits of '58 Volume Two to include in your essay: it's the charting version by society pianist Larry Green and his Orchestra that RCA released a decade earlier to compete with Francis Craig's original hit recording on Bullet Records. Larry's version was just as popular, peaking at #3 on the Billboard charts. I will give you the specifics of when it charted in Billboard in a few days.
musicman1979,
Thanks! That's interesting. To quote Johnny Carson, "I did not know that."
Hugo's take on "A Walk in the Black Forest" doesn't even sound like Herb Alpert at all; it's more of a mixture of the Horst Jankowski original with the standard Hugo Winterhalter Easy Listening sound; it's probably one of the few tracks on this disc that actually "Sounds" like a Winterhalter production. Still very good.
I REALLY like this version of "King of the Road" for the uniqueness of it's arrangement. Most covers of Roger Miller's signature tune stick to the original arrangement and build off of it. Not so with Hugo Winterhalter; he changes the tempo from mid-tempo to simmering Big Band, writes a unique introduction, and gives the song a solid Big Band update, with some Living Guitars flourishes thrown in for good measure. This actually is more Big Band-sounding than Les and Larry Elgart's cover on their Elgart A-Go-Go, which used a BANJO in the instrumentation!
With a unique introduction and shimmering strings, albeit laced with touches of his typical Easy Listening sound, he gives a sparkling new twist to "Red Roses", the Sid Tepper and Roy Broadsky-penned tune that Vaughn Monroe originally made famous in the '40's but became even more popular in the '60's. There is one touch of the Bert Kaempfert sound in Hugo's arrangement, in which the trumpet does a good job aping the trumpet style of Fred Moch in the original Kaempfert recording.
Hugo's take on "Goldfinger", Dame Shirley Bassey's best-remembered U.S. hit, is excellent, and is only a CLOSE second to Charles Albertine's excellent arrangement that he did for Sammy Kaye on the latter's Decca album Dancetime. There is a pretty good chance that several of the players who played on the Kaye recording are playing on this. Only a few flourishes of Hugo's signature sound, yet it is really good and dynamic.
Another unique arrangement that Hugo did here is Crying in the Chapel, which gives us the flavor of what an Al Hirt album would have sounded like had Hugo arranged and conducted it. Being that this was probably taped in New York, it could very well be Mel Davis playing the solo on this. It is totally different from the then 5-year-old Elvis recording RCA released as a single. While that version was mostly Elvis, the Jordanaires, and piano, this version has a mid-tempo traditional pop sound not usually found in most covers of the tune. In 1989, the tradional Pop music was replaced with Rock and Doo-Wop elements when a pre-"Butterfly Kisses" Bob Carlisle recorded it when he was a member of the Christian Rock band Allies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcATrNyObvA
A great closer with Hugo's take on "Downtown". His arrangement is more along the lines of the better-remembered Nelson Riddle chart on Frank Sinatra's classic Strangers in the Night album. Like King of the Road, most covers of this tune use the original Petula Clark arrangement and expand on it; here Hugo transforms it into an exciting up-tempo go-go tune that musically is more along the lines of "I Know A Place". I think the Glenn Miller Orchestra 's version comes close to capturing the energy of this one.
Hugo puts in a lot more strings and sheds the shimmering "gimmick" that was a key part of the original Patti Page recording of "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" giving just a touch more of a beat than Patti's, yet just as good.
Lastly, there is probably a good chance that this was recorded on 35mm Magnetic film. The sound quality is excellent and rivals anything Command Records was putting out during this period. An excellent collection of covers where uniqueness is the order of the day instead of directly aping the original arrangements. With the exception of "Chim Chim Cher-ee" and "Forget Domani", this album is outstanding and earns four stars out of five from me.
Larry Green "Near You" chart info for your Biggest Hits of '58 Volume Two essay:
debuted on Billboard on October 11, 1947, eventually peaking at #3 and was on the chart for 13 weeks. This was Larry Green's first Billboard chart entry.
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