"Taste of Honey" ==== Various versions

Hello,
I started helping a friend of mine with his little project. He's trying to find as many versions of the song "Taste of Honey". After hearing a couple of these I was surprised at how many GOOD versions of this song
that are out there.
I decide to post a few, I'm sure The Beatle heard Lenny Welchs' version before they recorded their version.
Check it out.

 

This one is just beautiful, I've never heard this before.

 

Another beautiful voice....

 

Geeze, what a couple of guitar players.

 

Like trumpets?

 

Like Saxophones?

 

Published on Feb 25, 2013

On that ghastly afternoon when John F. Kennedy died, Woody Herman was recording an album for Phillips. The band was playing Bobby Scott's "A Taste of Honey". Everyone had heard the news and there was in that performance a mournfulness that is not in the arrangement, not in the notes themselves, but in the attitude in the band, whose personnel at that period included Nat Pierce, Sal Nistico, Phil Wilson, and Bill Chase. You can hear it in the recording. It is a striking track, deeply sad, and it shows how jazz can reflect public events and the consequent more immediately than any other art. Woody finished the take and cancelled the rest of the date.

Can you hear it?

 

Nice find.

 

Barbara doing a rare track.

 

I had a comp from back in the late 80s I believe that had an updated version of the song by Herb Alpert that I thought sounded pretty good for what it was.

 

The song itself hs an interesting history.When the 1958 British play,A Taste of Honey,came to Broadway in 1960,Bobby Scott created instrumental set pieces for the play.Bobby'a Atlantic album of music from the show features three different instrumental versios of the theme.Odd that the play would be filmed in 1961 but,as strange as it seems, none of Scott's music was used.Bobby would revisit his composition in 1970,performing a super slow and very effective version, with the lyrics Ric Marlow gave to the song back in 1962(wiki lists Lenny Welch as the first vocal).
I have another instrumental version listed under Lloyd G. Mayers as a jazz organist with arrangements of Oliver Nelson.Odd that the LP,from United Artists jazz wing,has all of the looks of a "soundtrack" album,including film credits on the back and a poster-like cover featuring the star of the film.The front cover also lists the member of Nelson's group,all of whom had tons more recording work than Mr. Mayers.
And BTW,there are hundreds,maybe thousands of versions of this song.

 

...you said 'versions'...

 

It's such a good song. I always feel sorry for folks who don't care for the Beatle's version, because, well, it isn't cool to like it.

Another beautiful melody that I must have well over a dozen versions of is Sukiyaki.

 

I first heard it on an advert for "Sugar Puffs" in the early 70s.