Was just playing my Henry Mancini thrift store find last night. Eight vinyl albums in a Reader's Digest box set titled "Moon River." Surprisingly good sonics and smartly organized. Music is good, sometimes great, but I can only take so much at a sitting. Think I paid $2.50. NM. Dunno about thrift-store clogger Ray Conniff but I knew his daughter, who was a hipster beauty of note.
The only LPs of this type that I can say I enjoy are usually very well arranged and recorded. It is a real shame some of those Percy Faith and Ray Conniff Columbia LPs have such great sound and many others from that era are just plain awful to listen to. Most of those poor sounding LPs are from the smaller no name labels that sold their records in discount racks.
Not me. Yikes. Although I must admit I was at an estate sale a few months back and this house had a total early 60s time capsule basement with just the right furniture and Kennedy photo on the wall and the guy running the sale was spinning these romantic orchestra records on a huge console player. I did sit for a few minutes on the couch and drift into a semi-fugue state.
Was just listening to Paul Weston's Dream Time Music last night. "Over the Rainbow", "Pennies From Heaven:...album is all updated '30s tunes. Good stuff when in the right mood.
The kind of music we're discussing here is, I think, long out of favor with the general public, but in its time was very popular. Count me as another fan who was first introduced to it by listening to the radio. We had a "beautiful" music station locally that had good music and excellent sound processing. The barber who cut my hair for several years always had that station playing in his shop. I do, at this time, have a fair amount of such music. It's not what I listen to on a regular basis, but when I'm in the mood for something different, it fits the bill quite nicely.
Since joining the SH Forum, and discovering that it shouldn't be a walk of shame to be seen carrying late '50s-early '70s Easy Listening LPs up to the Goodwill checkout counter, I've built a sizable collection of it at an extremely low cost. Lots of Frank & Dino...Kaempfert (full run of his Decca LPs -- awesome arrangements)...Mancini...Perez Prado...Mauriat...TJB...Si Zentner & Lester Lanin (society "twisting" big bands)...Lawrence Welk (his Coral & Dot albums sound great, and my Grandma really loved him)...all the Spy Jazz titles...all of Lenny Dee...some Al Hirt...Three Suns (some wild stuff) and many, many others. A lot of it is simply evocative of days gone by, and reminds of the music I heard on TV and in the movies when I was growing up. Stuff I avoid: The Two Johns (Gary & Davidson)...Sandler & Young (Martin Short & Eugene Levy's parody on SCTV was hilarious)...Barbra S. (only performance of hers I really like is "Stoney End")...and the other usual suspects. Stuff I wish I could find: Matt Monro...Mel Torme...???
Speaking of which, I've been subscribed to a YouTube channel, Gustavo Morales Battaglini , who often plays this stuff. Great way to discover some albums
I do enjoy listening to some of the best of this stuff. Roger Williams was another great talent in this genre, wonderful pianist. Jackie Gleason's mood music is worth checking out as well. Martin Denny's Exotica is a must check out.
Ray Conniff's records with the wordless vocals are often sublime. The ones where the singers actually song the lyrics (usually attributed to The Ray Conniff Singers) are trite and tiresome. Dick Hyman's name in the credits equals a must buy.
The only thing I have in this area is Esquivel. Love the quirkiness. Wait...I have two Dick Schory records, too.
This album's like the soundtrack to a Warner Brothers' cartoon. It's totally jarring. Although there's rills the whole thing's one continuous track, going from big band to small combo to solo accordion or violin. Definitely not easy listening. I bought it for the cover a couple of years ago
I'm a huge fan. My parents alway listened to beautiful music stations at home. I think the Time-Life series "Instrumental Favorites" is fantastic. The series has cds dedicated to individual artists (e.g. Montavani, Faith, Williams, Ferrante & Teicher, etc.) as well as themed compilations.
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, I hate that stuff. Perversely, it makes me agitated rather than relaxed! It's so boneless that it annoys me!
I grew up with it , but I definitely don't listen to it now. As someone else said, it sure would make collecting easy. I've flipped through enough Lawrence Welk, Andy Williams, Ray Conniff, etc to stretch to the moon and back. Was in a thrift in Memphis last week. They had 18 different Jerry Vale albums!
