It's good to know that Capitol are at least discussing these releases. There seemed to be a complete lack of interest a few years back.
The people at Universal didn't know they owned any of Matt's recordings. What apparently should have happened is that the catalogue shouldn't have been split in the EMI break up. Artists who had material owned by different arms should have stayed together . For example Shirley Bassey's UA material stayed with Warner. The same should have happened to Matt, so his whole catalogue should have gone to Warner or Universal. However someone cocked up and its too late now. It has caused a lot of harm to Matt as most of his catalogue has been deleted. But there is nothing we can do but battle through it and see what Universal can do that maybe Warner might realise that it's worth doing something again.
You miss understand. Nothing is lost, just that the rights are split. Instead of all the recorings belonging to one company - as they had for the best part of 45 years - so now that they are split and have to license from each other it's made life more difficult.
Richard - there are many of us wishing you well in this endeavour; also many thanks for keeping us updated! Best Wishes, David
I have seen the Shakespeare's self promoting private pressing 'Music for advertising' LP (LYN LP-372/3) (which contains snippets of three MM jingles plus the full Mackintosh's Weekend jingle) referred to as being a Flexi disc in a number of places (the sessionography book, Rarer Monro cd etc). Is this a typo or an assumption based on the fact it was pressed by Lyntone who typically make 7" flexi-discs. I have found a copy of this LP and it is in fact pressed on thick vinyl. Steve.
You are quite right. Well spotted. I think it must be a hang over from the days before we actually had a physical copy in the estate archive. Being Lyntone I think it was thought to be flexi disc. All we had was a CD dub from somewhere (which was the source used for Rarer Monro). It was only a few years back we finally fell across a copy and it is of course vinyl. Something else that needs updating should we ever do another version of the sessionography. I hope to be able to announce a new Matt project soon. Re-issue departments tread more carefully than they used to (not surprising in this day and age of streaming) so it can take a lot longer than it used to to get things sorted (especially when Matt's Catalogue is split between tow companies and they argue about who owns what - It's a good job I know!). Even licensing departments have slowed down. If this new Matt project sells well then hopefully we can put something interesting together for his 90th birthday in December 2020 too.
My brother was listening to Clifford T Ward's 1983 'Both Of Us' LP. The CD version has a spoken word extract from the 1999 Dave Cartwright (1960/70s Folk singer turned author) CTW biography 'Bittersweet'. 8m40s into this spoken word extra track Dave is talking about the LP and he mentions that artists Matt Monro and Mary O'Hara had expressed an interest in a song called Messenger (track 2 on the LP). A question for you Richard; is there any evidence of this interest in Matt's diaries/notes etc? I thought to ask Dave what his source was but found that he died unexpectedly in 2015. It's a great song and I can kind of hear Matt singing it. Shame it was never to be.
Unfortunately not. However it's always possible. Matt was looking at recording a new album some time in late 84 / early 85 and was very interested in contemporary material. I have an interview where he mentions songs by Lionel Richie for instance as something he was looking at. Whilst Matt did sing some standards, he tended to like newer material. Matt's diaries are professional engagements rather than his day to day life. I don't think there is any reason for Dave Cartwright to have made that up though, but it may not have been Matt asking directly. It could have been John Burgess or even Vic Lanza (who may have produced his next album - Nothing concrete there, just a phone call that accidentally got recorded during an interview that suggests that). Matt was used to Producers looking for material rather than doing it all himself. Funny you should write this right now as i'm just about to start work mixing some Matt tracks for a new project!
Since posting the above I have found that Mary O'Hara did indeed record the song (track 12) so Dave Cartwright's information bears some weight. The excerpt below is from an old forum (mudcat.org) posting: "The Beautiful Music of Mary O'Hara", the company that produced this was Music Collection Int'l at Strand VCI House, Caxton Way, Watford, Hertfordshire WD1 8UF...and here's the product code :MCCD070. Oh, and the copyright says 1992. Songlist 1. Lord of the Dance 2. Danny Boy 3. The Last Rose of Summer 4. In An English Country Garden 5. A Bunch of Thyme 6. The Rose 7. My Lagan Love 8. The Spanish Lady 9. Going Home 10. Perhaps Love 11. She Moved Through The Fair 12. Messenger 13. One Day At A Time 14. Willie's Gone To Melville Castle 15. Roisin Dubh (Dark Rosaleen) 16. The Scent Of The Roses 17. Scarborough Fair 18. Never Saw The Roses 19. Memory 20. The Quiet Land Of Erin
I've been meaning to post about an acetate find I made a few months ago. Please see pic, and the entry on 45Cat via the link below the picture. The comments by Steve1966 are mine. Be interested in thoughts about my observations. (I've tried to rotate the image but failed, you get the gist). Matt Monro - On Days Like These Steve.
Oh, so it was you who bid against me trying to buy this for the estate! Aha! (we asked the vendor to pass a message on to you but it seems like they didn't!). All worked out well for us though as you'll see below. This is actually the full unedited version as used in the film and is indeed the Quincy Jones version. (The first George Martin version is completely lost) Don't be fooled by any youtube clips that have the George Martin version dubbed on. THIS is the version used in the film. Since losing the ebay auction we suddenly had contact with Paramount over something else so I was able to get them to send us a hirez copy of the mono master tape for the film version. This 100% matched the (badly recorded) clip that was posted on ebay with the auction listing and syncs up with the film too. The master tape has a count in and a cold ending. The film cuts the majority of the intro of this version. I suspect the Lou Reizner version was made after Matt, probably when it was decided to re-record the song for record release, Jones perhaps re-recorded the vocal to allow his version to be released. Matt's may have been stopped for contractual reasons i don't know for sure. The other possibility is that Lou Reizner recorded a guide vocal which Matt replaced - There is no paperwork to say that the track was recorded at the same time as Matt, so it could quite easily be a backing track that Matt had to sing to. The 5.1 remix of the soundtrack has a new mix but that is Matt in the Centre with the backing in fake stereo around it. This suggest that the session tape is only two channel and would point to a mono backing track with a vocal overdub. Hope this helps. Richard
Having just found the Lou Reizner version (Urgh!! - thanks youtube) This does seem to have a different mix of the backing track, which does point to it being a guide vocal and the orchestra being recorded on multitrack which Paramont have no access to. The vocal does sound more like a guide, the badly fitting words at the end where Matt sensibly sings La La La etc. If this were a cover then surely he would have tried to copy what Matt sang. Or at least tried to sing it better! One thing's for certain. Mr Reizner can't ever have been considered for the soundtrack with that performance. Richard
Whilst I agree it's poor compared to Matt's vocal I wonder if he was considered for the film originally as he recorded versions in French, Italian, German, and Spanish which were used, I believe, for those dubbed language versions of the film. The French version (at least) was released as a single on Philips as " UN JOUR COMME AUJOURD'HUI ". Or perhaps it was always expected that Matt would sing the English vocal (with the Don Black connection) and it was simply a guide as you say.
I don't think it was ever meant for anyone else but Matt in English. Don Black was his manager at the time so it would have been written for him to sing. Matt was a movie theme regular and a household name. Lou Reizner is a complete unknown.
The Singer's Singer Special Reserve Edition was delivered this morning courtesy of Amazon Marketplace vendor Rare Waves. Brand new and boxed it cost me £12.74. Very much looking forward to working my way through this and will be picking up one or two of the recommended CDs to listen to as I go. I just wanted you to know @RMoore that if it wasn't for this thread and your posts about Matt's legacy then I would have not considered picking this up.
