Let’s Play Muzak DJ!

The cable TV service Music Choice has a channel with the genre that, as a kid, made my skin crawl, but now I’m coming to appreciate. Easy listening! It’s called Elevator Music, but for me the reason it made my skin crawl is that I always heard it at the dentist office, while having my teeth drilled!

The video has 12 minutes of the Music Choice Easy Listening channel, started at a totally random point. I’ll use that as the springboard for the rest of the post.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUL07/EZListening.flv 400 300]

Well, let’s see what’s in there. A bit of “Something,” followed by Zamfir doing the love theme to Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western, “Once Upon A Time In The West.” Then Acker Bilk did “Jean” — nice coincidence for my sister there — and blind pianist George Shearing had Petula Clark’s “Call Me,” which is a nice coincidence for me! Lastly is a portion of the old standard “Dream.”

Acker Bilk is best remembered for “Stranger On The Shore,” so let’s hear that.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/AckerBilk.mp3]

And “Jean,” from the movie The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, was originally a single for Oliver. I have that, too.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/Jean.mp3]

I’ve been woefully lax in posting all of the Petula Clark material that I have. I’ll get back to that at some point, with a vengeance. For the moment, I’ll give you the studio recording of “Call Me”…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/CallMe.mp3]

… and here’s Pet’s 1970 appearance on Dean Martin’s show, after she stopped being so stiff and stagy, and was truer to herself — smooth and sexy. But yikes, those corny guest cameos are too much to take! Who wrote this stuff? I can see why variety shows didn’t survive the next generational shift. But having Dom Deluise, Paul Lynde, and Alan Sues, and Charles Nelson Reilly all appearing in the same bit …? The times were certainly changing!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUL07/CallMe.flv 400 300]

Sorry about the video quality. It isn’t one of my own transfers. I had to fix the aspect ratio, and that resulted in the jagginess of the image.

Finally, here’s “Dream” from Frankie’s album Nice ‘n’ Easy.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/Dreams.mp3]