The Ross Bagdasarian post was fun, so let’s listen to something else from his label, Liberty Records. In 1956 Ross was handed a demo from a musician friend named Mark McIntyre, featuring his daughters Patience, 11, and Prudence, 14, singing an old song called “Tonight You Belong to Me.”
Bagdasarian loved it, passed it up the chain, and the girls were brought into the studio. They harmonized beautifully, and their voices were perfectly suited to the material. The recordings have an adorable and ethereal quality, and although McIntyre is listed as producer I wouldn’t be surprised if Bagdasarian lent a hand in the production.
One item today that caught my interest is about American music labels pushing to get European copyright laws changed. As my buddy Dennis Rogers recently pointed out, the 50-year limit on copyrighted material in Europe means there’s a flood of CD’s headed our way from overseas from the era of Elvis and beyond. He predicts the laws will change when the Beatles’ material nears the 50-year mark.
I’m not a huge Jazz fan. Somewhere along the line, for my taste Jazz became so much about improvisation there wasn’t enough structure left to hang onto. Sunday evenings there’s a radio show on WGBH in Boston I enjoy, called The Jazz Decades, hosted by Ray Smith, who by now must be in his 80’s. He specializes in music from the 20’s and 30’s, playing both original recordings from then, as well as more recent renditions of old songs. When necessary, Smith resorts to vinyl, as he did tonight.