[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/BritBeatBrucie.flv 400 242]
I’ve spliced together segments from My Music: The British Beat with Petula Clark and Cousin Brucie giving sales pitches for PBS. I wonder just how well known Bruce Morrow is nationally, or even in Boston where I am now?
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/BritishBeat.flv 400 300]
I remember when the PBS music specials that were aired for fund-raisers featured Lawrence Welk. Later, it was Doo-Wop. Now it’s, sigh, the music of my generation. Here’s Petula Clark introducing the Zombies, performing “Time of the Season” on My Music: The British Beat.
There’s a PBS TV special that’s starting this week, called My Music: The British Beat. It’s hosted by none other than Petula Clark. No, I haven’t seen it yet! But I will. It sounds like a fun show, but I think it’s one of those specials that’s run in between pledge requests. Here’s a blurb about it:
In February 1964, a young English rock ‘n’ roll quartet called the Beatles arrived on U.S. shores, kicking off a musical explosion that took the country by storm – and reverberates to this day. PBS revisits the time when the nation’s airwaves grooved to the swinging sounds of London in MY MUSIC: THE BRITISH BEAT. Britain’s first lady of song, Petula Clark, hosts this all-star reunion of some of the best of the British Invasion and performs her #1 million-seller “Downtown.” Beloved duo Peter and Gordon reunite for the first time in nearly four decades to perform their hits “World Without Love” and “I Go to Pieces.” Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent of the Zombies bring back the British psychedelic pop sound with the Brit-rock anthems “Time of the Season” and “She’s Not There.”
THE BRITISH BEAT includes numerous #1 Billboard hits such as “Wild Thing” by the Troggs, “To Sir With Love” by Lulu and “Game of Love” by Wayne Fontana, original lead singer of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, who also reprises the favorite “A Groovy Kind of Love.” An archival performance of her 1966 worldwide smash “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” pays tribute to the late Dusty Springfield, while vintage clips from “The Ed Sullivan Show” provide era-defining moments from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
It’s a brother’s lifelong duty to torment his sisters, and this post will most assuredly do that. The picture above was scanned from a very old record from our childhood — Children’s Sing-A-Long, by Frank Luther and the Children’s Chorus.
The audio players below have the record, with each side played through as a single track. The total time is well under 30 minutes. The song titles are given as they appear on the record jacket. Luther is noteworthy in the history of American popular music, and some background information on him is provided at the bottom of this post.
Side One
Side Two
One of the first urban cowboys, Frank Luther (August 4, 1905 – November 16, 1980) made a career out of supplying urban listeners with their fix of traditional country music. A Kansas native, Luther was a professionally trained pianist who played in several vocal groups in his home state before moving to New York in 1928 and meeting fellow Kansas transplant Carson Robinson. The duo wrote and recorded several songs targeted at urbanites [including “Barnacle Bill The Sailor” – DogRat] and regularly guested on a country radio program hosted by Ethel Park Richardson. When Luther met and married a fiddler who had once played with Robinson named Zora Lyman, he began to move away from country music, preferring to write and perform children’s music. ~ Steve Kurutz, All Music Guide
Posting the Goldfinger theme put me in a James Bond mood. On the audio player is the classic James Bond theme by Monty Norman (disputed by John Barry), taken from the same LP mentioned previously. For me this just edges out Henry Mancini’s famous theme for Peter Gunn.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/JamesBond.mp3]
The most adult and, I think, best James Bond movie is From Russia With Love. Some of the credit for that goes to the presence of the stunning Daniela Bianchi, who was only 20 when the movie was filmed.
Bianchi’s English wasn’t the best, so her voice was dubbed by the English stage actress Barbara Jefford. But no matter. Over 30 years before that, Hitchcock had Joan Barry dub the voice of German actress Anny Ondra, for Blackmail, the first talkie in England.
The From Russia With Love theme song was sung by Matt Monro. A couple of years later they probably would have given this track to Andy Williams to record.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/FromRussia.mp3]When the movie Thunderball was being released, the Aston-Martin DB5 that had been been introduced in Goldfinger made an appearance at the Caldor in Norwalk CT. Caldor, a defunct discount chain store, was headquartered in Norwalk. I’m not much of a car person, but that is one beautiful piece of machinery, and I made my father take me back for a second viewing.
Here’s another often-heard Bond piece of music. It’s called simply “007”.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/007.mp3]
Tonight I happened to catch a few minutes of the legendary disk jockey Bruce Morrow on WABC’s Saturday Night Oldies with Mark Simone. Cousin Brucie talks about meeting the Beatles.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/CousinBrucie.mp3]
If you haven’t checked out my tribute to New York radio in the 60’s, click here. The picture above of Bruce Morrow interviewing the Beatles in 1965 is amusing, because the boys appeared bored and disinterested. Maybe they were stoned. Or perhaps they’d had their fill of New York DJ’s. Murray “The K” Kaufman had leveraged his contact with The Beatles during their first visit to shamelessly further his own career.
