Mr. Acker Bilk may have been the first U.K. musician to top the Hot 100, but he didn’t quite launch the British Invasion. His easy listening, clarinet-based instrumental “Stranger on the Shore” is miles away from the revitalized version of rock and roll that would be shipped back to America a year or two later. But [...]
Posts Tagged ‘instrumentals’
82) The Tornadoes – “Telstar”
Posted in 08, 1962, 1963, tagged instrumentals, joe meek, the tornadoes, the tornados on January 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
73) David Rose – “The Stripper”
Posted in 04, 1962, tagged david rose, instrumentals on October 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The David Rose LP featuring “The Stripper” is subtitled “And Other Fun Songs For The Family.” Really. Which is actually quite appropriate, as the instrumental has surely been used as shorthand for “sexy” in children’s cartoons at least as often as it has soundtracked actual stripteases. Probably more so, as there’s very little erotic about [...]
71) Mr. Acker Bilk – “Stranger on the Shore”
Posted in 06, 1962, tagged acker bilk, instrumentals, mr. acker bilk on October 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Stranger on the Shore” might be otherwise forgotten, at least on this side of the Atlantic, were it not for a minor bit of trivia: the record was the first by a British artist to top the Hot 100. But if the honorific in Mr. Acker Bilk’s name didn’t tip you off, this record doesn’t [...]
45) Lawrence Welk – “Calcutta”
Posted in 05, 1961, tagged instrumentals, lawrence welk on February 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Poor Lawrence Welk. His TV show, still a staple of public television 17 years after his death, is perhaps the epitome of the squarest segments of Midwestern culture. Armed with an accordion and a flagrant disregard of cool, Welk and his preternaturally wholesome Musical Family waltzed through the old standards and novelty tunes that comprised his trademark “champagne [...]
43) Bert Kaempfert – “Wonderland by Night”
Posted in 04, 1961, tagged bert kaempfert, instrumentals on February 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It’s interesting to have these occasional reminders that rock and roll didn’t kill the old easy listening tunes completely, that parents and grandparents still exerted enough financial influence to outbuy the teenagers every so often. It’s hard to really rate “Wonderland by Night” because it is simultaneously so different from what I expect in a pop [...]
27) Percy Faith – “Theme From A Summer Place”
Posted in 05, 1960, tagged instrumentals, percy faith on January 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
After a string of decreasingly compelling death songs, it’s nice to have a bit of pleasant elevator music to cleanse the palate. I’ve never seen the movie A Summer Place, but the light orchestration leads me to believe that it’s not about an American Indian couple who get hit bit a train conducted by a [...]
19) Santo & Johnny – “Sleep Walk”
Posted in 06, 1959, tagged instrumentals, santo & johnny on December 30, 2008 | 3 Comments »
If the organ is my favorite musical instrument, as I wrote in the post on Dave “Baby” Cortez, then for a long time my least favorite was the steel guitar. The twangy, whiny sound was part of the reason, but mainly it just always seemed too obvious. Sticking steel guitar into a song was shorthand for “tragedy” [...]
13) Dave “Baby” Cortez – “The Happy Organ”
Posted in 06, 1959, tagged dave "baby" cortez, instrumentals on December 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I only discovered yesterday that the version of “The Happy Organ” I had been listening to for this project was actually a 1960 rerecording. The “Happy Organ” that hit #1 is the version above: tamer, more controlled, less exciting. In the rerecording, Cortez attacks the tune with the abandon of Jerry Lee Lewis, his organ-playing [...]
