Post by zimmerman on Oct 5, 2021 15:29:49 GMT -5
I think a few years ago I may have mentioned some of these songs in one of my previous review threads ( I am planning to get back into the review fold really soon --now is the perfect time to post them since there has been no major action on this board in the last two years, making this board seem like the town of Paradox !) but I do have a real treat for WWW and classic Pop music fans like myself who have always wanted to hear their favorite songs in the style of our favorite show.
Around the same time that Jim and Artie was keeping the frontier safe for President Grant on Friday nights on CBS, that longtime favorite bandleader of the Greatest Generation and the Geritol set, Lawrence Welk, was still going strong with his TV program Saturday Nights on ABC as the lead-in for The Hollywood Palace, the Saturday Night Live for the Greatest Generation. As I have mentioned in some of my previous reviews, Jack Pleis, a former musical director for Decca Records in the 1950's, a man responsible for the musical accompaniments of top '50's Decca acts like Al Hibbler, The Four Aces, and future WWW guest star Sammy Davis, Jr, was also doing arrangements for "The man with the bubble machine" (Cue Stan Freberg ) for both Mr. Welk's television shows and record albums of the period, first on Dot, then later for Ranwood Records. It was during this period that Richard Maltby, a man who did not work on our show at all, but did do some solo orchestral records for labels for labels like RCA Camden , the budget label of RCA Victor, earlier in the decade, arranged and conducted the first totally new album under the Lawrence Welk brand name for Welk's new label at the time, Ranwood Records, Love Is Blue.
Among the songs included on this album is a very unique interpretation of one of the top bubblegum hits of the year, the biggest and only #1 hit for The Lemon Pipers, "Green Tambourine." While the hit Lemon Pipers version has a touch of a Beatles flavor in amongst the bubblegum and Psychadelic sounds, to make this song work for the Welk sound and audience, arranger Maltby gave the song just a touch of '60's big beat,yet primarily let the Vox electic harpsichord keyboard sounds of Welk Keyboard extraordinare Frank Scott, who passed away on this date in 1995, to primarily be the star of this musical show, next to the wordless girls vocal chorus. As you take a listen, you can probably tell that Mr. Maltby had the goods to score an episode of Wild Wild West had someone brought this record to Bruce Lansbury's attention. Enjoy, and see if I am right.