VA-The Golden Record

This was $3.00.  Quite a golden record of hits indeed.  Lot of stars on this one.

Last night I watched Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort for the first time.  I was greatly familiar with its predecessor, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, having posted the soundtrack on this webpage (you can search for it to check it out). Whereas Umbrellas was a straight out musical, Rochefort was more focused on dance routines. Anyway, both films were highly inspirational to the writer/director of La La Land.  This was evident in the opening scene.

 

Anyway, it was a great movie that starred Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac (sisters in real life) as twin sisters looking to find true love and free passage to Paris.  The film also stars Jacques Perrin and Danielle Darrieux as well as Americans’ George Charkris, Grover Dale, and the king of musical dance, Gene Kelly. All the vocals with the exception of Darrieux, are overdubbed.

 

The music was pretty good, the dance numbers were excellent, and the story was a great interweaving narrative the resolved well.   If you like La La Land and do not mind subtitles (or can read French), you should definitely check out both movies.

Anyway, back to this. this was a collection of stars with Gold records from Capitol Records .  Quite a list if luminaries on here.  Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Dean Martin, Tennessee Ernie Ford, among others.  The songs are pretty good.  I mean, they were all gold records so it is kind of expected.

I had a lot of choice for a sample, I wanted to use an artist who I normally don’t highlight on this blog.  Kay Starr’s “Wheel of Fortune” came to mind.  Kay Starr, born in Dougherty, Oklahoma, in 1922 was a singer who hit it big with this song in 1952.  She would have considerable success in the 40’s and 50’s and although she crossed over into pop and country at times, she best known as a jazz singer in the Billie Holiday vein. She passed this last November (2016). Anyway, here is her big hit, “Wheel of Fortune” and yes I know there is a skip in the end.  Deal with it.

Good record but I kind of new that when I bought it.  I would have been more surprised if this sucked.  But it is good enough.  Satisfactory. Odd that this post is mostly about the film and not the record.

 

Jack Jones-The Impossible Dream

DSCN4300This was $1.00.  It had songs that I really like on here.maxresdefaultJack Jones is an American pop singer who was popular in the 1960’s.  Born in 1938 in Hollywood to actor parents, Jones recorded twenty albums for Kapp before moving on to RCA and MGM.  His songs gained a good amount of fame.  He still is popular today in Vegas and as currently touring behind an album of Sinatra covers he did last year.

Jack Jones Webpage

This album was released in 1965 to decent success.  The title track was a pretty successful single on its own right, hitting #1 on the US Adult Contemporary chart.  There are a bunch of songs I really like, including the title track, the song from Umbrellas of Cherbourg, “I Will Wait for You”, “Strangers in the Night”, and “Alfie” although I prefer females doing the latter.DSCN4301

For a sample, I decided to go with “All or Nothing at All”  as I thought it was the best song on the album.  Ok I am relenting.  Here is also “I Will Wait For You” from my favorite French movie mentioned above.JackJones_2010

Satisfactory record since it was only a dollar.

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