Tag: James Bond

Recommended music: [Skip to 10:00 for The Spy Who Loved Me]

For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re listening to music from The Spy Who Loved Me!

Born in 1915, in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian immigrant parents, Marty Gold spent his early musical career in regional novelty groups, including the Schnickelfritz Band and its spinoff band the Korn Kobblers. Gold co-founded, composed, arranged, and played piano for the Korn Kobblers, describing them as “America’s most nonsensical band” with performances incorporated comedy and odd instruments such as car horns, jugs, mouth harps, and washboards. The band played clubs in the New York area from 1939 through the mid-1950s and starred in one of the earliest weekly television shows, Kobb’s Corner,’ broadcast on CBS.

Gold used orchestras consisting of New York’s best musicians, often including lush string sections and with as many as 50 or 60 players, he pushed the boundaries of ‘easy listening.’ His arrangements of familiar tunes featured extensive original passages mixed in, added intricate counter melodies, and even applied unexpected styles and instrument combinations. Gold frequently included improvised sections, which helped distinguish his music from the more predictable sounds within the covered genre.

Beyond his own albums, Gold arranged, produced, and conducted for recording sessions of singers such as Lena Horne, pianist Peter Nero, and many others. He even joined forces with artists who were popular with his audience’s children, writing music for recordings by the television host Shari Lewis and author Theodor Geisel, best known as Dr. Seuss.

One album by Marty Gold and His Orchestra is this 1978 release by Peter Pan Records ‘Themes From The Movies.’ Originally released the year before as ‘Music From Star Wars,’ the album re-released with more of a comic book style artwork on the cover than just a large Star Wars logo. The record includes covers from films released in 1976 and 1977. Not all of these were hits with all ages like Star Wars, such as the inclusion of the theme from the Jaws rip-off film, Orca: The Killer Whale. Thankfully, the album includes a jazzy cover of Marvin Hamlisch’s theme from The Spy Who Loved Me.

145. The Marty Gold Orchestra – Themes From The Movies

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For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re moving on to Moore era Bond tunes, and listening to music from Live And Let Die!

While Paul McCartney and Wings’ iconic rock version of ‘Live and Let Die’ served as the main theme and opening credits song in the 1973 film, BJ Arnau’s rendition appears later in the movie as a cabaret act at the fictional “Fillet of Soul” club in New Orleans.

Interestingly, the film’s producer, Harry Saltzman, had initially sought a talented soul singer for the opening titles, not realizing McCartney insisted on his group, Wings, performing the main track. Arnau, born as Brenda Burton in 1941 in Cleveland, delivered a distinct jazz and soul-tinged take on the Paul and Linda McCartney composition, differentiating it from Wings’ famous bombastic recording. Her performance in the film enhanced her profile, leading to a record deal, cabaret work, The Benny Hill show, and other television appearances.

Arnau’s rendition appears in the medley track called ‘Fillet of Soul – New Orleans/Live and Let Die/Fillet of Soul – Harlem’ on the B-side of the Live and Let Die soundtrack album. The full version of the George Martin-produced track can also be found on this 1973 German 7” single. There is also an alternate version of the medley found on the Live and Let Die 50^th anniversary CD set, but this single is still the best way to jump right to Arnau.

144. B. J. Arnau – Live And Let Die

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For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re back to Connery era Bond tunes, and listening to music from Diamonds Are Forever!

Maxine Barrie may not be a household name in the same vein as the Welsh singer Dame Shirley Bassey, but she surely can sing some Shirley Bassey tunes. Working odd jobs in addition to being an unnamed television extra, Barrie’s claim to fame was her appearance on the long-running British television talent series, Stars in Their Eyes. Based on the Dutch show ‘Soundmixshow,’ the program featured a singing contest where members of the public impersonated showbiz stars, running for seventeen seasons.

On the show’s first season during the summer of 1990, Barrie performed as Shirley Bassey and was the series’s Champion. Following the program, Barrie has continued to impersonate the legendary singer as her full-time gig and is versatile in singing all genres of music originally sung by Bassey. She performs in theaters, on cruise ships, and at London Fashion Week.

For recordings, Barrie is credited as Miss B featuring Maxine Barrie, including for this 12” single of ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ released by Klone Records in the UK in 1997. Despite the vocals not quite matching up to Bassey during the original 1970s recordings, it’s a unique album of electronic, Euro House music. The song’s included remixes are more about dance music than vocals, as evident in both the ‘Bondage Mix’ on the A-side and the ‘Shaken Mix’ on the B-side.

143. Miss B Featuring Maxine Barrie – Diamonds Are Forever

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It looks like she was still going with this act more than 20 years later:

Recommended music: [Skip to 5:30 for You Only Live Twice]

For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re still listening to music from You Only Live Twice!

Robert Leo Hackett was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1915. The son of a blacksmith, and with eight siblings, Hackett left school at age 14 to earn money playing guitar and violin for a band at a local Chinese restaurant. After seeing a performance by jazz legend Louis Armstrong in the 1930s, Hackett was inspired and learned to play both the trumpet and the cornet. He spent a few years playing in bands around the northeast and moved to New York City in 1937. At this point in his career, Hackett started playing Dixieland and easy listening music, later joining both Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman swing music bands.

Following dental surgery, Hackett’s lip was in no condition to play cornet or trumpet, so Glenn Miller offered him a role playing guitar. Hackett’s 1947 recording of ‘I’ve Got a Crush on You’ with Frank Sinatra reached number 21 on the pop charts.

Following a 15-year run on the music staff at ABC, he was hired by Jackie Gleason in 1952 as lead cornet player and recorded seven of Gleason’s albums in the years to come. By 1965, Hackett toured with Tony Bennett, going on to many more big tours and playing on forty full albums by the time of his passing in 1976.

One of those albums is this 1967 jazz album from Project 3 Records. ‘A Time For Love’ features Hackett’s “fabulous cornet” with string instruments to back him up. The third track on the record is an easy listening bossa nova cover of the recently released ‘You Only Live Twice,’ written by John Barry. Even without the Leslie Bricusse lyrics or Nancy Sinatra vocals, it’s worth a spin.

141. Bobby Hackett – A Time For Love

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For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re listening to music from You Only Live Twice!

While I have discussed the You Only Live Twice soundtrack way back on Bond on Vinyl post #6, and touched on a cover of the title track (see Bond on Vinyl #77), I haven’t gone too deep into Nancy Sinatra’s performance on the main theme to YOLT.

Born in 1940, the daughter of singer Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra started her showbiz career with a singing appearance on her father’s television series The Frank Sinatra Show. While variety TV did not boost her music career, she initially found some success selling albums in Europe and Japan. In 1966, she changed up her singing style and finally achieved a number-one hit with ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, but now she was a hit in the US.

By the end of 1967, Sinatra had thirteen songs on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and all of these were arranged and conducted by Billy Strange (see Bond on Vinyl #40). Other hits for Sinatra around this time include ‘Sugar Town’ (her second record to sell a million copies after “Boots”, ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ (a duet with Frank Sinatra, and her third million selling record), duets with country singer Lee Hazlewood, and her cover of Cher’s ‘Bang Bang’, featured at the beginning of Kill Bill 36 years later among others.

With all this imminent success, it’s interesting to me that ‘You Only Live Twice’ producer, Cubby Broccoli, still wanted Frank Sinatra to sing the title song for the film. After Sinatra turned down his friend’s offer, the film’s composer, John Barry, wanted someone like Julie Rogers or Aretha Franklin to take on the vocals. However, when Sinatra recommended his daughter for the job, Broccoli followed his suggestion, and Barry adjusted the existing orchestration to better fit her vocal range.

This 1967 German 7″ single version runs eleven seconds longer than the version heard on the film’s soundtrack, as the track was built from an alternate set of takes with sharper instruments and vocals. Sinatra’s duet with Lee Hazlewood ‘Jackson’ is featured on the B-side and reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

140. Nancy Sinatra – You Only Live Twice / Jackson

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For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re still listening to music from Casino Royale (1967)!

Born into a family of French musicians in 1923, Georges Francis Raymond Jouvin initially studied music at the nearby Rennes Conservatory before moving on to the Paris Conservatory. Jouvin became quite adept as a trumpeter and earned the nickname “the man with the Golden Trumpet.”  

Jouvin’s first recorded album was released in 1956, consisting of covers of popular music from that time; however, his records eventually featured his own personal classical and jazz compositions. Mostly for the French record label Pathé, Jouvin recorded nearly ninety albums, thousands of individual tracks, and sold over 25 million records. With hundreds of hits to his credit, his recording career lasted into the 1980s.

When the trumpet playing and composing slowed down, Jouvin transitioned into more administrative roles in the music industry. In addition to becoming president of the union of orchestra conductors, Jouvin advanced to vice-president of a French copyright management society known as the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (SACEM).

Thankfully, during his career of playing jazz covers, Columbia Records released this compilation album, ‘The Best Of Georges Jouvin.’ This was his only album exclusively released in Germany. It features a dozen songs, mostly from stage and screen. The album includes a trumpet-forward rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s theme song to Casino Royale. While it is not as easy to find cover versions of songs from this film compared to the official EON Production James Bond soundtracks, it is usually a fun listen.

139. Georges Jouvin – The Best Of Georges Jouvin

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For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we’re not listening to music from Dr. No, but we are listening to music from five other James Bond films released through 1967!

Born in Munich, Germany, in 1922, Hugo Strasser would go on to be a famous German clarinetist, as well as a jazz bandleader. In the years after World War II, Strasser formed his own 16-man dance orchestra. Known for its dance music, the band played for decades and always adjusted to different genres of music.

Strasser was exceptionally famous for his series of dance-friendly music for ballroom devotees. His sophisticated style and dedication to dance music made him a favorite among fans of ballroom and classic swing. Strasser’s Orchestra released its first record in 1957 and had over 200 records released by the time of Strasser’s passing in 2016.

‘Hugo Strasser Und Sein Grosses Tanzorchester – Filmhits Zum Tanzen’, which translates to ‘Hugo Strasser and His Large Dance Orchestra – Film Hits for Dancing’ is our pick for tonight. This 1968 compilation album from Columbia Records was only released in Europe, in fact, only with German text. What really makes this record unique, though, is not its inclusion of hit tunes from 28 different film soundtracks, but rather the presentation on the album. Divided into 10 separate medleys of 2-3 songs each from a variety of genres such as bossa nova, foxtrot, waltz, and more. Besides the inclusion of Goldfinger and Casino Royale (1967) on side one, there is this ‘slow beat’ medley of James Bond music on the B-side. It’s a nice listen to hear Thunderball roll right into From Russia With Love and then transition into the latest Bond theme at the time – You Only Live Twice. I think you’ll enjoy it too. 🍸

138. Hugo Strasser and His Large Dance Orchestra – Film Hits for Dancing

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