Customer Reviews

Hard to Find Orchestral Instrumentals II

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Well, ERIC records has done it again.

Continuing their unique practice of giving us both well known hits and impossible to find rarities, Eric presents Volume 2 of "Hard to Find Orchestral Instrumentals". This one is, in my opinion, even better than the first.

First off, the sound quality of this disk is ASTOUNDING. ERIC has gotten the various reissue departments to provide them with absolute first generation mono and stereo masters and this CD proves it. The aural quality is breathtaking. The fact that Orchestral music is so beautifully suited for true stereo playback is exhibited here, as a whopping 15 of the 20 tracks are True Stereo and sound magnificent.

There are, of course, the big soundtrack hits here, like 'The Day The Rains Came" "Rocky", "Ben Casey", "Theme from The Apartment", and " Nadias Theme". All top 30 and well remembered. However, for this 43 year old fan, it was the some of the lessor known tracks, in particulatr the 1963 Colpix low level charter "Theme From The Long Ships" that really makes this collection the gem that it is. Outstanding tracks include "Theme From The Sundowners" , "The Dark At The Top of The Stairs" and "I Will Follow Him" , all tracks that will suddenly sound familiar again after first listen.

Therein lies the BEST part of this collection. When you put this on your player, you will be treated to a nostalgic feast,
a time when the magic of Orchestral music still ruled the charts, and existed in all our homes. And you'll certainly remember most of these once you hear them, which is the fun part!!

There arent enough great things I can say about this collection AND its sister CD "Hard To Find pop Instrumentals- Part 2" I personally liked this volume better, but if you dont have either yet, give yourself a musical treat, and some REAL listening enjoyment and pick these up...

Its listening the way it used to be.

MA....

After 20 years of music being reissued on CD, one would suppose there would be little left in the vaults to mine but Eric Records has proven that assumption powerfully wrong. This successor to Eric's "Hard To Find Orchestral Instrumentals" is an amazing accomplishment.

Most of the 20 tracks included here have never before appeared on legitimate CD. And we're not talking only obscurities either. For the first time we get Barry DeVorzon's "Nadia's Theme" a/k/a "The Young And The Restless" from 1976 and George Cates' 1956 version of "Moonglow And Theme From Picnic", both top-10 tunes heretofore ignored on CD. Among other top-40 tunes to finally see the light of day are Valjean's "Theme From Ben Casey" and Raymond LeFevre's "The Day The Rains Came". In amongst the rarities are Ron Goodwin's "Swinging Sweethearts" from 1957 and "Beautiful Obsession" by Ernie Freeman doing business as Sir Chauncy. And while some of these tracks never had the chart success they deserved, the fan of orchestral instrumentals will revel in rediscovering or even discovering for the first time these performances.

Sound quality is of utmost concern here as with other Eric CD's and many of these lushly orchestrated tunes come forth in room-filling stereo. Even the mono sides (4,5,9,14,15) are good sounding given the vintage of some of these tracks. The liner notes booklet completes the package with backround on each of the included tunes.

An absolutely outstanding CD and a must get for both the casual fan and hard-nosed collector of the genre.

Back in 2002, one thing I shared with many other completist collectors of hit singles from the 1950s and 1960s was ever seeing a CD version of the George Cates version of Moonglow And The Theme From "Picnic."

I wrote to Bill Buster of Eric Records about that [and several others in the "impossible-to-find" category] sometime later that year, and within a few weeks he called me and we had a nice conversation about the frustrations of those of us trying to find CD versions of some long-lost hits.

Now whether or not that conversation had anything to do with this Volume appearing on the market I can't say - but I was so happy to see, not only the Cates version of that song, but Raymond Lefevre's The Day The Rains Came, and Nelson Riddle's hit "Route 66" Theme in its original format. Thank you Bill Buster and keep them coming please.

All the other selections in this compilation are appreciated as well, from those that charted [performances are shown on the reverse], to the non-hits [tracks 8, 11, 19, and 20] which, when you hear them, will leave you wondering WHY they were not hits themselves. Especially Franck Pourcel's rendition of Chariot (I Will Follow Him}, the vocal version of which was, of course, a huge hit for Peggy March in 1963.

Normally, the best such compilations around come from Ace Records of London, but this Hard-to-Find series produced by Bill Buster stands right up there with them. Not only for the music, but for the great liner notes in each set as well, in this instance six pages written by one of the best around, Joseph E. Laredo. And, as usual, the sound quality is excellent.

For the record, seven of the 20 selections [tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 13, and 17] were originally Top 40 hits, another six [tracks 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, and 18] made the Top 100, and tracks 4, 10, and 16 were all on the "bubble under" Billboard charts. A bit of interest was in finding that Sir Chauncey & his exciting strings [track 6] was, in reality, Ernie Freeman of Raunchy fame.

El tema de nadia es una de las canciones mas excelentes de la historia de la musica

I was excited to find this album. I bought it but was horrified to find a loud vocal on the first track. The rest of the music is all instrumental but this one track simply JARS you when it plays. Very disappointing!

I just received a copy of this CD from Amazon Marketplace, shipped from London. It is a well-engineered copy of many hit orchestral instrumentals, and it contains a rarity, "Nadia's Theme (The Young & The Restless)", by Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. A review here states that "Nadia's Theme" is not the correct version of the song. To set the record straight, it IS the correct version of the song.

The version of "Nadia's Theme" heard on the soap opera "The Young & The Restless" is ever-so-slightly sped up from the version that hit the Billboard charts in the late-summer of 1976. It's easy to make the mistake that the one heard on the soap is the version released as a single. But I have a copy of an American Top 40 from October 1976, when the song was climbing the chart, and in comparing the two songs, from that show and this CD, the two songs are the very same. If you're a fan of that song, this CD is one of the very few places around with the original single version you may have heard on the radio in late-1976.

This CD has 7 Top 40 hits on it, as well as a number of other memorable instrumentals that would be a fine fit in your library if you're a fan of orchestral pop. It's well worth the price to hear the likes of Bill Conti, Ferrante & Teicher, George Martin, Percy Faith and others. Plus, for me, it earns its worth with the inclusion of the original version of "Nadia's Theme"; having worked at a radio station specializing in this type of instrumental music, many of these are familiar to my ears once more.

This CD is no longer available here but is still available as an out-of-print Collector's Item from the Eric Records site - ericrecords(dot)com. But hurry!

Good selection of instrumental themes, as the title says, "hard to find" in some other releases like the original Nadia`s theme.
I recommend this album as a soft listening for special situations.

All beautiful forgotten (not by me) songs with three magnificent gems: 1.Beautiful obsession (nick name;Sir Chauncey) 2.The dark at the top of the stairs (Percy Faith) 3.Moonglow (George Cates).
Wonderful sound, great remastering job by Eric Records (not a surprise) sounds better than songs recorded 2 decades later.
80% true full STEREO, the heart&soul of this CD are songs that go from 1956 to 1964 and they sound like if they were born yesterday.
If music is part of your life also this CD is.
Ciao,
Franco

The version of "Nadia's Theme" (Theme from The Young and the Restless) isn't actually the one you're expecting. I believe it's actually the original arrangement made for "Bless the Beasts and the Children". So what later became the Young and the Restless theme (the one that was a hit) still remains unreleased on CD.

Hopefully, we can see that version on a future release. Maybe they could get "Little Ballerina Blue" on one while they're at it.

Still, some great stuff here.