Customer Reviews

Hard to Find Orchestral Instrumentals

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ERIC Records is a "class act". They are out to provide only the best audio quality from the best sources available. This Orchestral Instrumentals collection is supurb! You would spend a great deal of money to have all these great instrumental hits on CD if you could find them. ERIC has brought them all together here and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy. Great Listening!

Prior to the emergence of rock and roll instrumentals in the later fifties, the airwaves were filled with lushly produced tunes without vocals that often were pushed to the top of the pop charts. Even with the teenage takeover of music during the early rock era, exquisite full orchestral instrumentals continued to capture the record buying public.

From Eric Records, the small, independent powerhouse label providing great early rock-era compilations, comes this excellent gathering of orchestral instrumentals from the 50's and 60's. While among the 20 tracks presented here are many top five tunes, there are several lesser-charting gems that have not been treated kindly in previous reissues of this type, if at all making this a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting collection. Among the more familiar tunes are Acker Bilk's plaintive rendition of "Stranger On The Shore", Paul Mauriat's harpsichord- and strings-laden "Love Is Blue" and Franck Pourcel's lush interpretation of the Platters' "Only You". Adding interest to this compilation is the inclusion of rarities-on-domestic-CD such as Raymond Lefevre's worldwide hit "Soul Coaxing", Hagood Hardy's "Homecoming" from the TV-movie which spawned "The Waltons" and Helmut Zacharias' "When The White Lilacs Bloom Again".

Sound quality is top-notch though by virtue of their vintage, many of these tunes appear in mono. However, there are many stereo cuts here (1-3,7,8,15-20) making for a superb sonic experience when you let the volume crank. Included is an informative eight-page booklet providing backround on the included tracks.

This is a superb sampling and an essential piece of the more sophisticated and adult-oriented pop instrumentals of the era.

Have you ever heard an orchestral piece on the radio and wondered, "What was that? Who did it? Where can I get it?". This cd has many of those great pieces. Over the years, I have come to appreciate the music of my parents young adulthood more and more. This has led me to start collecting "lounge" music, Broadway cast albums, etc. The pieces on this cd are very difficult to find. Every one is an enjoyable timepiece.

This CD is a true treat for fans of instrumentals.Not only is the song selection excellent, but the sound is so clear and crisp it is hard to believe the recordings are mostly from the 50s and 60s--sounds like the orchestra is in your living room (or wherever your CD player is)...Lots of gems here to enjoy, including the haunting The Homecoming by Hagood Hardy (worth the cost of the CD just for this). Every one of these songs is a great memory..from Bert Kaempfert's Wonderland by Night to Limelight by Frank Chacksfield. The liner notes are quite extensive and the producer sums it up appropriately by saying that at the right volume (loud) the music isn't music to make love to, it's music that will make love to you! He calls the sound sparkling, soft, icy, and brilliant. I would have to add one more word: GRAND!

Nice versions of all those "string" orchestral songs...and it is genuinely moving at times.

Quality is very good and I enjoyed finding some rare bits here...

Looking forward to more.

Maybe "Taboo" by Arthur Lyman could be found?

An Absolutely Wonderful Compilation! The arrangements of strings for "The Homecoming", "Love Is Blue" and all of the others are fabulous. I encourage every listener to play this collection as loud as one's spouse or landlord can tolerate without calling the police. Each track will wrap around and lift you, not letting you down until the last note is played. My favorite is Hagood Hardy's "The Homecoming", but every offering on this CD is a "must have" for those who enjoy beautifully arranged orchestrations.

The Orchestral instrumental, which began its ascendancy as a chart staple in 1950/51 with the gradual demise of the "big band" sound of the 1930's and 1940's, differs from the so-called Pop instrumental primarily through its heavy use of strings. Here, Eric producer Bill Buster has captured 20 of the very best of the genre in yet another quality release involving excellent sound (all but tracks 4,5,6, 9, 10, 13 and 14 are stereo), six pages of informative liner notes written by Charles Wolfe and Tom Daly, and chart details in the song listings, which run from 1953 to 1978.

There is a tune representing 1951, Charmaine by Mantovani & His Orchestra, but here you get a 1958 stereo re-make instead of the original. Sixteen of the cuts were Top 20 his, four of them # 1 (tracks 2, 3, 10, and 20), and three crossed over to the R&B charts (Wonderland By Night - # 5; Stranger On The Shore - # 7; and Only You - # 18).

With the advent of the Adult Contemporary (AC) charts in 1961, seven scored there as well with Stranger On The Shore spending SEVEN weeks at # 1 and Love Is Blue remaining at the top spot for ELEVEN weeks. Others making those charts were Shangri-La (# 4), Soul Coaxing (# 4), Song From M*A*S*H (# 7(, Maria Elena (# 3), and The Homecoming (# 6),

Beautiful, relaxing music which is the 20th Century equivalent of the classical music of the previous centuries.

some of the top instrumentals of the sixties and seventies including some of the top import soundtracks

This CD is no longer available here but is still available as a Collector's Item itself from ericrecords.com. But hurry!

For the past several months, if not years..... I've looked for this particular version of the "theme from M.A.S.H." Finally I've found it!!!! thanks for the demos so that I knew for a fact that this was the one!!! I consider myself a somewhat experienced/knowledgeable person as far as songs and instrumentals of the 60's but could not and was not able to find who composed this song. I was born in the early 50's and grew up in the 60's, what a decade. To remember the "boss radio" days. thanks amazon for giving me those flashbacks!!!!