What's Up, Tiger Lily? / You're A Big Boy Now: 2 Classic Original Soundtracks [Import, Soundtrack]

Lovin Spoonful | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 31, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Soundtrack
• Label: Camden/Wave
• ASIN: B00001ZTUN
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,068 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Lovin' Spoonful's dismal track record in reissues obscures their glories as an ebullient '60s folk-rock band from Greenwich Village that bucked the style's West Coast dominance. While not their finest work, this coupling of their two forays into film music--for two then-fledgling filmmakers, Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola--shares a what-the-hell exuberance appropriate to Allen's antic, redubbed Japanese spy flick and Coppola's flawed but engaging coming-of-age comedy. The 1966 film What's Up, Tiger Lily? gets top billing but is the slighter work, boiling down to a terrific, typically funny title theme ("Pow") and various reprises, plus variants on earlier album tracks ("Fishin' Blues" and "Cocoanut Grove") and a folk standard. Their soundtrack for 1967's You're a Big Boy Now is more ambitious, adding orchestral arrangements and cohering around three solid originals, including the tender, romantic "Darling, Be Home Soon," plus more fully realized cues. Film buffs will be disappointed at the annotation's pop-centric spin, but the band's fans will be grateful for another spoonful of their scrappy, good-natured music. --Sam Sutherland

Product Description

Two of the hit American pop rock group's soundtrack albums together on one CD, director Woody Allen's 1966 spy comedy 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?' (one of his earliest films) and director Francis Ford Coppola's first film, the 1966 romantic comedy 'You're A Big Boy Now' (the soundtrack album wasn't released until 1967 however). The former includes the hit 'Pow'; the latter features the top 20 smash 'Darling Be Home Soon'. Both records were originally released on the Kama Sutra label. A combined total of 26 tracks. Also features the original cover o

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars TIGER LILY has some fab out-of-character stuff, November 28, 2004

By 

Horst Meisterfluscher - See all my reviews

This review is from: What's Up, Tiger Lily? / You're A Big Boy Now: 2 Classic Original Soundtracks (Audio CD)

TIGER LILY includes a jazz masterpiece called GRAY PRISON BLUES. Which gets my vote as The Spoonful's greatest track. LOOKIN' TO SPY is an instrumental version of COCONUT GROVE and contains 2 fab guitar dischords. Another gem is PHIL'S LOVE THEME. Which has a brilliantly understated yearning quality.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wash Her Away is not a wash, March 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: What's Up, Tiger Lily? / You're A Big Boy Now: 2 Classic Original Soundtracks (Audio CD)

I had one disagreement with the last reviewer. I'm a Spoonful fan and "Wash Her Away" has been one of my favorites of theirs for years. It's one of their most rambunctious tunes. Also "Respoken" is another one of their more underrated songs (rather melodic). It's probably correct, however, to call "Girl Beautiful Girl", a throwaway, but with the footnote that it was, after all, the song Francis Ford Coppola chose to open the film with (i.e., can't be that bad). Although most of the songs are instrumentals, this CD combination does provide to Spoonful fans an added dimension to how unique a band they were.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Few Gems--Lots of Filler, January 12, 2000

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY/YOU'RE A BIG BOY (Audio CD)

Okay, okay. This 2-on-1 CD reissue of the two soundracks the Spoonful did should not be judged by the same criteria as their official studio releases. That said, there are some classic Spoonful tunes here to be weeded out from among the mostly instrumental songs found here.

About a third of the tracks are vocals and all deserve a listen. "Pow" is the kind of zany track like "Blues in the Bottle" or "Bald-Headed Lena" that wound up on the albums Do You Believe in Magic and Daydream respectively. "Fishin' Blues" remained in John Sebastian's live set throughout his solo years. "Respoken" gives Zal Yanovsky the opportunity to provide some understated guitar licks. "You're a Big Boy Now" is classic Spoonful with its bouncy rhythms. And "Darling Be Home Soon" even became a hit (peaking at #15). However, "Wash Her Away (from the Discotheque)," with its cheesy organ sounds like some studio mogul's idea of what rock and roll should sound like. And "Girl, Beautiful Girl/Barabara's Theme" is little more than a throwaway when compared to classics like "Do You Believe in Magic" and "Summer in the City."

In between, there are lots of incidental instrumentals. All of it listenable(at least once), but not much really memorable. Zally's guitar playing is always tasteful and Sebastian's harmonica is used to good effect. Although on the tracks that get the full orchestration teatment, like on "Letter to Barbara" and "Miss Thing's Thang," the band seems to disappear entirely. And even as kitsch "Dixieland Big Boy" can be painful to listen to.

However, when the band is left unadorned like on the bluesy "A Cool Million" and the country-ish "Phil's Love Theme," the Spoonful deliver.

Overall, this album is for completists only. But with so little of the Spoonful's original albums in print, this is worth giving a spin--and the price isn't bad either. CAUTIOUSLY RECOMMENDED