Thursday 5 January 2012

Songs you didn't know you didn't know 2

Alex Andreou reminded me of this little gem this morning, Herb Alpert's 1966 hit Spanish Flea:



So many good tunes by that man. Impressively, he's still touring and has a second career as an abstract artist.

Then I remembered this one:



The fantastic Henry Mancini's Baby Elephant Walk written in 1961 for the film Hatari. How many of his tunes could we list here? Casino Royale, The Pink Panther, Moon River ...

Then there's this splendid piece that gets dusted off quite often.



It's called In Party Mood by Jack Strachey and was the theme to the BBC radio show Housewives' Choice. Strachey also co-wrote the hit songs These Foolish Things and A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

And lastly:



A Walk in the Black Forest by Horst Jankowski. Originally called Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt, this tune reached Number 3 in the UK charts in 1965. Ah, what easy listening times they were.

And talking of easy listening, if you have a few spare minutes, do read my blog on the extraordinary story of bandleader James Last here.

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