SENTIMENTAL 70s PART 2 : TRIBUTES TO THE CARPENTERS PLUS THE ORCHESTRAS OF ARTHUR FIEDLER, PAUL MAURIAT AND FRANCK POURCEL

SENTIMENTAL 70s PART 2 : TRIBUTES TO THE CARPENTERS PLUS THE ORCHESTRAS OF ARTHUR FIEDLER, PAUL MAURIAT AND FRANCK POURCEL

The 1970s was characterized by a huge amount of melodic and wistful songwriting that made huge careers for singers of popular song. More than that, a huge cache of the pop songs of that decade captured emotion and heartbreak unlike any other. This round of reviews tips the hat to The Carpenters while also acknowledging the genius of Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, Neil Diamond, Leon Russell, Linda Creed and Thom Bell, and the unusual pairing of Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams as well. To round off the sentimentality, we will also dip into two remasters of ‘semi-disco’ albums by Paul Mauriat and Franck Pourcel. As I was composing this, I could not help noticing that Manuel and the Music of the Mountains, and probably along with Mantovani and Bert Kaempfert, defiantly maintained their trademark 1960s style of lush instrumentation without electric guitars, organs and synthesizers. I start this review with a snapshot of 1991’s Compact Disc release of Manuel’s LATIN ROMANCE on the EMI Studio Two Label juxtaposed alongside Franck Pourcel’s radical artwork cover of 1978’s AMOUR DANSE ET VIOLIN NO.51 LP on CD featuring the themes from ‘Star Wars’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ and the evergreen love song from ‘Saturday Night Fever’ – ‘How Deep is Your Love’ by the Bee Gees. 1978 was a golden year for 70s era pop since it demonstrated a preview of the electronic instrumentation that was set to dominate the next decade’s pop parade. So between the lush strings and light Latin tempos of Manuel and the shiny new sounds of Franck Pourcel from the late 1970s, we begin a journey into the next set of ‘Sentimental 70s’ easy listening instrumentals.

Although the songs of the Carpenters have been covered by just about every instrumental act in the 1970s, I highlight a 2005 production by the Japanese guitar duo, SUPER NATURAL. The familiar Carpenters’ songs have their quiet sentimentality amplified in these arrangements. Not all Carpenters or easy listening fans will like this one though. It veers very close to the ‘New Age’ genre of instrumental music. But listen to how ‘Top of the World’ gets a Bluegrass soulful vibe, you will instinctively know Karen and Richard Carpenter would have approved of it. In their hit-making days, the duo were also experimenting with musical styles. Even ‘Close to You’ and ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ become soundtrack worthy if used for any number of TV romantic dramas in the hands of SUPER NATURAL. The ambience of candlelight and an imaginary calm lake likewise takes one far away from the cares of the day on ‘I Need to be in Love’,  ‘I Won’t Last a Day’, ‘Hurting Each Other’ and of course ‘Close to You’.

Not to be forgotten, or better still, waiting to be rediscovered, is the CARPENTERS SONGBOOK LP released by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1975. Fiedler had a special relationship going with the brother and sister team of Richard and Karen. This culminated in the sensational 1974 concert in Boston where the duo performed live with the orchestra. This concert has been preserved visually by a number of Carpenters fans on YouTube. The sound quality however leaves much to be desired. Reviewed here is a Deutschgrammaphon exclusive release for the Japanese market.

This remastered LP on CD is anything but poor in sound quality given its Japanese-German technical collaboration on remastering. Richard Carpenter’s fondness for arranging for piano and strings is given a symphonic tribute by Fiedler, who arranged – as far as I can tell – the entire LP.  The contrast with guitar arrangements in the preceding album could not be greater. Trombones, flugelhorns, strings and harp substituted for Karen’s and Richard’s voices quite naturally. One does not feel their vocals missing at all. Listen to ‘Superstar’, ‘Top of the World’, ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ and ‘For All We Know’ for sheer symphonic thrill. This album is nothing short of simulating a movie soundtrack for a Carpenters’ movie. Fiedler follows Richard Carpenter’s arrangements closely but adds in string passages and trombone flourishes where appropriate.

Fiedler has also made his mark on 1970s Easy Listening with two albums titled GREATEST HITS OF THE 70s VOLUMES 1 AND 2. These LPs have been meticulously remastered into hybrid SACD format by Dutton Vocalion. Delving deeper into the pop scene c.1970-5, Fiedler carefully curated a lineup of tunes that lent themselves to marching band and typical ‘pops arrangements’ with plenty of brass, strings and loud percussion. Think of songs that could be transformed into Parade ground favourites or closing music for the end of a film and you’ll appreciate Arthur Fiedler’s style. Paul Simon’s ‘Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard’, Neil Diamond’s ‘Play Me’, Barry White’s ‘Love’s Theme’, ‘Leave me Alone’, ‘Joy to the World’, ‘Song Sung Blue’, and ‘Popcorn’ were suitably dramatic in their brassy sound, loud passages, and percussion while ‘Rose Garden’, ‘Help Me Make it Through the Night’, ‘The Way We Were’, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ and ‘One Less Bell to Answer’ softened the selections with subtle variety. Then again, because Fiedler was wielding the baton in a large symphony hall, the strings can occasionally sound way softer than necessary for listening at home. At this point, one wishes the recording engineers for Fiedler could have taken a leaf from the French masters of easy listening and amplified the strings where necessary on the final recording mix. That said, the two volumes of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops still makes for a lavish tribute to the songwriting of the 1970s.

The French orchestras of Paul Mauriat and Franck Pourcel have in their own inimitable ways left creative marks on the 1970s hit parade – especially the disco numbers and big ballads, and more. 1978’s PAUL MAURIAT – PLAYS SUPER STARS featured the following line-up of instrumental pop:

A1	Nobody Does It Better
A2	When I Need You
A3	Knowing Me Knowing You
A4	Evergreen - Love Theme From 'A Star Is Born'
A5	Don't Go Breaking My Heart
A6	There's A Kind Of Hush
A7	Sunny
B1	C'est La Vie
B2	If You Leave Me Now
B3	I Feel Love
B4	Another Star
B5	Could It Be Magic
B6	We're All Alone
B7	Piano Star

Mauriat demonstrated his late 1970s genius on this one, with a funky introduction on the James Bond film theme ‘Nobody Does it Better’ and arraying trumpets to sing the main notes while the strings race to substitute for them in the midsections. Mauriat’s classic employment of harpsichord on tunes like ‘Evergreen’, ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’, ‘When I Need You’, ‘Don’t Go Breaking my Heart’, and ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’ evoke continuity with his late 1960s and early 1970s output. But this time, Mauriat does not let one instrument sing the main melody, he varies the lead from everything to trumpet, harpsichord, strings, oboe and synthesizer. The ABBA hit ‘Knowing Me…’ is memorably transformed into a fast-paced semi-disco ballad far away from the pop group’s original version. There are also familiar straightforward ballad terrain on numbers like ‘We’re All Alone’, ‘If You Leave Me Now’, ‘Could it be Magic’, and ‘C’est la Vie’ where the maestro showcases how his arrangements bring out a new dimension to musical romance by slowing down the tempos by just a little, adding solo oboe and trumpet, and short unforgettable female choruses. The more traditional disco-esque numbers like ‘I Feel Love’ and ‘Another Star’ are left mostly intact in their original arrangements. This was after all the bonanza years of 1977-8 pop memorabilia!

There was plenty to go around for exciting material to be transformed orchestrally in and around 1978. Franck Pourcel’s cover for the 1978 LP AMOUR DANSE ET VIOLIN NO.51 tried obviously to capture the exoticism and adventure inspired by the ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ sci-fi films. At the same time, he was experimenting with large choral accompaniment to some spectacular love themes in those years. His unnamed chorus of male and female voices hewed closer to the Geoff Love Singers than Ray Conniff’s edgier tones around this time. The ‘Star Wars’ signature theme was given an ethereal slow tempo bubble-sounding synthesizer introduction evocative of floating in outer space, instead of trying to recall the hyperspeed of X-Wing fighters and Tie Fighters battling it out in the black vastness of a galaxy far far away! This is ‘Star Wars’ brought down to earth’s schmaltzy fashion runway with Pourcel’s trumpets and strings. Similarly, the ‘Close Encounters’ theme was layered with Pourcel’s special touch of replacing the synthesized chords of the five-point scale signature chorus with trumpets and the addition of female voices imitating the effects of space age exotica in recurring parts of the melody.

The soft feminine touch threads itself through ‘How Deep is Your Love’ where Pourcel’s string arrangements, spiced lightly with synthesizer, draw you into comfy lounge territory rather than the disco hall or the seaside speedboat featured in the Bee Gees’ original video for the song. Pourcel’s dramatic transformation of the rest of the album feature the nifty use of the chorus alternately on the remaining tracks. The Latin standard ‘Amor Amor’ gets a complete disco remake with strings, a pulsating disco beat and the irresistible chorus duetting with the strings. I never liked Paul McCartney’s original ‘Mull of Kintyre’ but this version goes somewhere into Gospel and Broadway territory with the chorus singing the right verses in the middle of the song. ‘Tarentelle’ and ‘Ti Amo’ become unforgettable – and very classy – European love songs sung appropriately in French and Italian in their midsections. Pourcel closes this 1978 show piece with the piano ballade ‘Girl of Skade’ but not before giving his fans another helping of disco on ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’.  There is so much more of Pourcel’s captivating late 70s styling in the rest of the albums remastered in the 4CD mini LP set distributed in 2021 labelled COFFRET 2021 – do check them out!

ALAN

January 2024