Cherry Red’s él Label Offers Rod McKuen, Wally Stott, Bobby Scott Rarities
Cherry Red’s él imprint has a trio of recent releases continuing its commitment to truly eclectic sounds of the pre-1964 era. Two of these are musical odes to the big city life of London and New York, from arrangers Wally Stott and Bobby Scott, respectively; the third reissues and expands a compilation from the late Rod McKuen.
Singer-songwriter-poet-author-renaissance man McKuen, who died earlier this year, was recently the subject of Varese Vintage’s Reflections: The Greatest Songs of Rod McKuen, an anthology for which I was proud to write the liner notes. McKuen was an amazingly prolific recording artist, with albums on an astounding number of labels including his own Stanyan Records. At the height of his popularity, in 1970, the Liberty label’s budget subsidiary Sunset Records issued In the Beginning: Rod McKuen Narrates His Poetry and Sings. The LP was drawn exclusively from McKuen’s early, mostly folk-oriented recordings for Liberty and Imperial, with six songs from his 1956 Liberty album Songs for a Lazy Afternoon and three (mostly) spoken-word tracks from the 1960 Imperial various-artists collection The Yellow Unicorn.
The team at él has expanded In the Beginning with seventeen additional early McKuen works, all available due to current U.K. public domain laws. Two poems have been taken from the 1958 Hi-Fi album Time of Desire. McKuen’s 1959 Decca album Anywhere I Wander has been tapped for four songs including the songwriter’s rendition of Frank Loesser’s title track and The Weavers’ hit “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.” Another four songs are reprised from the 1960 Decca platter Alone After Dark, such as Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn’s “Time After Time” and three of McKuen’s own compositions. 1961’s Kapp release A Stranger in Town (reissued as In a Lonely Place) yields five cuts here, once more showcasing the artist’s gifts as interpreter (Rodgers and Hart’s “She Was Too Good to Me,” McKuen’s friend Johnny Mercer’s “When the World Was Young”) and songwriter (“In a Lonely Place,” “Reflection”). The compilation is rounded out by two of McKuen’s early film songs: “Picnic by the Sea” from 1956’s Rock Pretty Baby and “To Know You is to Love You” from 1958’s Summer Love. The latter was co-written by Henry Mancini, whose friendship with Rod would later blossom into a songwriting collaboration. The él release features new and vintage liner notes as well as photographs in its color booklet.
The él spotlight is also turned on another creator with a remarkable career. Wally Stott, later Angela Morley (1924-2009), began his career as a 15-year old professional musician, touring with bands around the United Kingdom. Bandleaders seized upon Stott’s ability to sight-read and arrange for the orchestra, and at the age of 26 in 1950, Stott chose to concentrate on arranging. In the 1950s, Stott served as in-house musical director for the Philips label (working with artists including Mel Torme and Rosemary Clooney), scored films, and became the musical leader of radio’s popular Goon Show. London Souvenir: A Musical Souvenir of London Town was recorded by Stott in 1958 and first released by Philips as London Pride. It was commissioned by the American Columbia Records label and recorded by Stott and his orchestra at Walthamstow Town Hall.
For this mélange of the musical sounds of London, Stott compellingly blended light music, nursery songs, music hall burlesque and jazz; no wonder Scott Walker (with whom Stott had a fruitful collaboration in the late 1960s on Walker’s renowned solo records) once commented, “Wally Stott was a great arranger. He would not only take what I gave him, but he would come back with something even more.” London Souvenir is indeed a snapshot in time of the city’s rich legacy in song featuring tunes that are still familiar today such as “Limehouse Blues,” “These Foolish Things” and even The Gershwins’ “A Foggy Day (In London Town).” This edition of London Souvenir is expanded with numerous bonus tracks. Two standards included on Souvenir, Noel Coward’s “London Pride” and Eric Maschwitz and Manning Sherwin’s “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” are reprised in their versions by Mel Torme accompanied by Stott. The legendary Coward is also represented by five more tracks from his album Sings His Great Successes, also with Stott’s orchestra. A selection of “light music” rounds out the 27-track program: two by Stott, and three by his contemporaries Clive Richardson and Trevor Duncan. The él reissue includes artwork from the London Souvenir LP including wonderful period images and a then-current map of the Underground! Stott remained in-demand throughout the 1960s, and in the following decade, as Angela Morley, relocated to the United States, received Oscar nominations for The Little Prince and The Slipper and the Rose, and worked with John Williams to orchestrate such classic films as Star Wars and Superman. The three-time Emmy winner also became a major presence in television scoring on shows like Dallas and Dynasty. Her extraordinary music still resonates today.
Lastly, él has a two-fer from Bobby Scott. Best known as composer of “A Taste of Honey” and “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” Scott (1937-1990) was a multi-instrumentalist who like Angela Morley was playing with professional musicians by his teenage years. In 1956 he scored a No. 13 Pop hit with “Chain Gang” (not the Sam Cooke song) and albums with Scott as a leader adorned labels including Bethlehem, Verve, Atlantic, Mercury, and ABC-Paramount. The versatile Scott also produced or arranged for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Bobby Darin, and composed for films. In 1962, Scott released Joyful Noises on Mercury. Designed to blend jazz and modern classical, the album was described in the original liner notes (reprinted here) as follows: “Does the music he presents in it spring directly from the Ellington mold? Is it rigidly welded to the blues format? Is it wholly within a modern classical context? Is it a Third Stream tributary? The answer, in every case, is ‘no.’ It is Scott’s freshly conceived music, a blend of sounds that defies categorization.” Scott led his own compositions on piano, with his friend Quincy Jones (inspiration for the track “One for Quincy”) as musical director.
Joyful Noises wasn’t Scott’s first such concept recording, though. The year before, in 1961, he had composed a tribute to New York City for bandleader and alto saxophonist Larry Elgart (brother of Les). The simply-titled The City featured thirteen selections, each composed to evoke a particular place or time in New York City including “Columbus Circle, 5 A.M.,” “Central Park South” and “The Great White Way.” The Duke Ellington influence was apparent both on The City and on Joyful Noises in their sophisticated melding of jazz and orchestral styles. This reissue adds one bonus track from Bobby Scott Sings the Best of Lerner and Loewe, his 1958 Verve album: “Wand’rin Star” from the team’s musical Paint Your Wagon.
All three of these releases are available now at the links below!
Rod McKuen, In the Beginning: Rod McKuen Narrates His Poetry and Sings (Tracks 1-8 from Sunset SUS-5273, 1970- reissued él ACMEM300CD, 2015) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
- Lazy Afternoon
- Jaydee
- Colorado Trail
- Sinner Man
- Happy is a Boy Named Me
- The Yellow Unicorn
- Kearny Street
- Six Songs for the Sun
- Anywhere I Wander
- Two Brothers
- Handsome Johnny
- Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
- Till My Ship Comes In
- Time After Time
- Alone After Dark
- April People
- A Stranger in Town
- She Was Too Good to Me
- When the World Was Young
- In a Lonely Place
- Reflection
- Holidays
- About Me
- Picnic by the Sea – Rod McKuen and the Ding-a-Lings
- To Know You is to Love You – Rod McKuen and Molly Bee
Tracks 1-5 from Songs for a Lazy Afternoon, Liberty, 1956
Tracks 6-8 from The Yellow Unicorn, Imperial, 1960
Tracks 9-12 from Anywhere I Wander, Decca, 1959
Tracks 13-16 from Alone After Dark, Decca, 1960
Tracks 17-21 from A Stranger in Town, Kapp, 1961
Tracks 22-23 from Time of Desire, Hi-Fi, 1958
Track 24 from Rock Pretty Baby, 1956
Track 25 from Summer Love, 1958
Wally Stott and His Orchestra, London Souvenir (Philips, 1958 – reissued él ACMEM299CD, 2015) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
- London Pride/Oranges and Lemons/Early One Morning
- Rotten Row
- The British Grenadiers
- Knightsbridge March
- London Bridge is Falling Down
- Chelsea
- London Pride
- Limehouse Blues/Old Father Thames Keeps Rolling Along
- A Foggy Day
- The Dargason
- London by Night
- Music Hall Burlesque: A Wot Cher (Knocked ‘Em in Old Kent Road)/Don’t Dilly Dally on the Way/Any Old Iron
- A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
- These Foolish Things
- The Westminster Waltz/London Pride (Epilogue)
- A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square – Mel Torme with Wally Stott
- London Pride – Mel Torme with Wally Stott
- Travelling Along – Wally Stott and His Orchestra
- A Canadian in Mayfair – Wally Stott and His Orchestra
- Girl from Corsica – Trevor Duncan
- High Heels – Trevor Duncan
- Melody on the Move – Clive Richardson
- Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington – Noel Coward with Wally Stott
- World Weary – Noel Coward with Wally Stott
- Mad Dogs and Englishmen – Noel Coward with Wally Stott
- Poor Little Rich Girl – Noel Coward with Wally Stott
- I’ll See You Again – Noel Coward with Wally Stott
Bobby Scott, Joyful Noises / Larry Elgart, The City (él ACMEM295CD, 2015) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
- The Word
- A Joyful Noise
- For Everything a Season
- The Meanings
- One for Quincy
- Little Egypt
- Two Dancing Feet
- The City of Water
- Little Hands, Little Fingers
- Wandr’in Star
- Scheme Street
- Quiet Harbour
- The Village
- Central Park South
- Cars and Noise
- Dance of Glass and Steel
- The Great White Way
- Rain and Pavement
- On the Drive
- Dawn
- Rooftop
- Columbus Circle at 5 A.M.
- Uptown Incident
Tracks 1-9 from Bobby Scott, Joyful Noises, Mercury MG 20701, 1962
Track 10 from The Bobby Scott Trio, Sings the Best of Lerner and Loewe, Verve V6-2106, 1958
Tracks 11-23 from Larry Elgart and His Orchestra, The City, MGM 4007, 1961
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I would love to see a reissue of Mr. McKuen’s trilogy with the San Sebastian Strings and the Anita Kerr singers.