Time Can Do So Much: Kritzerland Reissues, Expands Alex North's "Unchained Melodies"

Time Can Do So Much: Kritzerland Reissues, Expands Alex North’s “Unchained Melodies”

Alex North would have achieved immortality had he only composed “Unchained Melody,” one of the most enduring pop songs of all time. Yet North accomplished much more than that, scoring over 40 feature films, earning 15 Academy Award nominations (and one honorary Oscar), three Grammy nominations, and a Golden Globe Award. In 1990, the Bay Cities label released Unchained Melody: The Film Themes of Alex North, featuring the composer conducting his own classic works. Now, Kritzerland has a remastered and expanded reissue arriving as Unchained Melodies: The Film Themes of Alex North.

Unchained Melodies includes many of North’s most memorable themes from films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Bad Seed, Viva Zapata!, The Rose Tattoo, and of course, Unchained. Remarkably, these scores are all drawn from the first seven years of a Hollywood career that lasted from 1951 through 1991; that year’s The Last Butterfly was his final film. (North’s credits on short films, documentaries, and television series date back to 1937.) After the period chronicled on this release, North contributed acclaimed scores to movies such as Spartacus, Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Good Morning Vietnam, but Unchained Melodies is a stirring testament to his remarkable early work.

Alex North died on September 8, 1991, at the age of 80 – not long after the original release of this album. For this reissue, Kritzerland has remastered the sound and added a bonus track: North’s classical work “Holiday Set,” performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by F. Charles Adler. Unchained Melodies: The Film Themes of Alex North is limited to 500 copies. CDs will ship by the second week of August, but pre-orders directly from Kritzerland typically arrive earlier. You’ll find the pre-order link and track listing below!

Unchained Melodies: The Film Themes of Alex North (Bay Cities BCD 310, 1990 – reissued Kritzerland, 2019)

Unchained
The Racers
Viva Zapata!
The Bad Seed
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Bachelor Party
The 13th Letter
Stage Struck
I’ll Cry Tomorrow
Les Miserables
The Rose Tattoo
Desirée
Holiday Set (Sunday Morning, Journey to Country Scene, Baseball Game Pause, Journey From) (Bonus Track)

All music composed by Alex North

Tracks 1-12 conducted by Alex North
Track 13 conducted by F. Charles Adler, with the Vienna Philharmonia Orchestra

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Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song and beyond, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with labels including Real Gone Music and Cherry Red Records, has released newly-curated collections produced and annotated by Joe from iconic artists such as Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Spinners, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Meat Loaf, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Liza Minnelli, Darlene Love, Al Stewart, Michael Nesmith, and many others.

Joe has written liner notes, produced, or contributed to over 200 reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them America, JD Souther, Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, BJ Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, Petula Clark, Robert Goulet, and Andy Williams.

Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray.

Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.

1 thought on “Time Can Do So Much: Kritzerland Reissues, Expands Alex North’s “Unchained Melodies””

Allen Wiener
August 18, 2019 at 4:59 pm

Can you tell us anything more about the Bonus Track? What films are these cues from? The CD itself tells us nothing. Thanks.

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