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Showing posts with label composer of the month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composer of the month. Show all posts
Lyricist Guy Hemric and composer Jerry Styner may have been the most prolific songwriting team working in movie musicals in the 1960s. And yet, they are hardly household names since their songs appeared principally in the Beach Party movies. Considered B-pictures when originally released, the Beach Party musicals have gained a loyal following over the years. Part of the reason is undoubtedly due to the songs performed by artists such as Frankie & Annette, Stevie Wonder, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, Nancy Sinatra, The Pyramids, and others.
Hemric and Styner wrote songs for all seven Beach Party films. Some of the songs were sweet romantic bubblegum (e.g., "A Boy Needs a Girl") or twistin' party music ("Beach Blanket Bingo"). But my two favorite songs are: "It Only Hurts When I Cry," a first-rate pop tune performed by Donna Loren in Beach Blanket Bingo and "Follow Your Leader," a smart comic classic sung by Harvey Lembeck in Bingo and reprised in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (in the clip below, the song starts about a minute into the scene) .
Born in 1936, Jerry Styner first wrote songs with Hemric in 1963's Beach Party. Styner also provided music for other American International Pictures in the 1960s. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Southern California. He now serves as a pastor at a church in California.
Guy Hemric moved to L.A. in 1952 and held numerous jobs before breaking into the music business. In addition to Styner, he also worked with other composers such as Mike Curb (who became a Lieutenant Governor in Califronia). Hemric co-wrote a big French hit for Petula Clark called "Ne Joue Pas" (aka "What Good Does it Do Me"). He died from colon cancer in 1993 at age 61.
If Laura was the only film that David Raksin ever scored, then his legacy in film music would still have been secured. Melodic, haunting, and lush--Raksin's score, and especially his title theme, are integral to the success of Otto Preminger's classic film noir. If you've forgotten just how beautiful his Laura theme is (or just want to hear it again), click on the link below:
Raksin's theme was so popular that Johnny Mercer added lyrics in 1945. The song "Laura" was been covered by dozens of artists from Duke Ellington to Johnny Mathis to Carly Simon. I always liked the rendention by Matt Monro (the "British Frank Sinatra").
Of course, Raksin did much more than just write the music for Laura. He worked regularly in film and then television for four decades. His film scores include: Whirlpool (with Preminger and Gene Tierney again), the TV series Ben Casey, and The Bad and the Beautiful (the theme is also known as "Love Is for the Very Young"). He earned Oscar nominations for his scores for Forever Amber and Separate Tables. One of his first Hollywood jobs was arranging the music for Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.
Like many other classic film composers, such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Raksin wasn't properly recognized until the 1970s. In 1975, RCA released an album with David Raksin and the New Philharmonic Orchestra playing selections from Laura, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Forever Amber. Subsequent Raksin albums have followed over the years.
Later in life, David Raksin taught at USC and UCLA. He died in 2004.
When listing the most accomplished composers of the classic film and TV era, George Duning does not immediately spring to mind. And yet, Duning--who worked on over 300 film and TV scores in some capacity--earned five Oscar nominations for Best Music Score. More importantly, he composed some of the most instantly recognizable music of the 1950s and 1960s, to include the:
- opening song to 3:10 to Yuma (sung by Frankie Laine).
- bewitching love theme to Bell, Book and Candle.
- score for From Here to Eternity (with Morris Stoloff).
- rousing theme to TV's The Big Valley.
However, my personal favorite has to be the "Love Theme from Picnic." In my favorite scene in the movie, drifter Hal Carter (William Holden) tries to teach young Mille (Susan Strasberg) how to "set the rhythm" to a dance. Millie doesn't pick it up immediately, but her older sister Madge (Kim Novak)--who has been been observing the impromptu dance lesson--captures the beat effortlessly. She joins Hal in a dance that builds to a subtle display of romantic fireworks, where a lingering look is enough to set emotions soaring.
As you watch the clip below, listen carefully to the music. George Duning starts the scene with a quartet playing "Moonglow," a 1933 song covered by Benny Goodman and others. Then, at the two-minute mark, he overlays a full string orchestra playing the "Love Theme from Picnic." It's a magical moment that perfectly complements the loving gaze shared by Hal and Maggie as they move closer to each other--realizing their intimate embrace could be the beginning of so much more. It's a captivating convergence of music and moving image.
From Here to Eternity.
Duning received an Academy Award nomination for his Picnic score (the Oscar went to Alfred Newman for Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing). In total, Duning received five Oscar nominations in a seven-year period, with the other nominations being for: Jolson Sings Again (with Morris Stoloff); No Sad Songs for Me; From Here to Eternity; and The Eddy Duchin Story (with Stoloff).
Prior to becoming a film composer, George Duning played piano and trumpet for Kay Kyser's band and appeared on Kyser's popular "Kollege of Musical Knowledge" radio program.
In the latter part of his career, Duning served in various capacities for the American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and on the Board of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. You can learn much more about composer George Duning at http://www.georgeduning.com/index.html.
For the next few months, the Cafe interrupts its Underrated Performer of the Month feature to pay tribute to some of classic cinema's best composers.
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