Friday, March 30, 2007

Pete Fountain's Golden Favorites - Coral Records

Pete Fountain's Golden Favorites



1970 Coral Records CRL 757511 Stereo / CRL 57511 Mono

Side One
1. Whipped Cream*
2. You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You**
3. A Taste Of Honey**
4. Stranger On The Shore*
5. Spanish Eyes**

Side Two
1. Hello, Dolly!**
2. Petite Fleur*
3. Licorice Stick**
4. Those Were The Days*
5. Strangers In The Night**
6. Bourbon Street Parade*

*Clarinet solo with instrumental accompaniment
**Clarinet solo with orchestra and chorus
Produced By Charles Bud Dant

Liner Notes:

When Pete Fountain picks a bunch of golden favorites, he puts together a beautifully-rounded program of some of the top hits of recent years. And he keeps the lovely liquid sound of his clarinet right out there in front, where you've insisted that it be all along.

Pete has built his tremendous reputation and his huge following by exactly that simpleformula: great songs, with the Fountain clarinet singing the melody and improvising on it as only Pete can do.

This is what won him fame in the jazz field when he first cracked into the scene as one of the most exciting clarinet players ever to come north from New Orleans. This is what spelled success when he sat in the clarinet chair of the Lawrence Welk band and thrilled audiences from coast to coast every week on the Welk TV show. This is
precisely the formula that has given Pete Coral album after Coral album of sheer listening pleasure. And, the business end of the business might add, some pretty healthy sales, too.

It may even be why you are holding this album in your hands and reading these very words. You know what you want. So does Pete Fountain.

And here it is. Whipped Cream, which was the title tune in that first best-selling album by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The setting and the sound are much different here, of course. And the clarinet...well, that's why you're here, isn't it?

A Taste Of Honey is another salute to Mr. Alpert, one of several artists who have had a hit with this lovely Bobby Scott melody. Pete plays it so beautifully, you can hear the words in your mind as you listen.

Being a clarinetist, Mr. F. has naturally chosen several clarinet showcases. How about Mr. Acker Bilk's Stranger On The Shore, which Pete makes moving and poignant, yet bright and exciting, too? Or listen to Sidney Bechet's lovely melody, Petite Fleur, which was a monster hit for Chris Barber some ten years ago.

Pete seems to flow around the pretty, fragile melody of the song. And, of course, there's the song that salutes his axe...Licorice Stick. No need to describe what Pete does with that!

It happens on every band, song after song. There's a swinging salute to Louis Armstrong and Barbra Streisand and Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey... perhaps even David Merrick, himself, in Pete's swinging version of Hello, Dolly! and there's a rousing look into Pete's native New Orleans and the music he knows and blows so well with Bourbon Street Parade.

Pick your favorite.... Is it the perennial show-closer, You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You? Or the Bert Kaempfert tune that Frank Sinatra dooby-dooed to the top, Strangers In The Night? Or the Kurt Weill-ish feeling song that Mary Napkin exploded onto our scene... Those Were The Days? Or, perhaps, the Al Martino smash, Spanish Eyes?

You name it and you've got it. Done in the silvery, silky, beautifully smooth style of the leading clarinetist on the scene today. Here's your clue: his last name rhymes with "mountain"!

Coral Stereo Records Can Be Safely Played On Today's Monaural Phonographs To The Maximum Sound Capabilities Of Your Equipment Yet Will Reveal Full Stereo Listening Quality When Played On Stereo Phonographs.

CORAL RECORDS, A Subsidiary of MCA Inc., New York, N. Y. USA

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