'The Big Ones' by Ted Heath and His Music is an LP that I just couldn't leave behind when I spotted it lurking in a box at a car-boot sale last summer. I mean, come on. Look at the sleeve. It has 'Groovy' written all over it and was either going to be a complete stonker or an utter stinker. Fortunately it's the former. Pop hits of the day are given the big band treatment with pretty good results, though nowhere more successfully than this all-out assault on golden oldie (it was 4 years old at the time) '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'. Dig it!
7 comments:
Perhaps some young members of the James Taylor Quartet heard this and had a lightbulb moment!
CC. Could explain a lot.
What a cover - in both senses of the word. Looking at that artwork I can't help thinking of Crystal Tips and Alistair!
Never had him down as an English James Last. I've got a few albums from the late 60s/early 70s where some of the old jazzers figured a good way to turn a buck was to cover kids music. It would go on to kick start Loungecore in the early 90s. In fact, The Blowup Club turned it into a right money spinner.
Very tight, very funky. We must be working on the assumption that this is the old 40's big band leader and not the man who would become Prime Minister shortly after this waxing? That dodgy old fool made a few records as well didn't he? This is great, so can't be him.
How could anyone resist that cover ? Just away to dust down the old smoking jacket and dig some more of these groovy tunes...
C. I thought you might like the tune, but I was certain that you'd like the sleeve!
John. I found a James Last LP once containing a Cheap Trick cover. Cheap Trick! Was there never a 'Bert Kaempfert Plays the Punky Pops'? There should've been.
SB. Ted Heath (definitely not that one!) died in 1969, so this must've been among his last recordings. A Big Band Plays Prog project must surely have been on the horizon.
Scott. How many records (great and awful) have we bought over the years, based solely on the covers? Too many I suspect, though it's always a thrill when a good 'un comes along.
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