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Varese's CD, the majority of it came from a 3 3/4 inch pre-recorded tape I had. It wasn't called Touch of Evil but some generic title, but that's what it was, along with another Mancini album from that era pre RCA. The contents of that tape were from the VERY rare Mancini album on Challenge - it too wasn't called Touch of Evil - I still have my LP somewhere - it has kids dancing on the cover like it was a rock-and-roll album. That had all cues that weren't on the original LP. Tom Null deemed that the tape was preferable to my LP because in those days doing an LP transfer was bad - no way to clean it up. I don't know where the other bits came from from the original LP release.
And even now the second Challenge LP shows up in no discography that I've looked at. I think, in fact, that it never actually got released and only promo copies got out there - I've had two over the years, but unfortunately all the LPs are in boxes and I can't really get to them. It is currently infuriating me that I can't remember the title - oh, wait - The Wild Side of Henry Mancini - kind of an orange-ish cover.
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Aha, found it. Whew. You can see the cover here - this is what was on the reel-to-reel tape under yet another title.
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My LP sounds better than the Varese cd. I bought and returned the cd in a hot minute.
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My LP sounds better than the Varese cd. I bought and returned the cd in a hot minute.
Interesting. I'll have to look into that David. It's a great, jazzy, score that probably benefits from that warm LP sound.
Anecdote: the last time was in Cali - October 2013 - a mutual a fellow FSMer, a mutual acquaintance of ours, drove me around several LA landmarks. One of them, while perhaps not a landmark per se, was instantaneously recognizable for anyone familiar with this film classic. Good times!
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I have large scans of the front and back covers of The Wild Side of Henry Mancini on my WWW site:
http://mjq.net/Mancini/wildside1.jpg
http://mjq.net/Mancini/wildside2.jpg
Almost 20 years ago, I corresponded with the late Mancini collector Dan Miles. He e-mailed me:
The two copies of "Wild Side" that I have both have dark green center labels. Both have "audition copy" stamped on the back in blue lettering. As far as I know only 1,000 were ever produced because shortly thereafter Challenge went out of business. In fact, both of my copies came from the record libraries of two different radio stations, one in Denver, one in Colorado Springs. That's one reason why I think this record was never commercially released. I think Challenge's biggest & maybe only hit was "Tequila" by the Champs. Anyway I too was fortunate to have one copy autographed when I visited Mancini's office in 1982. He did give it a strange look and said "where did you ever find this!" He then mentioned, "I don't think I even have one in my collection."
Primrose Lane by Jerry Wallace was a hit, and Jan and Dean were Challenge artists.
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I recently received as a gift the deluxe blu-ray release of "A Touch of Evil," and I was very surprised at the audio quality of the music relative to what I'd heard for years on the Varese CD and, much later, the dreadful Fresh Sounds/Blue Moon release. The film's end title music was omitted from both of those releases.
This makes me wonder if, someplace, there is a better audio source for the music, and if so, could one of the boutique labels release this.
I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Mancini for 20 years. I have an autographed copy of the Challenge album.
When I asked him how it came about, he told me he was able to take the tapes to a friend who had a home studio.
There they assembled the album. He said without his friend's help there wouldn't be an album. He wasn't particularly fond of the "Wild Side" album. It was pieced together once he was getting recognition from "Peter Gunn".
Also there was to be an album from "Voice In The Mirror" but it never happened.
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