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>Milton Delugg, as any long-time tv watcher knows, was the music director for Ed Sullivan, >Perry Como, Herb Shriner, "What's My Line?" and yes, even Chuck Barris (to name but a >few) in a prolific tv career.
On Chuck Barris' "The Gong Show," Delugg's musicians were billed as Milton DeLugg and His Band With a Thug.
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Posted: |
Dec 4, 2010 - 10:35 PM
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By: |
filmusicnow
(Member)
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>Milton Delugg, as any long-time tv watcher knows, was the music director for Ed Sullivan, >Perry Como, Herb Shriner, "What's My Line?" and yes, even Chuck Barris (to name but a >few) in a prolific tv career.
>Long time no see, Jay!
Hey Dana!
My apologies to the Deluggs ..(gotta love that name)
Well, I guess the operative phrase here is 'long-time' (maybe you've got to be of a certain age to remember them ; )
Jay
Ed Sullivan only had one music director throughout his 23 years on television, and that was Ray Bloch, not DeLugg. However, DeLugg was the music director for the N.B.C. late night variety show "Broadway Open House".
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Posted: |
Dec 5, 2010 - 12:05 AM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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>Milton Delugg, as any long-time tv watcher knows, was the music director for Ed Sullivan, >Perry Como, Herb Shriner, "What's My Line?" and yes, even Chuck Barris (to name but a >few) in a prolific tv career.
>Long time no see, Jay!
Hey Dana!
My apologies to the Deluggs ..(gotta love that name)
Well, I guess the operative phrase here is 'long-time' (maybe you've got to be of a certain age to remember them ; )
Jay
Ed Sullivan only had one music director throughout his 23 years on television, and that was Ray Bloch, not DeLugg. However, DeLugg was the music director for the N.B.C. late night variety show "Broadway Open House".
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0217933/filmoseries
Not much, just one show, but there it is. Or was. (I never said he was the musical director, actually...)
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>> which is listed as the soundtrack to “Gypsy Girl,” also known in the U.K. as “Sky West and >>Crooked.” This 1966 Hayley Mills drama was directed by John Mills and was released in the >>U.S. by Continental Distributing. The film had a score by Malcolm Arnold.
'Sky West & Crooked' must be one of the most deceptive 'soundtrack' albums ever....there is not a single note of Arnold's music on it. All of the so-called music is by Milton & Anne Delugg (...and we all know what house-hold names they are).
Think of this Mainstream album as the first 'music inspired by' soundtrack.
Arnold should have sued.
Jay
That makes "Gypsy Girl" the second album of DeLugg music released by Mainstream, after "Gulliver's Travels Beyond The Moon."
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Rather than focusing on Mainstream's sonic reproduction, I wish, instead, to draw attention to this label's selection criteria, which differed quite a bit from other major labels (such as Columbia and MGM records, to cite only 2).
As to how Mainstream selected the scores they would release, if you group the titles by releasing organization, some patterns emerge:
Columbia
Baby The Rain Must Fall (01/65)
The Collector (06/65)
King Rat (10/65)
The Heroes Of Telemark (01/66)
That Man In Istanbul (02/66)
The Trouble With Angels (02/66)
Walk, Don't Run (06/66)
The Wrong Box (07/66)
Continental Distributing
The Gospel According To Saint Matthew
Gulliver's Travels Beyond The Moon
The Lollipop Cover
Gypsy Girl
Rizzoli Film Distributors
The Moment Of Truth
Juliet Of The Spirits
20th Century Fox
Stagecoach (05/66)
The Blue Max (06/66)
Others
A Patch Of Blue – MGM (12/65)
The Square Root Of Zero - Pat Patterson Productions
The Tenth Victim – Embassy Pictures
Harper – Warner Bros. (02/66)
The Shop On Main Street - Prominent Films
Chaplin’s Art of Comedy – Hemisphere Pictures
First, it looks as if Mainstream struck a deal with Columbia to release their soundtracks at a time when Columbia was shutting down its in-house record label Colpix. Colpix, which closed in 1965, released its last soundtrack for the film “Lord Jim,” which premiered in February 1965. Columbia later started up a new label, Colgems, and began releasing soundtracks on that label, the first being the score for “The Professionals” which was released in November 1966. You can see by the release dates of the Columbia films that the Mainstream releases fill in much of the period between “Lord Jim” and “The Professionals.”
Second, it looks like Mainstream had deals with Continental Distributing and Rizzoli Film Distributors to release soundtracks for some of their imported films. For Continental, with the exception of “Shakespeare Wallah” which had a soundtrack on Epic, any Continental film that had a soundtrack release in 1965 and 1966 came from Mainstream. For Rizzoli, the Mainstream LPs were from the first year that Rizzoli began distributing films in the U.S.
There is a scattering of other oddball films and tiny distributors, but the real question is how Mainstream came to release the four scores from Fox, MGM, and Warner Bros. films, when these studios all had their own thriving in-house record labels. First up was Goldsmith’s “A Patch of Blue” in December 1965. As ToneRow notes in his initial post, MGM hadn’t shown any faith in Goldsmith in 1963, when they released only 4 re-recorded tracks from “The Prize.” What was MGM Records releasing in December 1965? Well, “Doctor Zhivago” for one. One can guess that a score from a minor film, from a composer with no commercial track record, and which held little potential for the creation of hit songs (“Somewhere My Love,” anyone?) would hold little interest for MGM Records.
Then came “Harper” in February 1966. Warner Bros. Records had ended 1965 with releases from their big December films “Inside Daisy Clover” and “Battle of the Bulge.” Their next release wouldn’t be until April 1966, with the musical “Stop the World--I Want To Get Off” by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. Up to that time, Johnny Mandel had had three soundtracks released: “I Want To Live (1958, United Artists), “The Americanization of Emily” (1964, Reprise), and “The Sandpiper” (1965, Mercury). So, it’s difficult to speculate why Warner gave “Harper” to Mainstream. Mandel was a known quantity at that point. And Warners wasn’t averse to releasing scores from little-known composers; they would give Stanley Myers his first U.S. soundtrack release later in 1966 with “Kaleidoscope.” Maybe it was because the “Harper” score didn’t have a good song that could be exploited like “The Sandpiper” did, with “The Shadow of Your Smile.”
Finally there are the two Goldsmith Fox scores of mid-1966, “Stagecoach” and “The Blue Max.” In January 1966, 20th Century Fox Records had issued Goldsmith’s score for “Our Man Flint.” So why not release these next two Goldsmith scores? Did “Our Man Flint” not sell well enough? Was Fox Records gearing up for their big September 1966 release of “The Bible”? While “Stagecoach” was just a routine western, “The Blue Max” was certainly one of Fox’s big prestige pictures for 1966. Of course, until “Our Man Flint,” Fox hadn’t exactly shown a lot of confidence in Goldsmith, having failed to release his scores for “The Stripper” (1963), “Take Her, She’s Mine” (1963), “Fate Is the Hunter” (1964), “Rio Conchos” (1964), “Shock Treatment” (1964), “Morituri” (1965), and “Von Ryan’s Express” (1965). For whatever the reason, from 1966 to 1969 Fox would pick and chose which Goldsmith scores to release on Fox Records (“The Sand Pebbles,” “In Like Flint”), which to farm out to other labels (“Bandolero” and “Planet of the Apes” to Project 3; “The Chairman” to Tetragrammaton; “Justine” to Monument), and which to not release at all (“The Flim-Flam Man,” “The Detective,” “100 Rifles”). “Stagecoach” and “The Blue Max.” were the first of the Goldsmith farm-outs, and as with the others, Fox decided to go with a smaller label. They couldn’t very well put them out on another studio’s label, and they decided not to go with the majors like Columbia, RCA, or Capitol (which Fox had used earlier for North’s “The Agony and the Ecstasy”).
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Posted: |
Dec 5, 2010 - 7:19 AM
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By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
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The above information is all fascinating.
It's a bit disheartening to learn, though, that smaller record lables like Mainstream functioned as safety nets, so to speak, capturing the cast-offs from major studios!
Why, indeed, did Fox, MGM, & Warner "farm out" some titles? This is an interesting topic.
I can see now that Mainstream bridged the gap between ColPix and ColGems, but why did ColPix shut down in the first place? Was this from a time period when Columbia Pictures had relocated their studios and/or changed their recording stages?
If not, perhaps the dissolve of ColPix as a subsidiary record company under Columbia Pictures was done as a tax-break or tax write-off for 1965?
I wonder if Maurice Jarre's "The Collector" ever was slated to be a ColPix release which had gotten cancelled - the sound quality of this recording is good, despite Mainstream's reputation for the reverse. A number of ColPix albums sounded great for their time, like George Duning's "The Devil At 4 O'Clock", and whether or not "The Collector" was recorded at the same sound stage, it sounds just as great.
While this information paints a portrait of Mainstream Records as a sort of scrap collector (releasing titles that other major labels didn't want on their records), Mainstream's soundtrack catalogue, when viewed as a whole, does reflect certain aesthetics.
Notice there's no older-style "Golden Age" type of scores on their records. Most Mainstream soundtracks feature intimate music performed by smaller ensembles rather than by a full studio orchestra. Also, younger composers (at '65/'66) were showcased by Mainstream - I don't think any of their soundtracks were written by anyone over age 45.
The Walter Reade Organization also distributed Joseph Strick's 1967 apadtion of James Joyce's "Ulysses", via Continental Dist. Had Mainstream continued to issue soundtracks, perhaps they would have released "Ulysses" by Stanley Myers. As it turned out, RCA Victor did it!
I wonder what Jerry Goldsmith thought about Mainstream records. Does anyone recall Goldsmith mentioning Mainstream during interviews?
How do you feel, Mr. DiMucci, about your very first soundtrack LP - "Stagecoach" - being a REJECT from 20th Century Fox! 
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My first Goldsmith was "The Trouble With Angels" but it was Mono - still loved it. However I acquired "Juliet of the Spirits" in Stereo and it sounded marvelous. I had a few other Mainstreams and never noticed a sound problem. I had a magnificent-sounding Motorola Stereo Turntable which made all Stereo recordings sound better than almost anything I've heard since.
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Mainstream's soundtrack catalogue, when viewed as a whole, does reflect certain aesthetics. Notice there's no older-style "Golden Age" type of scores on their records.
While this is true, one must remember that Mainstream was releasing soundtracks for only a very short time (1965-1966), so one must look at what the golden age composers were doing during that period, and whether they were composing scores for the film companies that Mainstream dealt with.
Alfred Newman was writing “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965) and “Nevada Smith” (1966). Both of those scores were released by their studio’s in-house labels (United Artists and Dot [Paramount], respectively).
Max Steiner was writing his final score, for Warner’s “Two on a Guillotine,” which hit theaters in January 1965. But Warner passed on releasing it themselves or offering it to other labels.
Bronislau Kaper’s “Lord Jim” was the final release on Colpix, and his next film “Tobruk” wouldn’t be released until February 1967.
David Raksin was busy in 1965-1966. He wrote “Sylvia” for Paramount, “A Big Hand for the Little Lady” for Warner Bros., and “The Redeemer” for Empire Pictures. Only “Sylvia” was released on LP, with Paramount farming it out to Mercury.
Bernard Herrmann was writing “Joy in the Morning” (1965, MGM). That film was released by MGM in May 1965 and it would seem as likely a candidate for MGM to farm out as was “A Patch of Blue” in December of that same year. But it wasn’t. Then there was Hermann’s score for “Torn Curtain” (July, 1966) which Universal had succeeded in getting removed from the studio-produced film. Later that year, Universal would also release “Fahrenheit 451” (November, 1966) with a Herrmann score. Universal had not produced that film (it was a British pick-up) and so could not control the composer selection. But it’s easy to understand why they would see no profit in releasing its score. But why they didn’t farm it out is another matter. Certainly Universal was not averse to doing just that for other pictures in 1965-1966. Quincy Jones’ “Mirage” was released on Mercury, Cy Coleman’s “The Art of Love” was on Capitol, and Mancini’s “Arabesque” was on RCA. Meanwhile, Universal’s in-house label, Decca, kept “The War Lord,” “Shenandoah,’ “A Man Could Get Killed,” “Madame X,” “Out of Sight,” “Wild Wild Winter” and Addison’s “Torn Curtain.” Chances are however, that the three farm-outs were due to the composer’s contractual relationships with other labels. (Certainly Mancini’s was.)
Dimitri Tiomkin wrote no scores between “The Fall of the Roman Empire” (1964) and “The War Wagon” (1967). Miklos Rozsa wrote no scores between “The V.I.P.s” (1963) and “The Power" (1968). Hugo Friedhofer had no scores between “The Secret Invasion” (1964) and Von Richthofen and Brown (1971).
The best candidates for a golden age Mainstream release would have been David Raksin’s score for Columbia’s “Love Has Many Faces” (February 1965) or Franz Waxman’s final score, for Columbia’s “The Lost Command,” which was released to theaters in May 1966. Someone in Columbia or Mainstream decided that these weren’t worthy of a score release. I saw “The Lost Command” in 1966, but remember nothing of the score.
One also has to keep in mind that, unlike today when nearly every film gets a score release, only a fraction of films got score releases during the 1960s. My rough count shows that out of 35 Columbia releases in 1965 & 1966, about half (17) received score releases. Among the Columbia films that did not get score releases during the Mainstream period were Frank De Vol’s “Cat Ballou” (Nat King Cole song album only), John Green’s “Alvarez Kelly,” and Stu Philips “Dead Heat On a Merry-Go-Round.” Even more importantly, Mainstream was not the only label releasing scores from Columbia pictures during the Colpix-Colgems hiatus. Many releases went to other labels. Among them:
Bunny Lake is Missing (Paul Glass, RCA)
Ship of Fools (Ernest Gold, RCA)
A Man For All Seasons (Georges Delerue, RCA)
Genghis Khan (Dusan Radic, Liberty)
Synanon (Neal Hefti, Liberty)
Major Dundee (Daniele Amfitheatrof, Columbia)
The Chase (John Barry, Columbia)
Mickey One (Eddie Sauter, MGM)
Born Free (John Barry, MGM)
Amfitheatrof is the only golden ager here, and it’s clear that the “Major Dundee” score received a Columbia Records release only because the title song was sung by Mitch Miller and His Gang, and because of Miller’s long-time connection with Columbia as an artist and producer.
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I wonder if Maurice Jarre's "The Collector" ever was slated to be a ColPix release which had gotten cancelled - the sound quality of this recording is good, despite Mainstream's reputation for the reverse. A number of ColPix albums sounded great for their time, like George Duning's "The Devil At 4 O'Clock", and whether or not "The Collector" was recorded at the same sound stage, it sounds just as great.
I suppose every release will differ, depending upon where it was recorded (or re-recorded). For Mainstream, "The Heroes of Telemark" certainly sounds terrible, but I think "Baby the Rain Must Fall" sounds great. My guess is that the former was an original recording (probably done in England) and the latter was a re-recording by Bernstein. (It was made at United Recorders in Hollywood, one of Bernstein's favorite venues of the early 1960s. It was also originally an Ava Records release.)
We know that "Stagecoach" is a re-recording conducted by Alexander Courage (well done, IMO), while "The Blue Max" was from a quarter-inch two-track rough reference copy that had been given to Goldsmith after the original recording sessions.
Certainly many Colpix releases sound fine (I like "The Victors" and "Diamond Head" in particular), some are just OK ("Damn the Defiant," even "Lawrence of Arabia"), while others we won't talk about ("The Long Ships").
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I wonder if Maurice Jarre's "The Collector" ever was slated to be a ColPix release which had gotten cancelled - the sound quality of this recording is good, despite Mainstream's reputation for the reverse. A number of ColPix albums sounded great for their time, like George Duning's "The Devil At 4 O'Clock", and whether or not "The Collector" was recorded at the same sound stage, it sounds just as great.
I suppose every release will differ, depending upon where it was recorded (or re-recorded). For Mainstream, "The Heroes of Telemark" certainly sounds terrible, but I think "Baby the Rain Must Fall" sounds great. My guess is that the former was an original recording (probably done in England) and the latter was a re-recording by Bernstein (It was made at United Recorders in Hollywood, one of Bernstein's favorite venues of the early 1960s. It was also originally an Ava Records release.)
I love Arnold's main title for TELEMARK. I found a copy of the Mainstream lp through A-1 Record Finders in about 1979 and was horrified how poor it sounded.
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My first Goldsmith was "The Trouble With Angels" but it was Mono - still loved it. However I acquired "Juliet of the Spirits" in Stereo and it sounded marvelous. I had a few other Mainstreams and never noticed a sound problem. I had a magnificent-sounding Motorola Stereo Turntable which made all Stereo recordings sound better than almost anything I've heard since.[/endquote
"The Trouble With Angels" was actually a rerecording, and the original soundtrack deserves a C.D. release (possibly coupled with the rerecording).
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These are the Mainstream titles I had on lp back in the 70's-
STAGECOACH
THE BLUE MAX
THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS
JULIET OF THE SPIRITS
THE HEROES OF TELEMARK
THE COLLECTOR
KING RAT
THE WRONG BOX
BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL
And a dandy little title called HARPER
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Mainstream's soundtrack catalogue, when viewed as a whole, does reflect certain aesthetics. Notice there's no older-style "Golden Age" type of scores on their records.
While this is true, one must remember that Mainstream was releasing soundtracks for only a very short time (1965-1966), so one must look at what the golden age composers were doing during that period, and whether they were composing scores for the film companies that Mainstream dealt with.
Alfred Newman was writing “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965) and “Nevada Smith” (1966). Both of those scores were released by their studio’s in-house labels (United Artists and Dot [Paramount], respectively).
Max Steiner was writing his final score, for Warner’s “Two on a Guillotine,” which hit theaters in January 1965. But Warner passed on releasing it themselves or offering it to other labels.
Bronislau Kaper’s “Lord Jim” was the final release on Colpix, and his next film “Tobruk” wouldn’t be released until February 1967.
David Raksin was busy in 1965-1966. He wrote “Sylvia” for Paramount, “A Big Hand for the Little Lady” for Warner Bros., and “The Redeemer” for Empire Pictures. Only “Sylvia” was released on LP, with Paramount farming it out to Mercury.
Bernard Herrmann was writing “Joy in the Morning” (1965, MGM). That film was released by MGM in May 1965 and it would seem as likely a candidate for MGM to farm out as was “A Patch of Blue” in December of that same year. But it wasn’t. Then there was Hermann’s score for “Torn Curtain” (July, 1966) which Universal had succeeded in getting removed from the studio-produced film. Later that year, Universal would also release “Fahrenheit 451” (November, 1966) with a Herrmann score. Universal had not produced that film (it was a British pick-up) and so could not control the composer selection. But it’s easy to understand why they would see no profit in releasing its score. But why they didn’t farm it out is another matter. Certainly Universal was not averse to doing just that for other pictures in 1965-1966. Quincy Jones’ “Mirage” was released on Mercury, Cy Coleman’s “The Art of Love” was on Capitol, and Mancini’s “Arabesque” was on RCA. Meanwhile, Universal’s in-house label, Decca, kept “The War Lord,” “Shenandoah,’ “A Man Could Get Killed,” “Madame X,” “Out of Sight,” “Wild Wild Winter” and Addison’s “Torn Curtain.” Chances are however, that the three farm-outs were due to the composer’s contractual relationships with other labels. (Certainly Mancini’s was.)
Dimitri Tiomkin wrote no scores between “The Fall of the Roman Empire” (1964) and “The War Wagon” (1967). Miklos Rozsa wrote no scores between “The V.I.P.s” (1963) and “The Power" (1968). Hugo Friedhofer had no scores between “The Secret Invasion” (1964) and Von Richthofen and Brown (1971).
The best candidates for a golden age Mainstream release would have been David Raksin’s score for Colombia’s “Love Has Many Faces” (February 1965) or Franz Waxman’s final score, for Columbia’s “The Lost Command,” which was released to theaters in May 1966. Someone in Columbia or Mainstream decided that these weren’t worthy of a score release. I saw “The Lost Command” in 1966, but remember nothing of the score.
One also has to keep in mind that, unlike today when nearly every film gets a score release, only a fraction of films got score releases during the 1960s. My rough count shows that out of 35 Columbia releases in 1965 & 1966, about half (17) received score releases. Among the Columbia films that did not get score releases during the Mainstream period were Frank De Vol’s “Cat Ballou” (Nat King Cole song album only), John Green’s “Alvarez Kelly,” and Stu Philips “Dead Heat On a Merry-Go-Round.” Even more importantly, Mainstream was not the only label releasing scores from Columbia pictures during the Colpix-Colgems hiatus. Many releases went to other labels. Among them:
Bunny Lake is Missing (Paul Glass, RCA)
Ship of Fools (Ernest Gold, RCA)
A Man For All Seasons (Georges Delerue, RCA)
Genghis Khan (Dusan Radic, Liberty)
Synanon (Neal Hefti, Liberty)
Major Dundee (Daniele Amfitheatrof, Columbia)
The Chase (John Barry, Columbia)
Mickey One (Eddie Sauter, MGM)
Born Free (John Barry, MGM)
Amfitheatrof is the only golden ager here, and it’s clear that the “Major Dundee” score received a Columbia Records release only because the title song was sung by Mitch Miller and His Gang, and because of Miller’s long-time connection with Columbia as an artist and producer.
It's interesting to note that "Mirage" was released by Universal which was owned by M.C.A., whose music division (Universal Music) would later acquire Polygram, which owned Mercury.
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