You can't make this shit up! Say you are in charge of administering the music catalog of American Songbook Master Hoagy Carmichael . Aw heck, say you are his son,and you are working at spreading the message of Hoagy's huge songbook. It's 1970, you are working your day job at WGBH (PBS station in Boston)after ending your career as a stockbroker, and you say to yourself, "Self, How do I let the new generation know about the genius of my dad." You think and think about bringing the music to the kids..you gotta speak their language, their language is Rock and Roll. So the Son of Hoagy got together with a musician who worked at the station and asked if he would put some lyrics to Hoagy tunes for a kids music workshop. Monty Stark said yes and this strange and wonderful record was born (Hoagy approved and even co-wrote tunes with Stark). Kinda jazz, kinda rock, kinda funk, vibes, drums,guitar, distortion,wah-wah, just your average 70's kid's Album! Hoagy Carmichael said this about the record:"This is children's music!?..I say,Stark Mad." On Monty's voice he said,"somewhere between the filings on the edge of a pie pan, and the singing of a guru during one of his most exalted moments." Hoagy loved it.
The record was re-issued, with a ton of cool notes, by Egon at Stones Throw. It is worth a look.
One More Tune In Comments
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Dude, no wonder I hoovered so many drugs in the 80's it was stuff like this and The Electric Company, and Sesame Street, and Schoolhouse Rock. How f....ed up is that?
Nice find, now I am going to stare at the lines on the back of my hand.
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this post and old dirty bastard.....the kids are safe tonight
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I love the tracks but children's music? I wonder how the kids would respond if I played this in my office. I know how certain parents would respond. I'm just trying to imagine this and "Free To Be You and Me" played back to back. Thanks again for your posts.
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Great stuff! I checked out samples at emusic - gotta download the album ...
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@pj- It is almost Zappa-esque..I could just imagine the crate diggers joy of finding a record like this. A needle in the haystack type-o-deal!
@TBoom- Thanks T. Like Hoagy said, "Stark, Mad" to think the kid's would be into this..If only they were..
The seventies were such a different time, the time honored methods of education were changing. I remember going to the "rap sessions" where a class would be taped sitting together on the floor of a studio and asked questions by grad student types. The answers would by vided and studied by psyhcologists and the like. Sometimes I felt we were like guinea pigs.
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There was certain intrinsic optimism to all that experimentation of the seventies. I think the failures of some of these experiments caused a closing of people's minds in the eighties and I don't know if the collective mind has been completely open since.
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TBoom, I hear you. The idea of getting kids in a group and talking..not boning up for standardized tests...sounds mighty refreshing right now.
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i recall being 9 years old & we had a class where we rode books & listen to music played on a record deck. i believe hoagy carmichael would have been a good choice since we liked the weirdest stuff. our #1 pick back then was "rappers delight", which was a total change of mood over the 70s records my old teacher used to,play, but hey.. we were the next generation.
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reckon-That is twisted in a most wonderful way. Definitely for the children!