The Living Strings appeared on the budget record label, Camden, for the easy-listening instrumental music market, apparently featuring a variety of uncredited European orchestras including the Oslo Symphony. Camden released other "Living" brands including - my favorite - The Living Marimbas and - the stars of this post - The Living Voices.
It seems as though,after a few years of recording cover versions of the latest innocuous pop hits, The Living Voices suddenly found their political soul and released an album of cover versions of the latest anti-establishment protest songs, including the album title track, "Positively 4th Street" - Dylan's first foray into electric folk-rock and a nasty mean-spirited vicious personal attack (not really a political protest song at all) one of his folk days friends (Irwin Silber, folk music critic).
The arranger for this album was the leader of the eponymous Anita Kerr Singers (she' still singing and has her own website). I love the incongruity of Kerr's strict phrasing and unison vocal arrangments applied to Dylan, Donovan, Barry Maguire and others rambling folk ballads. Did the polyester-wearing Middle-American family purchasers of Living series LPs notice that their Stereo-Radiograms had suddenly gone subversive? They still voted for Nixon in '68.
I've used the Ray Conniff Singers in this video. This will be apparent in a subsequent post. Ypu can see the Anita Kerr Singers (only four of them) performing Oh Lonesome Me in Osly in '64 on youtube: Anita Kerr Singers - Oslo 1964
1 comments:
hello, thanks for the note/link on Zip your rip, and for the excelent cover scan.
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