I was recently flicking through the bargain bin at our local Oxfam store, looking for a bit of inspiration for my barber shop quartet (specifically anything by Mario Lanza) when I was suddenly taken all the way back to my childhood.
There, amongst all the Top of The Pops cover version albums was a copy of Great War Movie themes by Geoff Love and his Orchestra; Love was an absolute giant in the realms of easy listening and that record was probably his Magnus Opus. I used to love it when I was a boy - I played it practically every day and could conduct every piece in front of my mirror with the wand from my magic set.
Unfortunately, my copy met rather a sticky end - when I took it to school and had it broken by one of the ruffians off the council estate. We had a common room with an old fashioned radiogram upon which we were allowed to play our records at lunchtime & normally I couldn't get near the thing because people were only interested in playing the contemporary sounds of the time but one day I got in there first and popped Geoff onto the turntable. Regrettably, I didn't make it any further than the opening bars of 633 squadron before the school bully came over, took my record off and snapped it in two. I can tell you, I cried for a week after that.
Asides from Great War Movie themes there were a number of others in the series that were favourites of mine including Great Western Movie Themes, Great Bond Movie Themes, Great Terror Movie Themes... all of them by Geoff Love.
The other unifying theme of these records for which I had a penchant was that they were all on the Music For Pleasure label. I soon came to appreciate that anything released on this particular label was always right up my musical street and over the years have collected many MFP titles. One exception was when I bought an LP actually called Music For Pleasure and it turned out to be by the Damned punk rock pop group and was a terrible din. I wasn't overkeen on the Pink Floyd MFP release either.
Interestingly, some years later I discovered that Geoff Love was a man of colour. I don't mean this to be in any way racist but that came as a real surprise to me - I don't think I could think of any style of music that could be described as being less black than his music was.
There, amongst all the Top of The Pops cover version albums was a copy of Great War Movie themes by Geoff Love and his Orchestra; Love was an absolute giant in the realms of easy listening and that record was probably his Magnus Opus. I used to love it when I was a boy - I played it practically every day and could conduct every piece in front of my mirror with the wand from my magic set.
Unfortunately, my copy met rather a sticky end - when I took it to school and had it broken by one of the ruffians off the council estate. We had a common room with an old fashioned radiogram upon which we were allowed to play our records at lunchtime & normally I couldn't get near the thing because people were only interested in playing the contemporary sounds of the time but one day I got in there first and popped Geoff onto the turntable. Regrettably, I didn't make it any further than the opening bars of 633 squadron before the school bully came over, took my record off and snapped it in two. I can tell you, I cried for a week after that.
Asides from Great War Movie themes there were a number of others in the series that were favourites of mine including Great Western Movie Themes, Great Bond Movie Themes, Great Terror Movie Themes... all of them by Geoff Love.
The other unifying theme of these records for which I had a penchant was that they were all on the Music For Pleasure label. I soon came to appreciate that anything released on this particular label was always right up my musical street and over the years have collected many MFP titles. One exception was when I bought an LP actually called Music For Pleasure and it turned out to be by the Damned punk rock pop group and was a terrible din. I wasn't overkeen on the Pink Floyd MFP release either.
Interestingly, some years later I discovered that Geoff Love was a man of colour. I don't mean this to be in any way racist but that came as a real surprise to me - I don't think I could think of any style of music that could be described as being less black than his music was.
Comment