My parents, particularly my mum, loved strings. Lush and syrupy and shrill. That's how she liked them. I bought a Frank Chacksfield record just so she could hear her favourite song of all time, "Ebb Tide" when she visits.
When she was moving out of her house she had to downsize and box up a lifetime of accumulated treasures. I went through the remaining records in the cabinet. I found quite a few that came home with me. Some I was genuinely curious to hear, and some were for her to listen to when she comes over.
This was one I was curious about. Stu Phillips & The Hollywood Strings, Hits of the 70's. The album was released in 1972 and the essay on the back cover says the record contains the main themes to three of the most successful motion pictures of the decade. Yup, two years in and they're already claiming they're the best of the decade. Then whoever wrote the back piece went even further by stating, "70's music is the most feeling popular music in the history of man." THE HISTORY OF MAN!
I gotta say I was hooked even before dropping the needle, and boy the album delivered the goods. In fact I'd go so far as to say OVER DELIVERED. Oh make no mistake, to me this is absolutely and unequivocally terrible. But, it is so terrible it almost goes all the way around to where it meets up with good.
Most of the arrangements are schlocky string reworkings of popular songs, where the vocalists give their all in huge choral aahs and oohs drenched in a thick soup of reverb. They're played straight, but there are a few exceptions where Mr. Phillips went for it, and unleashed something spectacular.
It's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff with an album like this. Most belonged on the threshing floor. The target audience was that weird group of people too old to be cool, and too young to be old. These regurgitated but recognizable renditions of popular songs could at least make them feel like they were still a part of what was going on. Back in the '60s Jackie Gleason was cool, Stu Phillips in the '70s was ... not. However he was entertaining at times, and I'll give props to Stu for trying to infuse some of his arrangements with a bit of shock and awe.
The best examples were the closing tracks on side one. A one-two punch that was so devastating I had to immediately play them again. Starting with a version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" that needs to be heard to be believed. The vocal line is replicated by a trombone. However, it was played down past the seventh position in a register so low I wonder if Mr. Phillips was aiming for the mythological brown note. It's a wondrous achievement. It's followed by the "Theme From Shaft." That's right, a bunch of white guys in a room getting down and getting funky. If you ever wondered what a wah wah pedal and strings sounded like together, this is what it sounds like.
Yeah, the '70s baby, they were cool. I mean how else do you explain albums like this? I am going to have to dig out the James Last album my buddy Wes gave me for Christmas next. If old people (honestly they weren't old, but they seemed old because we were young. I mean I was really young but others were just younger) couldn't be cool by listening to the original songs they were able to find a way to process them for mass consumption. I suspect this was the same kind of messed up thinking that gave us the Mini-Pops in the early '80s.
If this was the most feeling music in history then it was the musical equivalent of getting hit in the nuts. It was music that struck a nerve.
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