I receive many Percy Faith enquiries the answers to which are to be found within the Discography so I have added this Introduction to help first-time visitors find their way around.
The main part of the Discography lists all of Percy Faith's commercial recordings. To qualify for entry the recording must be credited solely to ‘Percy Faith and his Orchestra’ or he must share equal billing with the other named artist(s). This means that the many titles he recorded with Sarah Vaughn, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett et al are not included in the albums and titles sections but, thanks to a lot of work by Nigel Burlinson, they are now listed in a separate section ‘With Percy Faith And His Orchestra’ - details below. Faith's many compilation LP albums are also not included unless, as in a couple of cases, they contained titles not otherwise released. Many of his CD compilation albums are included but it is inevitable that many are missing and, other than the three Volumes of ‘Columbia Singles’ issued by Collectables, no compilation CDs have been added since 2000. The hundreds of recordings he made for Voice Of America, The Armed Forces Network and Canadian and American radio stations also receive only partial coverage. I am currently trying to complete a listing of these which may, one day, be published here. Meanwhile, in 2011, some of his Voice Of America recordings appeared on two of Guild's ‘Golden Age Of Light Music series (details in ‘Previously Unissued’) and, hopefully, more will follow.
Finally I must emphasize that the recordings by ‘The Percy Faith Orchestra’ conducted by Nick Perito performing Percy's original arrangements, excellent though they are, are not listed here. These were originally made especially for the Japanese market where they were relased by JVC-Victor and later in America by Ranwood. They are currently widely available on various other labels. Many people see these CDs listed on record shop WEB pages and think that they are original Faith recordings - indeed some shops actually list them as such. The correct artist listing for these is ‘The Percy Faith Orchestra conducted by Nick Perito’.
The Discography is in several sections:
LATEST is self-explanatory and provides news of the latest CD re-issues of Percy Faith's recordings.
ORIGINAL ALBUMS gives full details of all his original LP issues, complete with British, American and some other catalogue numbers and full track listings in track order. If there has been a CD re-issue, details are given.
PERCY FAITH SINGLES lists all his singles. Many of these titles never appeared on albums and are thus designated ‘Unique Singles’. These titles are highlighted in red and, if they have subsequently been issued on CD, details are given. Outside the USA many singles were issued using alternative couplings so only the original American issues are listed.
PERCY FAITH ORIGINAL TITLES is an alphabetical listing of all the titles appearing on his original LPs and singles. Promotional singles as issued to Radio Stations, 7" 45 rpm Extended Play and 7" 33 rpm discs are not included. All tunes from shows are fully cross-referenced under the title of the show in which they originally appeared. Titles from his many compilation albums are not included unless, as in a couple of instances, they weren't issued either as a single or as part of an album. Where the note ‘1st Arrangement’, ‘2nd Arrangement’ etc. appears after a title it means that different arrangements of the same piece exist as commercial recordings. Do bear in mind though that there are often other different arrangements which Faith made for his Canadian and Amercian broadcasts, war-time recordings etc. To save space, although the complete catalogue numbers of singles titles are given, for album tracks only the album title is given - catalogue numbers may then be determined from the ORIGINAL ALBUMS section.
COMPACT DISC RELEASES takes you to a country by listing of many of the Percy Faith CDs released to date. I have endeavoured to keep track of those that are currently available by marking them with a $ sign.
From this page you may then choose to go to the CD TRACK LISTING which lists all CD releases in alphabetical order with the titles on each CD listed in track order for re-issues of original albums, alphabetical order for compilations. Illustrations of all CDs are provided together with catalogue numbers.
You may also wish to visit the CD TITLES LISTING which lists all tracks re-issued on CD in alphabetical order. As with the original albums listing, this section gives the overall CD title, rather than the catalogue number.
WITH PERCY FAITH AND HIS ORCHESTRA was compiled by Nigel Burlinson assisted by Graeme Freeland and lists the many recordings (singles and albums) he made accompanying the likes of Johhny Mathis, Sarah Vaughn, Tony Bennett etc.
The TAPE ISSUES page is incomplete - readers are asked to help complete this section of the discography.
PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED lists Columbia recordings made but not issued and recordings made for Voice of America and Armed Forces Radio Service which were never issued commercially. However, some have now appeared on CD and details of these are given.
The LINKS page not only has links to other interesting sites but suggestions for finding rare vinyl items, buying new and second-hand CDs etc.
The question I am asked most often goes along the lines "Is such and such a title available on CD and where can I buy it?" It's very easy to find the answer for yourself - first go to CD TITLES LISTING and check if the title is on a CD. If it is and you then want to know what else is on the CD, go to the CD TRACK LISTING section and find the CD. Finally, to see if it is currently available, go to COMPACT DISC RELEASES and check if the CD has a $ against it. If "yes", go to the LINKS section and trawl around the retailers listed there. If "no", then it's still worth going to the LINKS page to look for sources of second hand discs.
Another favourite question is "Did Percy Faith ever record such and such a title?" The answer to this will, of course, be found in the ORIGINAL TITLES section which alphabetically lists all titles ever issued on commercial LPs and Singles.