Liner notes from original albums and CDs for proofreading
PERCY FAITH is considered to be one of the greatest arranger/conductors ever in the field of light and popular music and many rate him as number one. This is borne out by the fact that more of his work has been re-issued on CD than that of any comparable artist. Until now though, none of his earliest commercial recordings have been available on compact disc. These Decca and RCA Victor labels in the 1940s, plus a selection of those he made after joining Columbia including his best sellers Delicado, Swedish Rhapsody and The Song from “Moulin Rouge.” Thus, this collection finally fills gaps left by the many other CD reissues of Faith’s music, allowing us to hear many fascinating and long forgotten examples from his long and distinguished career.
Born in Toronto, Canada on 7 April 1908, he aspired to be a concert pianist and was soon well on the way to achieving his ambition. Aged twelve, and still at high school, he was playing piano in silent cinemas, using the money he earned to pay for tuition at the Toronto Conservatory of Music where he studied harmonic structure and piano. He made his concert debut in 1923 at a Conservatory concert in Toronto’s Massey Hall playing Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy.
But fate was about to intervene and change his life forever – in 1926 he badly burned his hands when he rescued his three-year-old sister, who had set fire to her clothes while playing with matches. While recuperating and unable to play the piano, he began to study composition and soon realized that this was to be his destiny. By 1929 he was playing with various hotel and restaurant orchestras, also arranging for many of them, and had become well known in Toronto musical circles. 1931 found him writing arrangements for many different radio programs and in 1933 CBC (The Canadian Broadcasting Commission) signed him as staff arranger/conductor. One of his first shows was Streamline but the one that brought him to the attention of a wider public and, more importantly, the American radio networks was Music By Faith, a weekly show which featured a 30-piece orchestra plus six singers.
Faith enjoyed recounting how these singers joined the show. After covering the cost of the orchestra his budget had about 30 dollars left, not enough to hire additional players, but he discovered that a girl trio who were in the studio at the time would do a show for five dollars each. He recruited three more and then, instead of using them to sing the words, used their voices as instruments – thus Faith’s famous “vocalese” was born, of which several examples may be found on CD Two. Music By Faith was relayed by the Mutual Broadcasting System in America and, as a result, Faith started receiving calls from the likes of Tommy Dorsey, André Kostelanetz and Paul Whiteman suggesting that he should move to America. Faith sensed that what they really wanted was for him to come and arrange for them, not actually be the star, so he resisted these offers. Then, in 1940, CBC decided to cut the budget of Music By Faith – a rather strange decision bearing in mind that it was the most popular radio show in Canada and one of Canada’s few program exports to the USA. Shortly afterwards the show was cancelled and Faith found himself with a family, but without a regular income to support them, so he started thinking about the American offers again.
Once more fate intervened and, while Faith was considering what to do, he was summoned to Chicago to take over The Carnation Contented Hour from Josef Pasternak, who had died from a heart attack at a rehearsal. Faith was booked to cover four shows but, before completing them, was offered the job permanently. As it was one of America’s top musical programs he had little hesitation in accepting, although in an interview some years later he said it was “very old-fashioned” compared with Music By Faith.
Using his considerable talents and experience to re-shape this prestigious show, he was now on his way to becoming America’s top conductor/arranger and in 1941 he moved his family to Chicago. He became a naturized American Citizen in 1945 and, when The Contented Hour transferred to New York in January 1946, the Faiths moved to Great Neck, Long Island. In 1947 he became Musical Director of The Pause That Refreshes and later The Woolworth Hour, which meant a change of radio networks from NBC to CBS. His new employers were, of course, the owners of Columbia Records with whom he would eventually spend the rest of his working life – but it was not for Columbia that he made his first commercial recordings.
Faith’s broadcasting career had given him boundless opportunities to arrange and conduct every kind of music – classical, choral, swing, popular, even jazz, and he was well versed in providing appropriate backings for singers ranging from operatic stars to the latest pop idols. It is therefore rather surprising that someone who was extremely popular in both the USA and Canada, and had been broadcasting to huge audiences in both countries every week since the end of the 30s, didn’t make any commercial records until 1944. Even more surprising is that some of these weren’t actually released until several years later. The precise reasons are unclear – certainly Canada’s record industry had always been overshadowed by America’s, and did little to promote native artists, especially orchestras, but why Faith was ignored for so long by the American Record industry will probably remain a mystery.
Percy’s first commercial recordings were for American Decca and on 20 April 1944 he recorded Amore and Spring Will Be A Little Late this Year in their Chicago studios. He returned in May to record five more titles although one of them, If There Is Someone Lovelier Than You, was not destined to be released as a 78 and record buyers had to await the arrival of the LP format before they could hear this superb arrangement. The next Decca titles were cut in New York in June 1945. As The Contented Hour didn’t move to New York until some six months later one wonders why these sides weren’t recorded in Chicago where he had a ready-made orchestra familiar with the arrangements, most of which had already been tried out on the program. There was now a gap of over a year before he recorded again, this time in the role of accompanist to the popular singing star Hildegarde. Four titles were recorded in October 1946 and, although not strictly speaking “Percy Faith and his Orchestra,” two of them are featured here as a vocal interlude before we move on to the next phase of his recording career.
For some reason Decca did not call further upon Mr. Faith’s services (a decision they probably regretted in later years), and Percy’s next recording venture was an album for the fledgling Majestic label. The term “album” as used here refers to the original concept of an album – a number of 78 rpm discs contained in an album with the discs stored in individual pockets. Majestic was a division of The Majestic Radio & Television Corporation of New York, but it was short-lived and the parent company didn’t last much longer. Faith recorded eight sides for them in 1947 and six were issued as the 78 album Presenting The Exciting Music of Percy Faith. Again two titles never appeared as 78s and there was a long delay before they eventually surfaced. In fact we have had to wait for Majestic to sell its catalog to The Mercury Radio & Television Corporation in 1948, and for Mercury in turn to sell it on to the Wright Record Corporation (part of the now long-defunct Eli Oberstein empire) less than a year later. Mercury had re-issued the six sides as 78s but Wright dubbed them to LP format and released them, together with the two previously unissued tracks, on its Royale label. All of the Majestic titles subsequently turned up on a variety of Oberstein labels, among them Varsity, Rondo-lette, Galaxy and Allegro, under several different overall album titles.
Two years were to elapse before Faith’s next recording session, this time for RCA. In 1949 he recorded twelve tracks at RCA’s Manhattan Center and, yet again, two of them never made it as singles, eventually being include in the LP album Soft Lights And Sweet Music. Although still very busy with his radio commitments, this lack of interest in his music from the record companies must have been quite frustrating for him but, very soon, everything was to change dramatically.
RCA may well have been hoping to make further recordings but Columbia was planning a major assault on the popular market and, in 1950, having appointed Mitch Miller as Head of Artists and Repertoire, they invited Percy to join them as Director of the Popular Division. Some 26 years later Percy was still recording for Columbia and continued to do so until less than a month before he died, on 9 February 1976. Initially Percy had a dual role at Columbia; as well as making recordings in his own right, part of his contract was to develop up-and-coming new singers, and also to “rescue” established ones whose careers were faltering. Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell and Doris Day are just a few of those nurtured by Faith and their success owes much to his skills. The majority of his own Columbia recordings at this time featured arrangements of current hit songs, usually with a vocal chorus, as well as some superbly arranged instrumental items. These usually used a somewhat smaller orchestra than the Decca, Majestic and RCA recordings – the lush and exciting orchestral albums which made him world famous came later and are outside the timespan of this collection.
Until television grabbed their full-time attention, children’s records were big business and all the major record companies maintained large catalogs of suitable material. Columbia was no exception and Faith recorded a number of titles specifically for this market. Despite being for relatively unsophisticated listeners, they received the same care and attention as every one of Faith’s arrangements as demonstrated here by one the hardest to find examples, the charming Mosquitoes’ Parade.
A prolific composer (five of his pieces are to be found in this compilation), he always argued strongly in interviews that arranging is very similar to composing and deserves equal status. Unlike the majority of orchestra leaders, Faith always arranged everything himself and it was one of his “arrangement/compositions” that became one of his greatest hits. He adapted Swedish Rhapsody from themes by Hugo Alfven and, backed with his memorable version of The Song From “Moulin Rouge,” it became one of Columbia’s best-selling singles of that era. As well as this vocal version of Moulin Rouge, he also recorded a magnificent extended arrangement and one wonders why he didn’t use it for the Felicia Sanders recording. Perhaps it was considered too long for a single in those days so, in speculative mood, this compilation ends with a composite version of the two, which may well be what the maestro would have preferred to record over 50 years ago!
– Alan Bunting, 2004
In this collection of rhythms from south of the border, Percy Faith turns his masterful orchestrations to a group of familiar and not-so-familiar numbers to present a program of infectiously delightful melodies, all spiced with the captivating rhythms of the carnival. As in his previous collections, Percy Faith has polished these numbers to a fine sheen, giving them sumptuous arrangements and yet keeping the feeling fresh, light and merry.
All varieties of Latin American tempos are presented, and presented with a flair for their color and excitement that is unique. As Percy Faith has demonstrated in his previous orchestrations of similar music, his talent for the Latin carnival atmosphere is at once sympathetic and brilliant While this program of Delicado progresses from one stirring number to another, the swift interplay of orchestral tones and timbres produces an increasingly provocative effect.
As a staff arranger and conductor for the Canadian Broadcasting System, as the conductor of the Contented Hour for many seasons, and as one of Columbia’s top artists, Percy Faith has again and again produced a kind of orchestral setting that is inimitable. Using a large orchestra, he gives his listeners a remarkable exhibition of instrumental sonorities, cannily presented for the maximum emotional effect. And yet the size of the orchestra never governs the rhythm, which is kept steady and evident. In many settings for concert groups the tempos are varied so frequently that the forward movement of the song is lost; this is never so in a Faith arrangement. It is as if a concert orchestra were paying for a dance, and this adherence to the beat produces the effect of a greater freedom than would a constantly shifting rhythm.
In Delicado, this is especially evident, for the rhythms of these numbers are as colorful as their melodies. The vivid exhilaration of carnival time flashes out of each of these Faith presentations to present a sort of short fiesta on records. From the torrid Jungle Fantasy through the kaleidoscopic shadings of Oye Negra, from the catchy Jamaican Rhumba (written by Arthur Benjamin as an encore piece for violist William Primrose) to the sultry Enlloro, this group of tropical rhythms offers a jubilant glimpse of carnival time in Latin America. Under Percy Faith’s baton, the orchestra gives brilliant readings of his arrangements, and the result is a program you will enjoy again and again.
Percy Faith was one of several arranger-conductors of the 1950s and 1960s who is credited with popularizing “Mood Music” – a powerful force in FM radio and record album sales for nearly two decades. His approach was to soften the popular brass and woodwinds of the big band sounds with large string sections, and occasionally, a choral interweaving with special emphasis on the treble voices.
Percy Faith was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. As a youth, he was a gifted pianist and violinist, but when he was badly burned in a fire, his focus changed to arranging and conducting. He established a distinguished career in Canadian broadcasting prior to his move to the United States in the 1940s.
His first American recording sessions were for Decca, but by 1949, he had moved to RCA Victor where he recorded several tracks, including Deep Purple, Jimmy Dorsey’s Oodles of Noodles, and two releases featuring The Ray Charles Singers: My Dream Concerto and the haunting Whirlwind.
In 1950, Percy Faith began a long-term association with Columbia Records, providing rich and vibrant support to the recordings of such artists as Sarah Vaughan, Jerry Vale, Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Jill Corey, Tony Bennett, Toni Arden, Johnnie Ray, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and Johnny Mathis. Represented within this set are his sessions with Marion Marlowe, Champ Butler, Felicia Sanders, and Gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson.
For more than a decade, Percy Faith issued many major hit singles that scored high on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts. He was one of the first to record Christmas In Killarney and Sleigh Ride for the 1950 Christmas season. The success of this release was likely the incentive for later recording several Christmas album collections, all of which have been reissued on LP, cassette tape, and CD. Leroy Anderson’s Syncopated Clock was a pop favorite in 1951; but Faith literally hit gold in 1952 with the dramatic Delicado, featuring harpsichordist Stan Freeman. (Lyrics were soon added to this instrumental, and RCA Victor followed with a recording by Dinah Shore.) The following year, The Song From “Moulin Rouge” (Where Is Your Heart) soard to the top of the charts where it held the #1 position for ten weeks. The Swedish Rhapsody (the B side) also achieved great recognition and is regarded by fans as being one of his very best. Many Times was a major hit in 1953, with releases by both Percy Faith and Eddie Fisher. Faith’s last mega hit was another film favorite, The Theme From “A Summer Place,” which remained at the top of the Billboard charts for nine weeks.
Beginning in 1953 and continuing until his death in 1976, Columbia Records issued more than eighty Percy Faith collections. Throughout an association that spanned more than twenty-five years, his highly diversified albums were reflected in their titles: Continental Music, Music From Hollywood, The Most Happy Fella, My Fair Lady, Li’l Abner, Hallelujah!, Porgy and Bess, The Sound of Music, Exotic Strings, Great Folk Themes, The Beatles Album, Angel of the Morning, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Country Bouquet.
In 1956, Columbia Records issued the LP Passport to Romance. One of the tracks – Little Lost Dog – captured the attention of broadcaster Ted Strasser at WJR in Detroit, who was about to assume the leadership from Larry Jones of the Sunday morning program, “Patterns In Music.” The introduction of this track was used as the opening and closing of each segment of this four-hour program, becoming one of the most popular and requested themes in WJR’s history. By 2002, Mike Whorf had taken over as the program’s fifth host, and when he retired in 2005 and the station cancelled the weekly musical “journey,” the same popular Percy Faith theme was still being used.
Percy Faith has left a great legacy in a wealth of recordings encompassing more than thirty years of a brilliant career.
Felicia Sanders (born Felice Schwartz in Mount Vernon, New York) was a featured night club and radio singer prior to being brought to the attention of Mitch Miller in the early 1950s. According to a Canadian DJ at CKLW in 1954, The Song From “Moulin Rouge” was to be Jerry Vale’s breakthrough hit record, but because Vale was having problems with laryngitis during the date of the scheduled recording session, a change of direction became necessary. Miller decided that the track would be primarily Percy Faith’s instrumental, with a vocal added about one-third of the way into the recording. Felicia Sanders, who was not yet officially signed to the label, was brought to the studio and was paid only union scale for one of the best-selling records of 1953.With a new Columbia recording contact, she later recorded the sensitive Wanting and Loving, with Faith conducting, and Blue Star, the theme from the popular television series, “Medic.” In 1957, Sanders was the first to record Meredith Willson’s Goodnight, My Someone from “The Music Man” shortly after leaving Columbia and signing with Decca.
In 1950, Mitch Miller left Chicago-based Mercury Records to accept an executive position with Columbia Records, creating a dramatic transformation within the company. He initiated the signing of several new entertainers, including The Four Lads, Jerry Vale, Rosemary Clooney, Johnnie Ray, Tony Bennett, and St. Louis-born Champ Butler, who remained with the label until 1955. Among Butler’s most successful single releases were his 1951 recordings, I Apologize and the exuberant Down Yonder. He later recorded some very memorable tracks with Percy Faith, including Be Anything (But Be Mine), Take These Chains From My Heart, and I’m Walking Behind You, a major hit song that secured the #1 position on Billboard for seven weeks. Butler’s later recordings recordings were issued by Coral and Dot.
Mahalia Jackson was already a seasoned worldwide performer by the time she signed with Columbia Records in 1954. Known as The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer, her early years were devoted to singing in churches, but as her fame increased, she was welcomed enthusiastically in major concert halls. She declined lucrative offers to perform in Las Vegas because she would not sing where alcohol was server. Her recordings for Apollo were best-sellers, which included Move On Up A Little Higher, which reportedly sold more than eight million copies. Her Columbia albums were especially popular, and her single releases included A Rusty Old Halo, One God, The Lord Is a Busy Man, Mary’s Little Boy Chile, The Bible Tells Me So, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, and For My Good Fortune. She preferred recording with an ensemble of instrumentalists (frequently, The Falls-Jones Ensemble), but by the late ‘50s, was persuaded to record the album “The Power and the Glory” with Percy Faith conducting, one of the most dynamic projects of her illustrious career. She and Faith also recorded Away in a Manger, which was not part of this release. Jackson was a welcomed guest at The White House where she was invited to perform for President and Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower, and later traveled to India for a performance before thousands which included Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Missouri-born soprano, Marion Marlowe, secured a recording contract with Columbia Records soon after Arthur Godfrey added her to the roster of singers of his highly-rated radio and television programs on CBS. She quickly became popular with her show tunes, operetta favorites, and recordings, and If You Love Me (Really Love Me) became a Top Ten hit song in 1954. Upon leaving Godfrey and Columbia the following year, Marion signed with Archie Bleyer’s Cadence Records and released The Man in the Raincoat, the best selling recording of her career. In 1959, she co-starred with Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel in the original Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music.” Several of her recordings, including her 1954 hit, Whither Thou Goest, are part of Jasmin’s two-CD celebration: “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends” (JASCD 146).
Robert Nickora, May 2010
Special Thanks: Mike Whorf, Sandra Johnson, Graeme Freeland, Ray Lord, Val Shively.
Sources:
Cash Box Pop Singles Charts 1950-1993 by Pat Downey, George Albers, and Frank Hoffmann, Published by Pat Downey Enterprises, Boulder, Colorado 80307, USA, Copyright 1994.
Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music by Joel Whitburn, Published by Record Research Inc., Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin 53051, USA, Copyright 1986.
It was mid-January, but it was warm and sunny in Los Angeles the morning I boarded the plan bound for New York City and a meeting with Richard Rodgers. The weather would be cold there, but the mission would be a warm and thrilling experience for me. I was to hear the music for DO I HEAR A WALTZ?, a new Broadway show being prepared by Rodgers and his gifted lyricist, Stephen Sondheim.
The purpose of this early hearing? I was to record an instrumental version of songs from the up-coming musical, and the familiar pattern that would precede this special kind of recording was beginning to unfold.
First, there was the urgency. The show would soon be leaving New York for pre-Broadway out-of-town performances. Second, hearing the Rogers-Sondheim score in this early stage would provide a chance to experience the songs in their purest form with voice and piano accompaniment. Watching the action on stage in rehearsal, even without sets and costumes, would be helpful, of course; and it was a chance to hear and see all this at the show’s inception, before the score would be eagerly seized by dozens of recording vocalists and orchestras. In this way I would be able to capture the spirit of the songs and transfer it to the “voice” of the orchestra. This had been the method for my instrumental versions of “The Sound of Music,” “My Fair Lady,” “South Pacific,” “Kismet,” and many other orchestral albums.
And the music? I could scarcely wait to get back home and begin preparing these arrangements of Richard Rodgers’ great music for DO I HEAR A WALTZ?
Music of romance seems invariably to draw forth the most rapturous melodies composers can offer, and Percy Faith’s arrangements of the tunes in Exotic Strings are undeniably in keeping with their mood of moonlight, romance and rapture. Probably no other conductor-arranger is so successful in the presentation of romantic music, keeping the sound tastefully rich and at the same time allowing full outpouring of the melodies.
The Faith technique is stunningly evident in the present collection. To the fifty virtuoso strings comprising his orchestra, he has added exotic rhythm instruments to enhance the sonorous depth and breadth of his arrangements. The immense Hollywood recording studio where this album was made is ideally suited for capturing the flowing components of orchestral voices and countermelodies.
The repertoire of Exotic Strings offers fine Broadway and Hollywood ballads by Alexander Borodin (by way of Robert Wright and George Forrest’s musical version of “Kismet”), Arthur Schwartz, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and Vincent Youmans. And in addition to such favorites as Poinciana, Nightingale and My Shawl, Percy has included an original composition Chico Bolero. The unusual effect of plucked strings playing in countermelody against soaring strings is one of this selection’s particular delights.
In Exotic Strings, the Faith sound is gloriously displayed. The music provides a splendid medium for orchestral enchantment, and the enchantment, in turn, enhances the music in a way that is both intimate and expansive.
Canadian-born, but today a citizen of the United States–more exactly a resident of Great Neck, Long Island — Percy Faith had his first professional job at the age of 11, when he played a hearts-and-flowers piano accompaniment to silent movies in a Toronto theatre. He was too small to reach comfortably from bench to keys, so they built him up by seating him on a thick stack of sheet music.
At 15, having attended the Toronto Conservatory of Music, he made his debut on the stage of Massey Hall, along with other star pupils. The critics seemed to like his playing of Liszt’s “Hungarian Fantasy” so, he says, “I thought I might try professional piano — outside of a movie theatre.” At 18, he was writing musical arrangements for prominent bandleaders, and the following year, he became a member of a small concert group. He left this group after a year or two to do radio work.
Faith’s musical talents soon began to develop beyond the limitations of merely playing an instrument; he found himself becoming more and more interested in composing, arranging, and conducting. His work in these three capacities was so outstanding that, in 1933, he became staff conductor, arranger, and pianist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He remained with CBC for seven years, during which time he wrote and arranged the music for important dramatic programs , and conducted such popular musical shows as “Music by Faith,” “Strings in Swingtime,” “Bands Across the Sea,” and the Empire broadcasts when the King and Queen visited Canada.
Faith came to the United States in 1940 to appear as guest conductor on NBC’s “Carnation Contented Hour,” following the death of Josef Pasternack. In September of that year, he was invited to accept the position of permanent conductor. Percy accepted, and he continues to guide the distinguished orchestra, all of whose programs Faith does himself.
Two of Percy Faith’s more recent originals are “Aphrodite” and “Snow Goose.” The latter composition was written as background music for Ingrid Bergman’s radio dramatization of Paul Gallico’s famous story and added greatly to the effectiveness of the narrative.
An experienced recording artist, Percy has made several sides with Hildegarde, and she has made guest appearances on his air show. These Latin0-American selections bear the inimitable Faith stamp. The arrangements are intricate and exuberant, spiced with provocative native touches; the interpretations are full-bodied and imaginative. They all bespeak the versatility of the conductor-composer-arranger, who says: “There is very little music I don’t enjoy playing; but’s I’ve always had a special yen for the samba, tango and rumba rhythms of our neighbors south of the border. I hope you like them as much as I liked making them.”
Almost alone among sports, the football game has been responsible for a large number of vigorous, hearty songs. Naturally, this stems from the colleges that have built football into a flourishing American enterprise, for colleges have long been fine incubators of lusty song. Many of the names of the composers may be lost in the ivied halls, but their songs still ring out of a Saturday afternoon with undiminished vitality.
In this collection of football songs, Percy Faith has selected sixteen representative tunes, four from the East, four from the South, four from the Middle West and four from the West. Almost any crisp Saturday afternoon in the autumn, these songs take their place among the moulting racoon coats, the fluttering pennants and the thermos jugs as part of the general excitement of watching twenty-two men (and more) push the proverbial pigskin around the field. Not only are these songs closely allied with the general excitement, they are part of that excitement, frequently giving rather more support and fighting spirit to the spectators than to the team.
Whether one delights in sitting in a stadium for football, or prefers to acquire his information about the game via electronics, these songs will all be familiar and welcome. Providing, as they do, a quick jump about the country, the songs will also recall the last-minute touchdowns, the extra-special date, the hotly-argued defeat, such things as these that are also indisputable parts of a football game. If it sometimes seems that the game gets lost in the welter of tribal customs, ask anyone who was there: he can give you every play.
Here, then, in one collection, is a cross-section of an American Saturday afternoon in October or November, played with exuberance by Percy Faith and his orchestra and sung with proper spirit by the chorus. One’s own college or university favorite may be missing, but these sixteen songs include some of the most popular and famous melodies that ever echoed across a campus. From kickoff to the final whistle, the spirit of great football games is captured in these performances with rousing effect. Listen now, as the band comes out on the field!
AN EXCITING SEQUEL TO "TODAY'S THEMES FOR YOUNG LOVERS"
The enthusiastic reception and outstanding success of the last Percy Faith album featuring the 12-girl voice chorus make this follow-up album welcome and inevitable.
FOR THOSE IN LOVE offers current hits treated with the sweeping strings and voices in the stylings that have made Percy Faith famous. The repertoire for the album includes the biggest and most recent hits available. The voices are alternatingly spirited and sensuous; the orchestration is pure Faith magic. Such exceptional songs as Sunny, Goin' Out of My Head, Never My Love, The Look of Love, I Say a Little Prayer and others move. This album is a treat for everyone and especially for those in love.
By 7:50 P.M. (Pacific Time) most of the regular Percy Faith musicians had gathered in the recording studio. Violinists were strolling around dropping cadenzas, and the brass men were flushing spit valves and paying off old football bets. At that moment a man walked into the studio carrying a banjo case.
As the banjo player headed for his chair, the orchestra members looked around for an exit. “Must be the wrong studio,” said a cellist, while a gaggle of flutes began to pack up. “I thought this was a Percy Faith date,” the drummer said. “This is the second time this week I’ve goofed.”
Then Percy appeared, stepped to the podium and waved to the banjoist. The time and place for another Faith album were correct. Only the music had been changed.
Faith fans have come to expect the unexpected from this talented man. They know he’s a Canadian who plays Latin music, a string writer who loves jazz and a conductor who may well have accomplished more with an orchestra than anyone else in popular music. They remember his “Music of Christmas” (CL 1381/CS 8176) as the first time an orchestra played the words of the carols: they still play his “My Fair Lady” (CL 895) album to hear the orchestra put on a Broadway hit, and only recently the Faith orchestra in “Themes for Young Lovers” (CL 2023/CS 8823) brought two generations together by showing parents how good their children’s favorite songs really are.
So, it probably won’t surprise you to hear America’s newest favorite, folk music, played by the Faith orchestra of nearly fifty fine musicians, including that banjo player. The songs are all familiar to guitar players and coffee-house gangs. But the colors of a great orchestra give these songs new permanence and new beauty. Percy once again reminds his vast audience of the versatility of his orchestra.
IRVING TOWNSEND
Twenty-five years ago a tall, slender, black-haired Canadian with wo unlikely and therefore memorable names arrived for his first day’s work as Director of Popular Music at Columbia Records. He rode to the fourth floor of the Columbia Building at 799 Seventh Avenue, a 52nd Street corner surrounded by music publishing houses, rehearsal studios, and The Hickory House, then a musicians’ hangout, and was shown to a small center office along the north corridor reserved for the company’s producers. In the large corner office just down the hall Mitch Miller, who had hired him, was beginning his Columbia career as Director of Popular A&R. Miller had been hired away from Mercury Records by then Executive Vice President Goddard Lieberson. Next to Miller’s office was another large room occupied by Joe Higgins, veteran A&R producer and former assistant to Miller’s predecessor Manny Socks. At the opposite end of the corridor was the office of George Avakian, then Columbia’s resident jazz collector and producer of classics by Goodman, Ellington, Beiderbecke and Armstrong. My office, smallest of the cubicles, was between Avakian’s and the new Music Director’s. “I was impressed and a little scared,” Percy Faith remembered. “I didn’t even know what Mitch expected of me.”
In 1950 the name Percy Faith was not unfamiliar either to American musicians or to the American public. He had recorded briefly for Decca in Chicago in 1944 while his orchestra was featured on a widely heard weekly show called The Carnation Hour, sponsored by a manufacturer of condensed milk. During the seven years he arranged and conducted at the Carnation Hour music, his guests included such stars as Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, George Shearing, Louis Armstrong, Nat Cole, Count Basie and Erroll Garner. Between 1947 and 1949 Faith replaced Andre Kostelanetz in New York as the conductor of the Coca-Cola sponsored network radio program where he conducted for such featured guests as Robert Merrill, Eleanor Steber, Richard Tucker and Gladys Swarthout.
But before his arrival at Columbia to accept the $200-a-week job under Mitch Miller, Percy had been out of work for two years. His was a large and expensive orchestra, and he would not do without his favorite section, the strings. Moreover, Percy was not the typical, highly publicized and high-living bandleader of the day. He was a soft-spoken, gentle man whose hobbies were fishing in the streams of Canada and playing golf whenever he had a day off. At the end of each working day he hurried home to Long Island and his wife and two children. While his new assignment was to assist Mitch in the search for material and to arrange for and accompany the growing list of singers Miller was signing, no one, least of all Faith, expected that he would remain under contract for the next quarter century, earn countless gold records for his single hits and his astonishing variety of albums, and become for musicians and public alike a master of orchestral composition, arranging and conducting.
Percy began his Columbia career by opening his office to every publisher with a song to sell. Mitch Miller quickly enlisted his talents to accompany the label’s singers, including Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Jerry Vale and Johnny Mathis, whose hits of the 1950’s were made possible in large part by Faith arrangements. It was during this period that Percy wrote the Guy Mitchell hit song “My Heart Cries For You,” as well as recording his own first his with his version of “The Song From Moulin Rouge,” featuring the voice of Felicia Sanders.
But Faith was still an instrumental writer, as the second side of “Moulin Rouge” indicated. “Delicado” told more about his future than anything else he had recorded during the first years at Columbia. It revealed on of Faith’s true musical preferences, the complex, impulsive rhythms of Latin American music. “I can’t explain how a Toronto boy fresh out of the conservatory had such a feeling for Latin music,” he said. “Maybe I’d been snowbound too long.” Coinciding with Faith’s first hit was the new demand for popular long-playing records, and Percy’s first albums of Latin and Continental music were well received. He was now not only a Columbia employee; he was a Columbia artist with an audience of his own.
The mid-50’s established Percy in yet another area of orchestral music in which he was to excel. Instrumental albums of the music of Broadway found a large audience who seemed not to miss the lyrics, who welcomed the big sound of Faith’s orchestra, who bought Percy Faith versions of the scores of “Kismet,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Sound Of Music” and “Camelot.” Also, Percy arranged the music of George Gershwin and recorded a two-record set that remains one of the most beautiful of all Gershwin collections.
But, in particular, it was Faith’s writing for strings which identified his style. I remember Duke Ellington joining me in the control booth during one of Percy’s recording sessions. I was surprised to see Ellington, a night creature, appearing at any but his own recording date. “I want to learn how to write for strings,” he mumbled as he sat listening. It was this magical string writing that convinced us to record Percy’s first all-string orchestras in the gold-record-award album “Bouquet.” And it was “Bouquet” that led to a best-selling series of string albums, culminating in the 1960’s with string arrangements of the Beatle hits.
At the end of his first decade at Columbia Percy recorded “The Theme From ‘A Summer Place’,” an instrumental single at the opening of the vocal-rock era in popular music. It became his biggest hit, adding a new young audience for his music. In 1960 Faith moved his family to the west coast to work with me in the new Columbia studios in Hollywood. And to begin his second decade of recording he chose much of the best music from the screen for his album catalog. Settling into California golfing weather, returning each summer to fish and to visit his relatives in Canada, he was at last established as a composer, arranger and conductor of his almost-symphonic-size orchestra. He began to play concerts both in this country, where he filled the Hollywood Bowl each summer season, and abroad, where he conducted the symphony in La Scala. He was a world-wide star; his records heard in every country.
Percy Faith’s days of accompanying singers were over, or so he insisted. But it was in our early days on the west coast that I asked him to do the almost impossible—accompany Mahalia Jackson with full orchestra. Hers was to be an album of Christian hymns and anthems, the first time Mahalia had ever sung with strings. “I can’t sing opera,” she cried to me over the telephone from Chicago. “I don’t play gospel,” Percy reminded me in my office. Nevertheless, for me, for Mahalia, for the challenge itself he agreed, and Mahalia arrived by train in Los Angeles, filled two taxis with herself, he erstwhile accompanist Mildred Falls, and her luggage, and disembarked at the Sunset Boulevard entrance to Columbia shortly afternoon one Monday in 1960. Standing on the sidewalk surrounded by her suitcases, Mahalia searched for cab fare, then noticed a tall man walking along the sidewalk toward her. She had no idea who he was, but asked, “Will you lend me five dollars? I’ll pay you back. I’m Mahalia.” The man handed her the money. “I’m Percy Faith,” he told her. And so they met. The album “The Power And The Glory” was the result, and it remained Mahalia’s favorite for the rest of her life.
In the mid-60’s Percy Faith changed his recording style again, or rather he added a new dimension to the man successful variations of his musical personality. Recognizing both the importance of the new generation of young record fans and the beauty of much of their music, he began to make albums of contemporary melodies suitable to his orchestra, and, because much of the appeal of this music lay in its poetic lyrics, he added a chorus of singers. The records were unmistakably Percy Faith, filled with his trademarks: string voicings which produced counter melodies as beautiful as the tune itself, decorative comments by flutes and vibraphone, and, of course, the exotic rhythm instruments which had first excited his audiences twenty years earlier. Only the sound of a girls chorus was added, but the resulting albums have been enthusiastically received by Faith fans unborn when “Delicado” was first recorded.
On Monday, February 9, 1976, as he was preparing for his twenty-sixth year of recording for Columbia, Percy Faith died of cancer in Encino, California. The presence of the disease had been known to him and to his family and close friends for several years, and he had been undergoing periodic treatments. Biologists and sociologists mark the crucial difference which separates the man from other life forms by celebrating the creative human mind and its accomplishments as the true measure of our superiority. Certainly, Percy Faith’s career left the world richer. He made a creative difference. But while all men live uniquely with the foreknowledge of death and the burden of anticipating it, few, aware as he was of its imminentness, shun self pity, refuse to alter or to modify the pace of their lives. Percy went on making music, touring the world, planning the continuity of his career. Typically, also, he continued to be the gentle, concerned and generous friend to all who will miss him.
He died with several years remaining of his Columbia recording contract. But this memorial album, representing twenty-five years of his records, is a unique tribute, rare especially in so-called popular music. Why Percy Faith was able to sustain his popularity, to accumulate generations of dedicated listeners, is difficult to explain in words. But not in his music. Except for the titles, you will find it almost impossible to decide which of these marvellous performances was recoded recently, which two decades ago. All are timeless. All are forever preserved on phonograph records which in our century have at least made the art of the performing musicians as permanent as the pyramids.
—Irving Townsend
