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OT(But Not Entirely) James Taylor Sings "Moon River" and Other Standards

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Not entirely?

There's a method to my madness...

James Taylor has , in the last week, put out an album of standards. I'd say I'm surprised that it took him this long. I think it was a couple of decades ago that Rod Stewart put out three albums of standards in a row and got a late career financial boost(fans of a certain age liked both Sinatra AND Stewart -- including me.)

I've followed James Taylor as a favorite for decades now, and I guess you could say that musical artists have the same problem that movie stars do. Taylor was giant in the 70s, did a slow fade in the 80s, hung on in the 90's, and released a pretty damn good album in the early 2000s(it had "September" or "October" in the title.) Basically a 30-year recording career and now he's a big concert act -- and he knows this ("90% of my career now is touring with my hits.") Someone dubbed him "Sinatra for the Baby Boomers" and he kinda/sorta is -- a great distinctive voice, a canon of work(and a talent with a guitar that Sinatra didn't have.)

I've also followed James Taylor long enough to watch him take on slings and arrows for his "overly mellow and sensitive persona," for music that drives some people (mainly men) nuts with rage -- and to see the sexy "Joe Cool with Long Hair and Moustache" cut the moustache, lose all the hair and become a rather grizzled old man with a young man's voice. No matter, I've stayed his fan based on memories of the 70's...much as I'm loyal to Psycho and NXNW from getting some of their biggest broadcast airplay back then.

Taylor put out an album of new songs a few years ago and I was very sad about it. It only had about two tunes with much melody -- it was as if he'd run out of music in his head.

Besides that "new" album, Taylor did a nifty Xmas album back in the 90's that he updates every few years with another song, and two albums of "Covers" -- which while not quite standards, were definitely somebody else's songs.

One of those "Covers" albums featured Taylor doing well by the Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell classic "Witchita Lineman," which I have always loved as a "movie level" song of yearning love. Campbell did it best; Sergio Mendes and his ladies did a sexy bossa nova version of it, and Taylor won a Grammy for his version. Its a great song.

But an even GREATER song is "Moon River" and when I saw that Taylor was finally singing that one(I read the album cover list)...I smiled. OF COURSE it was time for James Taylor to sing "Moon River." This song just could be -- for my generation -- THE movie song of all time. Its beautiful, its sad, it has lyrics that mean something and nothing at the same time("My huckleberry friend.") The music is by Henry Mancini, "the movie music man of the 60s"(whom Hitchcock fired off of Frenzy in the 70's) the lyrics are by Johnny Mercer. A special on Mercer showed Mercer on Dinah Shore's show in the 70's , and she said to him "above all, Johnny, we thank you for that wonderful, wonderful song, Moon River."

The 1961 movie from which Moon River is taken is "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and we get an instrumental version over the credits(with Audrey TAKING that Breakfast at Tiffany's -- a bagel on the sidewalk); and Audrey singing it herself(without her "My Fair Lady" dubbing) and I think, a big chorus at the end. Breakfast at Tiffany's -- rather like the lesser "The Way We Were" of 12 years later is "a movie about a song" -- the song enwraps the movie from beginning to end and creates a mood that makes the movie a classic (for instance, the instrumental comes up very sadly as Buddy Ebsen's bus pulls away -- he's a middle aged man who married Hepburn's hillbilly teen and has to be thrown away by the sophisticated new Audrey.)

The years have been tough on Breakfast at Tiffany's because anyone trying to extoll its virtues has to deal with the fact that that the film has a running gag of Mickey Rooney as "a comedy Japanese man with buckteeth" for slapstick. Director Blake Edwards liked to do "ethnic accent humor" --- Peter Sellers as the French Inspector Clouseau, with Kato the Asian karate sparring partner in "The Pink Panther," Peter Sellers as a Hindu Indian in The Party but -- ethnic humor is over, and Rooney looks really BAD in those buck teeth. Oh, well -- movie history is history.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" is relevant to "Psycho" fans because its the next movie that Martin Balsam did AFTER "Psycho" and what a difference: he's a cool cat Hollywood agent who manages to lure a pretty woman into (wait for it) a shower with him for some chit chat(its off, they are dressed and at an NYC party.) The one-two punch of Psycho and Breakfast at Tiffany's made Balsam a sought-after character guy for the rest of the 60's.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

And "Breakfast at Tiffany" and "Moon River" are relevant in MY life, because I remember seeing the movie at a very young age, with my entire family, at a drive-in, in a car. And that song "Moon River" caught my young ears both at the movies and on the radio, and on the family record player -- it was always there, and always quite comforting -- a "movie on a record" of just a few minutes duration.

The movie has an opening instrumental(at the drive-in, the harmonica played over the opening credits prompted my mother to say, "this sounds like a Western" -- and I've never forgotten that critique), and a chorus, and Hepburn singing it -- but the tune got REALLY famous with the Andy Williams version. Williams was an easy listening giant of the 60's and he often got first crack at the Mancini movie tunes -- Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Dear Heart -- and the non-Mancini movie tune, Emily (Americanization of Emily).

Sinatra did all of those too, but didn't really get "first crack." That said, I've heard Sinatra's version of "Moon River" and it has a wonderfully sad strings orchestration put between the phrases "waiting round the bend..my Huckleberry friend" that makes it a different song, even aside from Sinatra's vocals. The Sinatra version of Moon River kind of has that "To Kill a Mockingbird" nostalgic pathos to it. I like it better than the Williams version.

But And Williams used it as his theme song, and -- in the 00's I think, an aged Williams sang "Moon River" on a TV salute to NBC and got the standing ovation of the night from the hardened show biz audience. I remember that -- it was like one century's last gasp in the next. Unless it was the 90s.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

So all this past is prelude to James Taylor FINALLY singing Moon River and making it his own. I had to smile -- OF COURSE James Taylor would HAVE to sing Moon River some day. That day is here -- 2020, fully 50 years after Taylor "debuted" in 1970 and a Time magazine cover with Sweet Baby James. (His REAL debut was a 1968 album for the Beatle Apple label that has good songs but didn't "splash" like Sweet Baby James and Fire and Rain.)

I'd rank JT's Moon River behind Sinatra's(first) and Williams(second) but its very good and in HIS manner, with that distinctive guitar up front, his amazingly high and clear voice(at 71!) in fine fettle,and somebody on harmonica(Stevie Wonder?) to bring back my mother's 1961 "Western" comment. Perhaps "Moon River" will win JT another Grammy like "Witchita Lineman" did.

And this: with his guitar intros and strings and backup singers, James Taylor on this new album turns old chestnuts like "Paper Moon" and "My Blue Heaven" into sexy Sergio Mendes style bossa nova beats BEFORE shifting into their classic styles. And also this: rather like Woody Allen or Spielberg, Taylor has a "70's style" that is long gone and can't be duplicated. A lot of the arrangements on this "American Standards" album sound like Taylor's arrangements on that 2002 album(Septmber Morn? October Day? I can't remember.) JT has had a new sound for about 20 years now. The Fire and Rain guy is gone...except at concerts.

James Taylor singing "Moon River" is a very personal thing to me -- encompassing the decades backward to 1970(when Taylor first arrived in my life) to 1961(when Moon River first appeared in my life -- and stayed.) Sure there is a 'schmaltz level" to all of this, but it is good old all-American Schmaltz that here encompassed everyone from Martin Balsam to Sinatra to ...James Taylor?( with that Andy Williams fellow uber alles.)

I get a good feeling about ALL of this, I tell ya. A life well lived in music and film -- given emotional solace in these terrible times.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

And oh, the Psycho connection: Martin Balsam of course, in a movie of some classic status(less Mickey Rooney) RIGHT AFTER Psycho....Balsam even rather looks the same. (You could say that Balsam is connected to two of the most important "movie music" landmarks in history: the screeching Psycho violins and...Moon River.)

But this: Particuarly with James Taylor entering my life around the time I finally saw Psycho on TV(1970), Taylor's "shy, sensitive boyish thing" wasn't all that removed from..Anthony Perkins. In real life, both men were East Coast dwellers, and both men appeared on Saturday Night Live when it was hitting big. Could James Taylor have played Norman Bates? Oh, maybe somewhere somehow(his film debut in "Two Lane Blacktop" in 1971 was charisma-free and one time only)...perhaps more in "alternative universe fantasy."

PS. Other than "Moon River," the "fun one" on "American Standards" finds JT taking on Stubby Kaye's rousing semi-gospel number "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" from Guys and Dolls. Its 1955 all over again.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

I guess that this is a good time/place to repost a link to my old blog post about connections between Psycho & Breakfast at Tiffs:
http://plaguehouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/breakfast-at-bates-motel.html

I also long ago put up on youtube audio from the 'Looking for cat' end-of-movie sequence in BaT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkmVzcZMxV0

Mancini scores the scene with some marvellously dissonant, syncopated piano chords & a Gorecki-style, cycling, rising string figure. Wonderful stuff. I know that Mancini's main contrib. to BaT will always be 'Moon River' (which he wrote w. Mercer specifically for Audrey H. to sing) but if you listen closely to the soundtrack there are near-genius cues scattered throughout, often in quite diverse styles. The fact is that Mancini, like Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith & a few others was a full-service composer who'd give you, on top of any main themes, all sorts of musical emotional detailing on a nearly shot by shot basis. Most directors these days (Nolan, Miyazaki, Sciamma with Zimmer, Hisiachi, and Para One as their respective musical partners are exceptions that come to mind) don't seem to like to give composers that much of a free hand or role in completing their films. Too bad.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I guess that this is a good time/place to repost a link to my old blog post about connections between Psycho & Breakfast at Tiffs:
http://plaguehouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/breakfast-at-bates-motel.html

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Glad that my post(driven by James Taylor singing "Moon River" but then going on to the movie and Mancini and the Psycho connections) could inspire you to return us your great blog(with screen shots) analysis. A pleasure reading it -- and looking at it -- again.

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I also long ago put up on youtube audio from the 'Looking for cat' end-of-movie sequence in BaT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkmVzcZMxV0

Mancini scores the scene with some marvellously dissonant, syncopated piano chords & a Gorecki-style, cycling, rising string figure. Wonderful stuff.

---

..and I here appreciate your musical knowledge on this sort of thing. Me -- I just sort of know that "Mancini was the soundtrack to the sixties" and that his thriller music was among the best work he did and that HERE, the "finding cat" scene was scored much like a thriller, very heavy, very scary...and leading to tearful joy , a kiss, a classic fade-out.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I know that Mancini's main contrib. to BaT will always be 'Moon River' (which he wrote w. Mercer specifically for Audrey H. to sing)

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I did not know that. I watched BAT last week and the DVD documentaries on it and in a scary moment we are told that studio brass wanted the song(and Audrey singing it) cut out of the movie and Audrey yelled "Over my dead body!" and now we have that classic tune forever.

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but if you listen closely to the soundtrack there are near-genius cues scattered throughout, often in quite diverse styles. The fact is that Mancini, like Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith & a few others was a full-service composer who'd give you, on top of any main themes, all sorts of musical emotional detailing on a nearly shot by shot basis.

---

Yes. BAT has variants on Moon River all through it, but when the tone requires a "thriller" effect, it gets it; when he tone requires "wrenching sadness" it gets it; when the tone requires "light hearted upbeat" feeling it gets it(there is a chorus helping Audrey and George through a day of pranking around and stealing Halloween masks that is almost like Early Burt Bacharach.) And then there's the swank jazz of the infamous "party sequence"(what a tribute to 50's/60's cusp cool that is.) "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is fed a lot from "Peter Gunn" before it and predicts the thriller music of Charade to follow it; but it has plenty to pull at the heartstrings. Its a movie that really relies on its score.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

A few more thoughts about Mancini:

In contrast to Hitchcock's firing of Herrmann before the end; Blake Edwards loyally used Mancini on ALL his score right through the 80's(90s?) and Mancini's death. Edwards/Mancini are as famous in their own way as Hitchcock/Herrmann(for 8 films only) and Spielberg/Williams(for most, but not all, of the Spielberg films) and Burton/Elfman(for most, but not all, of Burton's films -- and Elfman re-scored Herrmann for Van Sant's Psycho.)

And yet: Mancini's musical touch was all over Old Guy Howard Hawks' "Hatari" (1962) a non-Western John Wayne film that filled the radio with a jovial hit --"Baby Elephant Walk."

And yet: Mancini scored two Stanley Donen thrillers -- Charade and Arabesque -- and made them "Mancini movies" -- especially with Charade(Hepburn is in that, menaced by thugs.)

And yet: Mancini came up with a VERY terrifying score for Terrance Young's "Wait Until Dark"(1967) -- with Hepburn, which rather links it to the DONEN thrillers!(Hepburn is again, menaced by thugs). The "twin pianos" opening suspense music reportedly made the musicians playing it physically ill from the discordant strings.

And yet: back with Edwards, Mancini gave us one of the greastest "opening credits for a thriller" music ever made: "Experiment in Terror" (1962.) Just play it some time. At night. Alone.

And yet: when he wasn't scaring the heck out of us, Mancini was giving us some of the sweetest movie songs of the 60's: Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Dear Heart, The Sweetheart Tree(from the great The Great Race) ..it was part of our romantic fantasy life(and there was great comedy music in The Great Race.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

CONT

And yet: Hitchcock fired Mancini off of Frenzy. It was a late case of Hitchcock Outrage, just this side of his firing Herrmann. I can understand it in only one way: Hitchcock was worried that Mancini's score would take over a Hitchcock movie, and make it sound like Experiment in Terror or Charade or Wait Until Dark. Howard Hawks WELCOMED Mancini's contemporary touch. Hitchcock could not.

Which ties into your point, here , swanstep:

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Most directors these days (Nolan, Miyazaki, Sciamma with Zimmer, Hisiachi, and Para One as their respective musical partners are exceptions that come to mind) don't seem to like to give composers that much of a free hand or role in completing their films. Too bad.

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Perhaps these new directors know now what Hitchcock had to learn: a great composer can "make" your movie as much as the director can. Vertigo, Psycho, Jaws and all the Mancini thrillers are as much their composers acheivements as their directors.

Tarantino has been most vocal on this. He scores his movies with scores from OLD movies ,sometimes obscure movies, but sometimes pretty well known(1982's The Thing; Two Mules for Sister Sara) Tarantino's point is that, indeed, he does NOT want a film composer making HIS/HER statement on a Tarantino film. Even when he finally let Morricone score The Hateful Eight(winning an Oscar in the process, and with an unforgettable opening title theme), QT STILL put other source music in the movie(The Thing.)

Its too bad, really. Think of how much we movie buffs can remember -- INSTANTLY - the themes not only to the movies above, but to The Godfather, The Sting, Star Wars, Superman, Rocky, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, the first Batman(Nicholson's), and more. (A "gimmick" to The Godfather, Rocky and Raiders, though: the themes don't emerge with the opening credits - -they show up later in the films.)

No more.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Some James Taylor "gimmick trivia" that connects directly to Hitchcock.

Ever think about this?

Two pop rock artists:

James Taylor
Rod Stewart

Two movie actors

James Stewart
Rod Taylor

...kinda nifty! Shift the names around and you can see four very different men!