Carmen Dragon was the stage name of, well, Carmen Dragon. Slightly unusual name, especially for a male born in California in 1915. His first claim to public notice was as the composer of a theme song for his local high school. A local newspaper gave the composing credit to “a high school girl, Carmen Dragon”. Even in our more gender-fluid times, you can understand the mistake. But this Dragon was made of tough stuff, and he thrived in California, bringing his musical talents to the emerging film industry, and establishing himself as a leading composer and arranger of film scores.
He also served as conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, which performed for decades on a radio music program introducing classical music to primary school audiences, and the HBSO also recorded several LPs. This is one of them, and I will admit that I had low expectations. The cover is a tad tacky. Scratch that: bigly tacky. With the Spanish theme and the toreador on the sleeve, I was expecting lots of castanets and mariachi brass. There is a bit of that, but it is subtle, used well. This is a fine recording of classical music, the pieces all chosen around a theme which is not overworked.
This is my favourite track, an arrangement of Manuel de Falla’s ballet piece “Ritual Fire Dance”, which was written in the year of Dragon’s birth. It is dramatic and beautiful.
- Artist:, Carmen Dragon, conducting the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra
- LP Title: Echoes Of Spain
- Side 1, Track 2: “Ritual Fire Dance”
- Format: 12”, 33⅓ rpm, mono
- Label: Capitol Records
- Manufactured in: Australia
- Year: 1955
Many of the records featured on Planet Vinyl are for sale on Discogs.
If you want something rare, though, Planet Vinyl is the place to go.
Here on Planet Vinyl, we do not engage in such Brexit trash talk. If you love Veraltete Tontechnik (“obsolete sound engineering technology”) you quickly develop a great respect for German craftsmanship. Those Deutsche certainly knew how to make a Grammophon.
One of the great things about music is its capacity to smash stereotypes. This is a recording by the pianist Helmut Rollof of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Fifteen Variations and Fugue in E Flat Major” (also known as the “Erioca Variations”). German composer; German pianist; German record label. As German, in short, as a bratwurst sausage wearing lederhosen, and as beautiful as a butterfly landing on a cherry blossom.
Eddy is best remembered for the theme to the detective show Peter Gunn, but he did a lot else, including movie and television soundtracks, and with his band The Rebels had a long string of huge hits, selling more than 12 million records between 1958 and 1963. Eddy’s ‘twang’ sound made him a rich man, and inspired legions of teenagers to learn guitar. Among his admirers were Jeff Lynne, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ry Cooder.
