4. Space Age Pop: What on Earth is it all About?
Bruce Corneil
It can be as dramatic as Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn”, as mysterious as Martin Denny’s “Quiet Village” or as playful as Floyd Cramer’s “On the Rebound”. From Les Baxter’s “Poor People of Paris” through to Cozy Cole’s “Topsy Part 2” and Herb Alphert’s “Lonely Bull”, the musical colors of Space Age Pop are not only many and varied but also extremely vivid.
The sound was up-market contemporary and, for a while, it was everywhere on radio, TV and in the movies. Yet, for years it remained a genre without a name. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Los Angeles film-maker and record collector Byron Werner coined the phrase “Space Age Bachelor Pad Music”. Later changed to its present form, the term is now used to describe a particular style of easy listening pop which rose to prominence in the US after Word War II. Although no specific recording or date marked its exact starting point, its golden days were from the mid- '50s up to the time of the Beatles invasion of America. Mainly instrumental, album-based and adult-orientated, its creators frequently drew their inspiration from such diverse sources as modern jazz, Latin, country and rock ‘n roll. However, all these influences were skillfully homogenized in order to make them more appealing to a wider audience. But conquering the jukebox was never a priority. These discs were primarily in the business of bringing fun and entertainment into the living room by way of giving the family stereo a workout with lots of cross-channel movement (when that technology became available in the late 1950s)
Brad Bigelow, the man behind Space Age Pop.com (www.spaceagepop.com), the internet’s most comprehensive guide to the subject, says that this music cannot be easily categorized. “It’s in some middle ground and, as a result, it’s full of brilliant, bizarre and exciting sounds” Bigelow explains.
It all began with the introduction of LPs which made it possible to listen to records for longer, uninterrupted periods while high-fidelity and stereo provided vastly superior and more “life-like” reproduction. Albums had the potential to create a range of different moods which were just right for the modern American home. Hi-fis, (later to be known as “Stereos”), became an essential part of fashionable décor and an important status symbol. Preferably situated on polished floorboards, surrounded by Danish furniture and stone feature walls, they immediately identified their owners as being forward-thinkers. The rush to “Tomorrow Land” was on. Americans would soon be reaching for the moon while they stood knee-deep in LPs.
The genre is made up of several sub genres with each one boasting its own stable of artists.
“Space Age Bachelor Pad” gets the ball rolling by supplying a jaunty soundtrack to after-five shenanigans. The story goes that Byron Werner initially used the label to describe the recordings of Juan Garcia Esquivel who specialized in complex arrangements. Contracted by RCA in '57, Esquivel reached his peak with the album Latin-Esque.“Exotica” offers the chance to take the “big trip” and it comes in two varieties – Jungle and Tiki. The so-called “Jungle School”, established in 1951 by the composer-conductor Les Baxter with his LP Ritual of the Savage for Capitol, is where it all began.Tiki invites the hi-fi buff to “Go Hawaiian” and drift away for musical adventures in paradise. Cool jazz pianist Martin Denny was the Boss man in charge of the Tiki hut where an attractive combination of lilting vibes, conga drums, bamboo sticks and Buddhist temple bells perfumed the air. Denny struck gold in '59 with “Quiet Village”, a sultry and hypnotic evocation of Pacific island life, complete with squawking birds and other environmental noises (see top of page). Exotica takes its name after from Denny’s debut album.
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| Esquivel Latin - Esque (left) Les Baxter Ritual of the Savage (center) Martin Denny Exotica (left) |
“Jet Set Pop” was the successor to Space Age Bachelor Pad and it encompassed the likes of Herb Alpert, Sergio Mendes and some of the more sophisticated movie music of the day such as John Barry’s “007” theme.
“The Now Sound” latched onto the rhythms and instrumentations of rock ‘n roll. An MOR response to the Go-Go fad of the mid- 1960s, its leading exponents were big band veterans. Les and Larry Elgart, for example, joined forces with arrangers Charles Albertine and Bobby Scott to produce a couple of crackerjack albums which included Elgart au Go-Go. “Cocktail” music is self explanatory. This was the stock in trade of all those piano trios which provided a pleasant backdrop to the “Lounge” bars of the world. Irving Fields was one of the star performers in this department.
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| Herb Alpert Lonely Bull (left) Les Elgart Elgart au Go - Go (center) Irving Fields Trio That Latin Beat for Dancing Feet (right) |
From the start, the genre became an epicenter of artistic and technical innovation. Showcasing the talents of top composers, arrangers, producers and session players, it championed the use of many unusual instruments in popular music and pioneered stereo engineering. Bigelow believes that its contribution to the industry has gone largely unrecognized. “It introduced bossa nova, exotic percussion, electronic and other new sounds to mainstream pop” he says. However, a zany sense of fun was always close at hand in the midst of all the legitimate experimentation. As proof, a deeper plunge into this fascinating box of vinyl curios will uncover such gems as Bagels and Bongos, Zither Goes to Hollywood Accordion Fireworks and the Nutty Squirrels . Or, how about a honky-tonk piano version of the Beatles “Hard Days Night”? Even a few spoken word records can be found in the mix just to add a touch of spice.
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| Irving Fields Trio Bagels and Bongos (left) Ruth Welcome Zither Goes to Hollywood (center) Mogens Ellegaard Accordian Fireworks (left)  |
Constantly trying out novel ideas was very much a part of the whole thing. And that’s precisely what the guitar duo Santo and Johnny did in '59 when their composition “Sleep Walk” went straight to number one. A haunting instrumental, the tune itself was both striking and memorable. But it was the arrangement that really caught the public’s attention. With Johnny laying down a slow pulsating backbeat with his standard electric guitar, Santo etched out the melody line on a steel guitar. The result was a revelation. Hawaiian flavored pop was born and it sold a million – literally. The duo was comprised of brothers Santo and Johnny Farina from Brooklyn, New York. As kids just starting out in the business, the Farinas had to pound the streets of Manhattan with nothing more than a cheaply recorded demo in their quest to find a buyer for their brainchild. “I had to push “Sleep Walk” for over a year’ Johnny recently recalled. “Nobody was prepared to listen to a steel guitar in rock ‘n roll at that time”. Finally, the small Canadian-American label decided to take a chance and the rest, as they say, is history. Although the track is now considered to be a classic of the genre, it was well received by both adults and teenagers when it was released. Farina has no doubt as to why the record was able to breakthrough. “The sound of the steel guitar is unique to begin with and the way we used it was different as well” he explained.
Another guitar man who loved to experiment was veteran studio musician Vincent “Vinnie” Bell. Still around and playing better than ever, Bell joined the Space Age Pop race in 1956 when he worked on the Les Elgart LP For Dancers Only. His fancy picking can also be heard on dozens of major hits from Wilson Picket’s “Funky Broadway” and the Monkees "I'm a Believer" to Frank Sinatra’s "New York, New York”.
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| Vinnie Bell (centre) with fellow guitar legends Al Caiola (left) and Tony Mottola (right) |
A popular recording artist in his own right, he is, perhaps, best known for his “watery" guitar sound which seemed to be everywhere at one point in the 1960s. Featured on “Midnight Cowboy”, the gold single from '69 by pianists Ferrante and Teicher, it also gave its inventor his own million-seller the following year when he recorded the love theme from Airport. Vinnie has remained tight-lipped for decades in regard to how he came up with the effect. After some gentle prompting, however, the genial axe man agreed to lift the veil of secrecy just a little. “Since 1952, I had been using a special FX bank of fourteen circuitry pedals which I designed and built” he revealed. “One of them makes the underwater sound when it’s depressed”.
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| Ferrante & Teicher Midnight Cowboy album (left) Bell's Airport love theme album (center and right) |
Bell’s interest in left-field ideas brought him into contact with French tape wizard Jean Jacques Perrey, a pioneer in electro pop who had relocated to New York. Perrey's 1966 album The In Sound from Way Out is considered a classic of both space age and electronic pop. "Jean Jacques came to the US in the early ‘60s with an electronic keyboard instrument called the Ondioline which none of us had heard of ” Vinnie remembers. “On our first session we joined the remarkable trombonist Kai Winding. I played the guitar solo. Jean Jacques played the Ondioline”. The track the talented trio recorded was “More”, the theme to the dubious shockumentary Mondo Cane and it quickly zoomed up the charts.
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| Perrey demonstrated the Ondioline (lower right corner in front of piano keyboard) on American television (left) Kai Winding's Top 40 hit "More" (center) Jean Jacques and Vinnie around 2010 (right) (Dana Countryman photo) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-kaquSOLo4 |
Bell was also very much a technical whiz. In addition to his aforementioned "watery" guitar he came up with several new instruments which included the Danelectro Bellzouki and the electric sitar, the latter of which he played on the Lemon Pipers hit "Green Tambourine" ('67)
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| Vinnie in the studio around 1967 / 68 with his electric sitar (left) The Lemon Pipers 1967 hit "Green Tambourine" on which Vinnie played the aforementioned instrument (center) With the Danelectro Bellzouki (right) (Photos left and right from Stereo Candies) |
Few solo singers came to the fore in this genre. However, several vocal groups did make an impression with the most prominent one being organized by Ray Conniff. A former trombonist and arranger with the Harry James orchestra, Conniff became a key figure at Columbia in the 1950s. But he really made everyone sit up and take notice with his extraordinary “wordless chorus”. Based around four male and four female singers, the guys and gals replicated the sound of an orchestra’s brass section by singing such memorable lines as “Bah-Doo-Wup-Bah-Doo-Doo-Wuh”. The shoppers loved it and Conniff'c career went ballistic thanks to albums such as S’ Wonderful ('56) and Concert in Rhythm (’57).
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| Ray Conniff Singers (Conniff at far right) |
And what would Space Age Pop be without its string groups? Annunzio Paolo Mantovani set the style. With his romantic sound being variously known as the “Gush of Lush” and “The Niagara Falls of Fiddles”, Mantovani churned out half a dozen gold singles and eight gold albums between 1951 and ’61. He summed up his own success in very simple terms: “Maybe 25 percent of people like the Classics and 25 percent like the Beatles. I aim to please all those in the middle”.
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| Mantovani displays one of his gold records (left) Two of his top selling albums Film Encores (center) and Exodus (right) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyiXp9ctqpk |
Just as intriguing as the music of this genre was the way in which it was sold. Usually without the beaming faces of major celebrities, album covers had to work hard to separate consumers from their cash. As part of the strategy bold, risqué and even frightening graphics backed onto equally captivating descriptive text which rhapsodized about the sonic delights that were on offer. And irresistible titles such as Mallet Mischief, Primitiva, and Blast Off! were sure to sway the undecided. Promising pure escapism, covers promoted futuristic, exotic and sexy images.
Christopher Evans, a life-long vinyl collector based in Belgium, has put together the website Space Age Pop a-Go-Go.com which is entirely devoted to scans of classic covers. Evans, who has made a detailed study of this form of commercial art, says that the record companies liked to emphasize stereo gimmicks. “There was “Spectra Sonic Sound” and “Wall to Wall Stereo” while RCA pulled out all the stops by assuring its customers that “Stereo Action is musical movement so real, you’re eyes will follow the sound” Evans recites without missing a beat. He has a particular fondness for Les Baxter’s Space Escapade : “Two good-looking bachelor spacemen having a cocktail with a couple of extraterrestrial girls. Pure kitsch”. Sometimes the pop peddlers relied on shock value. Tiki artist Arthur Lyman’s LP Taboo, for instance, displayed a shrunken head.
Widely reviewed, these albums were the preferred listening option for most adult record buyers along with their daily shots of Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peggy Lee. But, of course, public tastes inevitably change. In time, the novelty of stereo wore off while major political upheavals and the phenomenal rise of the Beatles had a profound and enduring impact on the music scene. And it wasn’t necessarily all for the best. Some of those who were a part of the business throughout the Beatles era and beyond still feel a sense of sadness as they look back on the gradual disappearance of musical variety from the radio airwaves. Stu Phillips is one of them. “I guess a lot of those people who grew up with rock felt that light hearted instrumentals were corny” he says. Vinnie Bell on the other hand, thinks that the industry itself must take some of the blame. In its rush to cash in on mainstream '60s pop, a pack mentality developed and increasingly restrictive programming in commercial radio became the norm. “My belief is that the spontaneity among session men was halted and everyone started to copy each other. The spark went out of the whole thing” he laments.
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| 1970s logo for Beautiful Music station 3AK in Melbourne, Australia |
Bigelow is able to shed further light on the reasons for the decline: “The original fans of Space Age Pop lost interest in buying records. Also, Beautiful Music stations were being established all over the country and older people shifted from playing LPs to listening to those stations”.
As it turned out, the genre had to wait a long time to be rediscovered. As popular as it was in its day, it was largely over-looked by the first retro boom that got underway in the 1970s in the wake of American Graffiti.
The revival began slowly in '93 with the publication of two books – Joseph Lanza’s Elevator Music : A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy Listening and other Mood Songs (below left) and Incredibly Strange Music (below center), a two volume set by Re/Search Books. A little later, the musician and writer Dana Countryman came out with Cool and Strange Music (below right). (www.weirdomusic.com). Then, the Exotica mailing list was launched on the internet and Capitol released its series of Ultra-Lounge CDs.
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Books : Elevator Music (left) Incredibly Strange Music (center) Cool and Strange Music (left |
Selection of Capitol's Ultra - Lounge CD collection : Exotica (left)
Tiki (center) and Christmas Cocktail music (left)
On the vinyl front, some of the more hard to find, original albums are now attracting plenty of bids on eBay. Christopher Evans has watched prices climb over recent years. “LPs such as Les Baxter’s Space Escapade in stereo and in good condition often sell for over $100 US” he says.
Space Age Pop has made its presence felt on alternative radio as well. An ideal starting point for your “listening pleasure” would be Bigelow’s website which offers a link to a continuous stream of music which comes from the net broadcaster, Basic Hip . Darrell Brodgon, presenter of the program “Retro Cocktail Hour” on Kansas Public Radio (and the net) says that the genre attracts a lot of drive-by interest. “I’m constantly impressed, however, by how many people are drawn to this music once they’ve been exposed to it” Brogdon enthuses. Also doing their bit to keep the flag flying is LuxuriaMusic, a Los Angeles-based internet station. Program Director Chuck Kelley shares the view that interest appears to be on the rise. “I think it’s increasing. I see new people in the chat room every day” Kelley says. Brogdon and Kelley also agree that 1950s Exotica and particularly Tiki music is the big deal with their listeners at the moment.
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| Chuck Kelley (left) Publicity for Luxuria Music's current membership drive (center) Darrell Brogdon host of Kansas Public Radio's "Retro Cocktail Hour" |
In a further gesture to educate the uninitiated, Bigelow provides a list of Top 10 albums, many of which have been mentioned here. But one in particular, Enoch Light’s Persuasive Percussion, holds a special place. Both a brilliant musician and a technical genius on the knobs and wires side of things, Light owned the Command label and the aforementioned disc was, until recently, ranked among the Top 25 best-selling albums of all time. Or, for something completely different, you might like to track down a copy of the Cold War instructional disc If the Bomb Falls which explains how to survive a nuclear attack.
Brogdon’s final thoughts on the subject pretty well sum up the sentiments of other devotees of these quirky sounds. “Its upbeat and futuristic spirit, together with the incredible professionalism of these old records is a joy. I also like the fact that, in those days, there were more choices for the consumer. Today, the record business is all about money and jamming the same old stuff down our throats over and over again” he states emphatically.
Of course, not all Space Age Pop was outstanding. Like every category of music, it produced its share of duds and dazzlers. When listening to these albums today, however, it’s worth remembering that they were recorded using only basic analogue technology. With the end product being physically cut and spliced together, there was a high element of art involved in the process and, on balance, what they came up with was pretty darn amazing. As Johnny Farina says “There was no comparison to the studios of today. Actually, you had to be much more creative and resourceful in the early days because the equipment was so primitive”.
But, perhaps, Joseph Lanza, the man who was primarily responsible for the rediscovery of the genre, should be given the last word. Summarizing the main value of this type of music in his aforementioned book, Lanza stated his views quite simply.....
“After decades of rock, rhythm and blues, folk and wrap, a desensitized population seems to assume that if music is not heavy, loud and steaming with emotion or anger it is somehow less than good. However, there is still a place for gentler sounds that are subdued, unobtrusive and even remote which can make us feel relaxed and distracted from the troubles of the world”.
The above piece is based on a magazine article that was published some years ago.
Author : Bruce Corneil - former radio music programmer and recording engineer
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