Another example of a practitioner in the popular context was Dinah Washington's "What a Difference a Day Makes". As examples in the jazz genre, there are recordings of Frank Sinatra. In the 1940s and 1950s strings had been used in jazz and popular music contexts. String instruments had been used in sweet bands in the 1930s and was the dominant sound track to movies of Hollywood's Golden Age. The style has been synonymous with the tag "with strings". You may hear examples of Easy listening music performed by John Serry on his album Squeeze Play in 1956 Here on ( June 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This section needs additional citations for verification.
It was differentiated from the mostly instrumental beautiful music format by its variety of styles, including a percentage of vocals, arrangements and tempos to fit various parts of the broadcast day.Įasy listening music is often confused with lounge music, but while it was popular in some of the same venues it was meant to be listened to for enjoyment rather than as background sound. It mostly concentrates on music that pre-dates the rock and roll era, characteristically on music from the 1940s and 1950s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, non- rock vocals and instrumental covers of selected popular rock songs. Orchestra, and where other flower-power-pop favorites meld with the likes of Ferrante and Teicher, Lawrence Welk, and the Mystic Moods Orchestra.Easy listening (including mood music ) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. These influences, in turn, inspired many easy-listening arrangers and conductors to reinterpret the songs into instrumental wonders that were often just as (if not more) surreal.Įasy-Listening Acid Trip takes readers on a journey that includes the Hollyridge Strings’ haunting version of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever,” Paul Mauriat’s lush treatment of Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” and Mariano and the Unbelievables’ baroque-pop tribute to the Lemon Pipers “Green Tambourine.” The book also provides numerous anecdotes, such as how quickly after the Strawberry Alarm Clock released their 1967 hit “Incense and Peppermints,” Muzak recorded an instrumental version by Charles Grean and His Orchestra that kept the electric guitar but re-contoured the tune with harps, horns, flutes, a tambourine, and other effects for offices, restaurants, supermarkets, and of course, elevators.ĭelving into the songs along with the international roster of composers, arrangers, and conductors who recorded them, Easy-Listening Acid Trip celebrates the trippy paradox linking psychedelia to easy-listening: a netherworld where the Beatles meet The Percy Faith Strings, where Donovan meets David Rose and His
Now, in Easy-Listening Acid Trip, he pushes the boundaries further by taking his subject into altered states, showing how psychedelic pop (as opposed to the ear-grinding jams of “acid rock”) offered other worldsĪnd strange sounds that took listeners through a mind-bending time travel back to vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, British Music Hall, and the melodic traditions that made songs hits before your grandmother was born. In his acclaimed book Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong, author Joseph Lanza explored the forbidden beauty and social importance of an otherwise shunned musical category. Easy Listening Acid Trip explains the missing musical link between electric guitars and orchestral strings, from the Beatles to Lawrence Welk, and why we just can’t help but liking songs we hear in the elevator. Pop music of the late sixties embraced psychedelic youth culture yet appealed to listeners of all ages up and down the radio dial.
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