Paul McCartney and Wings -- Live and Let Die

 

I mentioned this a little when I posted the ROY article regarding the iconic James Bond theme by Monty Norman & John Barry but my first several years of 007 exposure was through the frequent Sunday night reruns on ABC. It was on the telly where I witnessed Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore punch bad guys out and romance the ladies always opening with that assassin's-view shot of the master spy before he swerved around and shot back. In fact, the first time I actually saw a Bond movie on the big screen was in 1985 when Moore had his final go-around as Bond in "A View to a Kill". By that point, Moore had looked a little long in the tooth.

But today for this 007 Reminiscings of Youth article, I'm going to focus on the theme song of Moore's first foray into Bondlore, the 1973 "Live and Let Die". I'll be honest and admit that the opening credits scared the heck out of me when I saw that woman's head turn into a skull on fire...forget about the nudity. One other point about catching Bond movies on TV is that it was often the case that it had used to take about three to five years before a cinematic release finally made its way to television so I probably didn't see "Live and Let Die" until the late 1970s and by that point, I had already made Jane Seymour's acquaintance through "Battlestar Galactica" the original. Had no idea that she was also the femme fatale in Moore's first Bond movie.

The main reason that I'm covering "Live and Let Die" this week as a ROY is that the guy behind the theme song of the same title, Sir Paul McCartney, had just finished a weekend of thrilling concerts just down the highway from me in the city of Hamilton. For a man his age, he has Time Lord energy coursing through his veins and arteries and it appears that "Live and Let Die" is an essential part of the playlist.

It was Moore's first time as Bond but it was also the first time that a rock song was used as a theme for a 007 flick when compared to the swaggering jazz that had been the music for all of those Bond movies in the 1960s. I didn't quite "get" "Live and Let Die" when I first heard it with that crazy mix of rock and orchestra (which would eventually become the template for future Bond themes by pop and rock acts). At the time, I preferred Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" but I'm good with it now and I think it represents the oncoming storm that is 007 when he's ticked off at somebody. And I have to admit that to see and listen to it live has to be one of the major highlights of a McCartney concert, if not the highlight.

"Live and Let Die" reached No. 2 on both the American and Canadian charts. It was nominated at the Oscars for Best Original Song and won a Grammy for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). The song was released on June 1st 1973 as a single from Paul McCartney & Wings, a few weeks before the movie's American release. What was up at the top of the Oricon charts a few days later on June 4th?

1. Miyoko Asada -- Akai Fuusen（赤い風船）

2. Kenji Sawada -- Kiken na Futari （危険なふたり）

3. Saori Minami -- Kizutsuku Sedai（傷つく世代）

Dusty Springfield -- The Look of Love

 

Welcome to another weekly article of Reminiscings of Youth. A few years ago, I posted up the theme from the first "Casino Royale" (1967), the hot mess of a 007 spoof starring David Niven and Peter Sellers which nonetheless inspired Mike Myers' "Austin Powers" franchise. As I said in that article, I have seen the movie once and then bits and pieces on YouTube. However, what I've appreciated most about the flick is the music and that Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass theme penned by the amazing Burt Bacharach that is so infused with the Swinging 60s of Great Britain. If I were ever to get to London someday on a vacation and somehow got a Savile Row suit, I would love to walk up and down the streets with that song in my ears.

However, there was one scene in "Casino Royale" that also caught my attention because of the music and, well, Ursula Andress. I remember she was hopping all about with a bunch of shocking pink feathers and I guess the above footage only shows the seconds or so before that one scene. At the same time, there was the music which was jazzy and oh-so-sexy with a breathy voice that squeezed out "The Look of Love" as if a woman in Bubble Era Japan were trying to get out of her bodicon dress. I think the scene and the song play off of each other very well because of the languid pacing out of both of them, and considering the lunacy that precedes and follows in "Casino Royale", Sellers and Andress having a little intimate fun makes for a pretty calming oasis.

Dusty Springfield was someone that I had heard of before when I was a kid in the 1970s because of those K-Tel LP compilation commercials on television but the song that featured her (can't remember the title) had her sound a whole lot different than those vocals on "The Look of Love". The bossa nova jazz was woven together by Burt Bacharach with Hal David taking care of the lyrics, and it was even nominated for a Best Song Oscar in 1968.

Jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall is one of many artists who have covered "The Look of Love", and it's included as the title track for her September 2011 album. The original version was released in April 1967, so what were three songs from Japan that got their release at around the same time?

Naomi Sagara -- Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni （世界は二人のために）

Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets -- Blue Chateau（ブルー・シャトウ）

Yukio Hashi -- Koi no Mexican Rock （恋のメキシカン・ロック）

Shirley Bassey -- Goldfinger

 

Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth where I present some of the memorable non-kayo kyoku songs of my childhood, youth and perhaps young adulthood. This week, we're going back into the 007 file which has gotten three entries thus far and today is No.4 which involves the third entry in the franchise, the 1964 "Goldfinger".

First off, let me say that I still have a great love for the first two movies, "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love", but it's been said that with "Goldfinger", the James Bond movie formula was finally realized. The romancing and the coolness/dark humour of Bond were always there but from this movie, we finally got to see the secret gadgets, the testy exchanges between Q and Bond, and a villain that cast his dark shadow throughout the entire movie.

Plus, we got the first sung Bond song in the opening credit sequence, a nifty one with some of the scenes of what we were going to view projected onto a model painted in gold. According to the Wikipedia article for the song, the theme went through some sturm und drang among the production folks but for everyone paying for the experience, Shirley Bassey hit it out of the park and it's been the gold standard (no pun intended) for all of the Bond themes to follow. 

Written and composed by John Barry, Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, the song had all of what a 007 movie needed: class, swagger, intrigue and danger. And when I finally got to see the movie on ABC (until Roger Moore's final appearance as 007, "A View to a Kill", I'd never seen a Bond flick on the big screen), I enjoyed hearing the thrilling orchestral reprise of the theme in certain key scenes. The song extended Auric's already hefty presence even further. 

Once again according to the Wikipedia article, the theme managed to sell over a million records in the United States, hitting No. 8 on Billboard, and reaching the Top 10 in a number of European nations. It even hit No. 1 in Japan. 

Let's go with the 6th annual Japan Record Awards in 1964.

Best New Artist: Harumi Miyako -- Anko Tsubaki wa Koi no Hana （アンコ椿は恋の花）

Best Performance: Yoko Kishi -- Yoake no Uta （夜明けのうた）

Special Award: Haruo Minami -- Tokyo Gorin Ondo （東京五輪音頭）

Carly Simon -- Nobody Does It Better

 

Welcome to another Reminiscings of Youth to start off Thursday. Y'know...I mistakenly thought that Carly Simon's big hit "Nobody Does It Better" had been used as a commercial jingle for Heinz Ketchup when it had actually been Fleecy Fabric Softener which got the song (strangely enough, it was Simon's "Anticipation" which got the ketchup gig). There was some vague remembrance that "Nobody Does It Better" was used to hawk some household product, and I think that it was the first time that I had ever listened to the hit.

I can imagine that as a kid I must have done a double take when I found out that "Nobody Does It Better" had actually been a theme song for the third of Roger Moore's James Bond outings "The Spy Who Loved Me" which was released in July 1977 in the UK (August in the USA). The first 007 flick which I ever saw on the big screen was Moore's final outing as the superspy, "From a View to a Kill" in the mid-1980s so anything before that was simply through reruns on television. With the usual rule of motion pictures finally hitting TV perhaps three years following their initial run at the theatres, it would have been around 1980 that I finally got to see "The Spy Who Loved Me", so maybe around the same time that I first saw the Fleecy ads. It's ironic then that a song that was used to hawk softener had once been used to advertise a spy whose hidden weapon often...well, you get the picture.😱

Getting back to "The Spy Who Loved Me", it has remained my favourite of the Moore Bond outings, partly because of Simon's theme but also because of 007's Lotus Esprit, the final battle against villain Stromberg, Jaws, and that opening sequence before the credits. I heard that British audiences had gone absolutely gangbusters when the parachute opened up into the Union Jack.

"Nobody Does It Better" was released as a single in the same month as the movie by Simon with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager and music by Marvin Hamlisch. It's been one of the better-received Bond themes and it's one of my favourite Bond songs as a work that has been reflective of how a lot of those 007 themes were going for the more contemporary sounds of that decade compared to the swinging jazz of the 1960s including the James Bond theme itself. The combination of piano and strings of that time, which was also part and parcel of "Nobody Does It Better", has always struck me with the label of "POWER BALLAD OF THE 1970s" and I think that Japanese pop music picked up on that, too.

Apparently though, somebody did it better than "Nobody Does It Better" since despite the fact that it had been nominated for awards such as an Oscar and a Grammy, it didn't win anything. Still, I cherish it much more than those winners. It hit No. 2 on both the charts in America and Canada.

So, what was getting out in July 1977?

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Imitation Gold （イミテイション・ゴールド）

Hiromi Iwasaki -- Nettaigyo（熱帯魚）

Nanako Sato -- Subterranean no Futari Botchi（サブタレニアン二人ぼっち）in "Funny Walkin'" (June 25th 1977)

Monty Norman & John Barry -- James Bond Theme

 

As I mentioned a few minutes ago, I'd caught "Top Gun: Maverick" at the theatre yesterday with a buddy so I figured that I simply had to cover the famous anthem from that movie. However, my original intention with this week's Reminiscings of Youth was to cover an even more famous theme from the movies. In fact, I'd say that this theme will go down as one of the most famous songs in moviedom.

I do this because British composer Monty Norman passed away on July 11th a few days ago at the age of 94. For all that he's created over the decades, I can say that his most recognizable creation with John Barry's arrangement is the theme song for James Bond, MI6 Agent 007. 

The James Bond theme made its debut with the debut of the James Bond movie franchise in 1962 with "Dr. No". A few years before my birth, so I missed out on catching the very first 007 flick at the theatres. Therefore, it was through the TV reruns on ABC's Sunday night movies where I caught Sean Connery as Bond. That scene above where he uttered the coolest introduction of a character's name (Bond...James Bond) is still amazing even after 60 years. The man was so charismatic that he apparently emitted the theme song along with his cologne whenever he took a walk.

Just like the fact that I've always considered the first movie incarnation of Bond via Sir Sean to be my favourite, I've always preferred the very first rendition of the James Bond theme through "Dr. No.". Neither shaken nor stirred but very steady and controlled until it's time to be unleashed. 

Miratico.com

One reason that I like the original version of the Bond song so much is that distinct twangy guitar riff provided by studio guitarist Victor Flick on his 1939 English Clifford Essex Paragon Deluxe via a Fender Vibrolux amplifier according to the Wikipedia article on the theme. That riff seems to describe the character of Bond himself stalking his prey within that mysterious atmosphere jazzily provided by Barry and his orchestra. When the horns suddenly explode, that's when the fun and bullets and fisticuffs begin.

I remember seeing bits and parts of the early Bond movies with Connery such as "Thunderball" and "You Only Live Twice" on the telly, but it wasn't until I finally saw the gun barrel sequence and the subsequent opening credits for "Dr. No" that I finally got the theme in its full glory and realized who and what James Bond represented. It's like that old saying "You always remember your first".

So, while 007 was doing his romancing and killing for queen and country, which kayo were winning prizes in Japan in that year of 1962? Let's take a look at the Japan Record Awards.

Grand Prize -- Yukio Hashi and Sayuri Yoshinaga -- Itsudemo Yume wo （いつでも夢を）

Best New Artist -- Chieko Baisho -- Shitamachi no Taiyo（下町の太陽）

Best Performance -- Michiya Mihashi -- Hoshikuzu no Machi (星屑の町)

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass -- Theme from "Casino Royale"

 

Uh, no...I'm not talking about "You Know My Name" from the 2006 Bond film "Casino Royale" starring Daniel Craig in his first outing as 007. I've yet to see his final outing in "No Time To Die" but someday when I have time...

Actually, this ROY article will be referencing the 1967 "Casino Royale" starring the late Peter Sellers in his lone outing as 007. I've seen it once in its entirety and then in bits and pieces over the years, and I have to say that either way comes out the same: a rather trippy 60s hot mess. But for those who love 60s pop culture, this is quite the movie and I think that it had quite the influence on the "Austin Powers" franchise.

If I ever opt to watch this "Casino Royale" again, I will still have that sardonic and ironic look on my face but a couple of songs came out of this movie that have stood the test of time, one being "The Look of Love" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and performed by Dusty Springfield, and it got its Oscar nomination for Best Song.

Bacharach also did the music for the entire film and so he was also responsible for the other neat song, namely the theme for "Casino Royale" as performed by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. The crazy thing is that my family actually has their album "Going Places" by the group.

The hit "Going Places" was released about a month before my birth, September 1965, and remembering what I've heard from this album, it's Alpert with his distinctively puffy sound on his trumpet and his guys just having a brassy fun time especially with "Tijuana Taxi". Not quite sure why my folks bought this one; perhaps it was in commemoration of my arrival on Earth...I was actually going places, albeit from the womb to the surgeon's hands.

But getting back to the Brass and "Casino Royale", when I was watching the flick for the first time on telly (missing the first several minutes), I kept hearing the theme popping up here and there all throughout the movie and I was wondering whether it was indeed Herb Alpert. Well, of course it was. I mean, that trumpet is unmistakable. The amazing thing is that even from listening to all that down-in-Mexico music by the Brass on "Going Places", their "Casino Royale" theme has been called the distillation of all that was swinging in 1960s London and I couldn't agree more. It's sexy, heroic, adventurous and fun with a wink of humour. I guess that it's Roger Moore.

According to Wikipedia, the theme song was Alpert's 2nd No. 1 hit on the Billboard Easy Listening chart in June 1967 where it stayed for a couple of weeks.

However, the movie itself first appeared in theatres on either side of the Atlantic in April of that year, so what was premiering in the Japanese record stores in that month according to Showa Pops (unfortunately that site no longer exists)?

Yukari Ito -- Koyubi no Omoide （小指の思い出）(although J-Wiki states that it came out in February)

Haruo Minami -- Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa (世界の国からこんにちは）(a lot of artists were releasing the same song that month)

Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets -- Blue Chateau（ブルー・シャトウ）(although J-Wiki states that it was released in March)