Marvin Hamlisch--The Entertainer (1974)

     This past Tuesday (Aug. 6), we marked the first anniversary of the death of one of our generations greatest composers. Marvin Hamlisch was on 68, but had a great impact on the world of musical theater. He won an Oscar, an Emmy, Grammy, Tony. He won a Pulizer prize in 1975 (for "A Chorus Line") and is only one of two (composer Richard Rogers being the other) to have won all five of those awards. His listing of songwriting credits in a more pop vein is impressive as well. He won an Oscar for, "The Way we Were" in 1974, and was nominated in 1977 for, "Nobody Does It Better" and in 1980 for, "Through the Eyes of Love".
     Hamlisch, who was born in Manhattan, was a child prodigy who at the age of seven had been accepted into the Juilliard Pre-College school. His first hit was a song he co-wrote with Howard Liebling at the age of 21. "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows" was a hit in 1965 for Lesley Gore. This began to open other doors including being the rehearsal pianist for "Funny Girl" which began a long association with  Barbara Streisand. This job led him to score the music for the film, "The Swimmer" in 1968.
     He did a number of movie scores but was not known world-wide until 1974. It was this year where, "The Way We Were" and "The Sting" both were released. We mentioned Hamlisch's involvement with the Streisand/Redford movie, but what got him on the map on the charts as an artist was from the latter movie.
     "The Sting", a movie starring Robert Redford (who had quite a 1974 as well), and Paul Newman. The movie did well enough at the box office, but what made it stand out was it's period piece music. Hamlisch had written several songs for the movie, but seven of the songs were written by the great Ragtime composer/performer, Scott Joplin. The song not only reached number three on the charts, it sparked a renaissance of Ragtime music in general, and of Joplin's work specifically.  

 

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Ferrante & Teicher--Exdous (1960)

     Much of the time movie soundtracks have been relegated to writing pop songs which can also be used as a marketing tool. This has been a part of the movie going experience almost since the dawn of "talkies". There has however, in my opinion a shift in how an orchestra is used. Orchestrated music is still part of many a movie soundtrack, but very rarely can it be found on the charts. Even in the mid to late 70's, a top arraignment from a film would find it's way to the top 20 (Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Rocky). This brings us to two of music's greats when it came to this kind of thing.
     Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher met while studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. Upon graduation, they both became members of the faculty. They began their career as a performing duo in 1947 in some of the night clubs in New York, but it was during the 50's they became known for their classical renditions of popular songs. This style kept them on the album charts all during the 1950's. This spilled over into the early 60's as several of their songs were released as singles and worked their way up the charts. The biggest success in that arena was the theme from Exodus.
      The 1960 movie itself was based on the book of the same name by Leon Uris. Directed by Otto Preminger and loaded with an all-star cast which included Paul Newman and Eva Marie-Saint, When award time came, it was the soundtrack which brought home the hardware, which included an Oscar and a Grammy to composer Ernest Gold
     Ferrante & Teicher reached #2 on the charts that year with their rendition of the movie's theme, and although most of their singles never reached farther than the low rungs of the charts, they did reach the top ten two more times. "Tonight" from "West Side Story" in 1961, and "Midnight Cowboy" in 1969. When it came to album sales and popular instrumental music from the 50's into the 80's, Ferrante & Teicher was the standard that all aspired too.

     

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