tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4335991334869467480.post4061270401816312674..comments2024-03-28T19:38:57.070+00:00Comments on The World's Worst Records: All You Need is LoveDarryl W. Bullockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08158619405568235974noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4335991334869467480.post-4262571158813267652014-03-22T05:45:19.563+00:002014-03-22T05:45:19.563+00:003/22/14
RobGems.ca Wrote:
I hated "MacArthur ...3/22/14<br />RobGems.ca Wrote:<br />I hated "MacArthur Park" as a child, but over the last (40) years it has grown on me, so now it's one of my favorite bombastic pop songs. Like "Honey" & "Little Green Apples", a lot of pop artists from Andy Williams to Jerry Vale have attempted to cover this song. Sammy Davis Jr's version from 1972 is to me the most bombastic, but he probably thought it was okay for a black artist to record it after hearing The Four Tops version from 1971, and taking it into the Top 40 with it. Even jazz artists like Stan Kenton & Maynard Ferguson did covers of this song, and their versions were interesting, improvised versions. Waylon Jennings tried it as a country-pop cover (with Nashville hack arranger Danny Davis arranging it),and won a Grammy(!) for best Country-pop crossover award for 1960-70. Donna Summer reached the top of the charts with her Disco version (over 9 minutes of it!),and finally, weird Al Yankovic recorded his jokey version of it 1993, jabbing at both Jim Webb and Steven Spielberg by re-titling it as "Jurrasic Park". Another comedy parody was done at Motown Records in 1969 by the late Soupy Sales as "Muck-Arty Park"(it's actually funny).All in all, "MacArthur Park" remains one of the pop songs of the 1960's that refuses to go away. The only Jazz-Pop singer who really hated doing the song was Tony Bennett, who covered an uninterested version of it in 1970 for his infamous "Sings The Great Hits Of Today" album, a ploy set up by then Columbia label boss Clive Davis to get Bennett to try out more contemporary songs (Bennett regretted it, he would soon leave Columbia Records in 1971 for MGM/Verve Records.) If you want my opinion of the worst of Richard Harris, try the dreadful 6-minute cum-Pop song/Biblical reading of "There's Too Many Saviors On My Cross" from the 1972 "Slides" album, and a Dunhill single issued with it (where it didn't chart in the U.S.) Harris' mock-poetry/acting really is dreadful on this one as the so called "voice" of Jesus to blasphemers & false prophets who claim to be as holy as the Almighty, which is struck down as nothing more than Jesus mockers. It's really dreadful stuff.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com