0:00:04 > 0:00:07Tonight's the night for something sophisticated,
0:00:07 > 0:00:11something suggestive, not explicit.
0:00:11 > 0:00:15Something relaxing, not demanding.
0:00:15 > 0:00:21Something that won't divert your attention away from more pressing matters.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27You need something that doesn't make trouble
0:00:27 > 0:00:32that complements the furnishings and doesn't have too much to say for itself.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36You don't need troublesome lyrics or choppy guitar chords.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44So just lean back, banish the blues,
0:00:44 > 0:00:49relinquish rock and roll and give disco the heave-ho.
0:00:49 > 0:00:54Tonight, you need something that has all of that...
0:00:54 > 0:00:57and none of it.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01What you need tonight is easy.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06# Time to get ready... #
0:01:06 > 0:01:11CORK POPS # Time to get ready for... #
0:01:24 > 0:01:30If rock and roll was born out of the greyness, stuffiness and ration book mentality
0:01:30 > 0:01:36that followed the Second World War, so too was a music that became known as easy listening.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Its architects, and they looked just like that,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48were a group of men who were trapped between two worlds -
0:01:48 > 0:01:53just a little too old and square for the teenage revolution of the late '50s,
0:01:53 > 0:01:57but too modern and groovy for the old world.
0:01:58 > 0:02:03They were supreme melodicists on the run from jazz and big bands
0:02:03 > 0:02:06in search of a music to call their own,
0:02:06 > 0:02:09a music for the new consumer age.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12An age of reconstruction,
0:02:12 > 0:02:16of gliding along freeways and autobahns in sleek cars.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24A modern, comfortable age full of hope
0:02:24 > 0:02:29and most importantly, love, in what had been a very cold climate.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35These men were not looking for the heartbreak hotel.
0:02:35 > 0:02:40They wanted to be kings of the road with their own brand of can-do music.
0:02:45 > 0:02:51Composers and arrangers like Percy Faith, Ray Conniff and Bert Kaempfert were a quiet band of men
0:02:51 > 0:02:54who didn't stand out in the crowd, but they were dedicated
0:02:54 > 0:03:00to decorating the air with a soundtrack for what they thought should be the good life.
0:03:06 > 0:03:08You can really trace
0:03:08 > 0:03:11this popular, light orchestral, at least in America,
0:03:11 > 0:03:15to a gentleman named Paul Weston who came out of the big band era.
0:03:15 > 0:03:21And in the mid-'40s, he was coming out with what initially he called "mood music".
0:03:21 > 0:03:24It was a euphemism for being in the mood for love
0:03:24 > 0:03:28because most of the music was very slow and sleek.
0:03:29 > 0:03:34And so he came out with albums like Music For Dreaming,
0:03:34 > 0:03:38Music For Romancing, Music For Two People Alone.
0:03:38 > 0:03:43And he claimed that one of his fans said, "This music is very easy listening."
0:03:48 > 0:03:50The man who first took this new kind of music
0:03:50 > 0:03:54to international acclaim in the late '50s and early '60s
0:03:54 > 0:03:57was ex-swing musician Percy Faith.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01He championed the "sweet strings" approach
0:04:01 > 0:04:06and used instruments to replace any troublesome lyrics.
0:04:10 > 0:04:16He once said, "I want to satisfy the millions of devotees of that pleasant American institution
0:04:16 > 0:04:19"known as the quiet evening at home,
0:04:19 > 0:04:25"whose idea of perfect relaxation is the easy chair, slippers and good music."
0:04:28 > 0:04:31In adapting popular songs and film themes,
0:04:31 > 0:04:37Faith proved that the most important element of easy listening was the arrangement.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43Arrangers are the unsung heroes of the business.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46Percy Faith, I mean...
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Just about all my life, he was terrific.
0:04:55 > 0:05:02In 1963, Percy Faith came out with this pioneering album called Music For Young Lovers.
0:05:02 > 0:05:08Instead of somebody singing the lyrics, you would have pizzicato strings. You might have some horns.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10Each arranger had a different system
0:05:10 > 0:05:15of making it so that it wasn't too overwhelming or obtrusive,
0:05:15 > 0:05:20but at the same time if you listen to the arrangements, there was an art to them.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25What a lot of the great arrangers do in easy listening
0:05:25 > 0:05:30is they get to the truth of what a pop song is and the pop song is this bit,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33so let's keep putting this bit in again and again and again.
0:05:33 > 0:05:40Classical snobs and jazz snobs would say, "Melody, that's for little kids, that's sing-songy."
0:05:44 > 0:05:48No-one understood the importance of a good tune better than Ray Conniff,
0:05:48 > 0:05:53the easy listening maestro of the American Cold War landscape.
0:05:55 > 0:06:00He played with Artie Shaw in the '40s, but tired of being a struggling, penniless jazzer,
0:06:00 > 0:06:02he began studying popular music.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08He really was focusing on what are the biggest songs of the day
0:06:08 > 0:06:10and how can I arrange them
0:06:10 > 0:06:13to have them have an even broader impact.
0:06:15 > 0:06:22And he included in that research air play, sheet music sales, you know, everything,
0:06:22 > 0:06:27and would go to the Billboard offices once a week and read the charts.
0:06:27 > 0:06:32One of the things he discovered about songs at that point was the value of a hook
0:06:32 > 0:06:37and how a hook can transform a song into a hit.
0:06:41 > 0:06:47Meanwhile, in Germany, easy listening music was bound to fall on keen ears.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52The influx of American big band and jazz music, suppressed during the war,
0:06:52 > 0:06:58was the soundtrack that became synonymous with the country's reconstruction.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03A young musician called Bert Kaempfert was already working
0:07:03 > 0:07:06on his own European blueprint for easy listening,
0:07:06 > 0:07:12a music that could combine traditional German folk tunes and modern American style arrangements
0:07:12 > 0:07:14with more exotic world music rhythms
0:07:14 > 0:07:21and perhaps even the beats and instrumentation of something called rock and roll.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24We had a lot of visitors at the house. In the evening,
0:07:24 > 0:07:30there was a group of people who always came and brought records along and played music for each other.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39I think he got inspired by all that.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42He loved these sounds from other countries
0:07:42 > 0:07:47and I think he sort of incorporated it in his own music.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50Then Ray Conniff was of course very famous
0:07:50 > 0:07:55and who my father really admired and studied was Henry Mancini.
0:07:55 > 0:08:00CLARINET MUSIC
0:08:00 > 0:08:02I remember that we would listen to records
0:08:02 > 0:08:06and we would stop the record and listen again and listen again
0:08:06 > 0:08:08and we would talk about how he did it.
0:08:08 > 0:08:14Many years later, my father was told that Henry Mancini actually made a note in one of his own scores,
0:08:14 > 0:08:19with the drummer, the drum part says, "Brushes a la Kaempfert."
0:08:19 > 0:08:24MUSIC: "Afrikaan Beat" - Bert Kaempfert
0:08:24 > 0:08:26And when he was told that, he was so pleased.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28He was actually proud.
0:08:33 > 0:08:39Easy listening arrangers were an important asset to record companies as in-house orchestrators.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53With the development of high fidelity and stereophonic sound in the late '50s,
0:08:53 > 0:08:57part of the job of the in-house arranger was to record the kind of music
0:08:57 > 0:09:03that would best showcase these new technologies.
0:09:03 > 0:09:08Stu Phillips was resident arranger at Capitol Records.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10That was the whole point
0:09:10 > 0:09:13of this orchestral setting of all these pop songs
0:09:13 > 0:09:17because it was a good way of showing off stereo.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23It gave a broader, a much bigger palette for sound
0:09:23 > 0:09:28than a couple of guitars and a bass and a drum.
0:09:28 > 0:09:34Rock music was intended to be played on a Dansette or to come out of a transistor radio.
0:09:34 > 0:09:40It's mixed in a way to sound punchy and vibrant for those mediums...
0:09:40 > 0:09:42..whereas there's something about light music,
0:09:42 > 0:09:48I guess because it's appealing to an older demographic who have got slightly more money,
0:09:48 > 0:09:54they might invest in the latest amazing stereo equipment rather than a Dansette.
0:09:54 > 0:09:58It says something about the way the music was intended
0:09:58 > 0:10:01to be played or listened to.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06Yeah, here we've got the Super Stereo Sensation.
0:10:07 > 0:10:15You know, the "Super Stereo" emphasising the sort of dynamic range of the...
0:10:15 > 0:10:18I suppose some of them were almost done just to demonstrate hi-fis
0:10:18 > 0:10:23and while you were in the shop buying your stereo, you might buy an album or two to go with it.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27You've got the technology. You'd better use it.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31But it didn't stop there.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34High fidelity sound needed its own furniture.
0:10:34 > 0:10:39The stereophonic radiogram was far too big for the average teenage bedroom.
0:10:39 > 0:10:46It was designed for the new middle-class living rooms of the parents relaxing downstairs.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53With emerging technologies and dedicated furniture at their disposal,
0:10:53 > 0:11:00easy listening masters set about creating sophisticated textures and soundscapes
0:11:00 > 0:11:04for the new connoisseur of the 33rpm long-playing record.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08I think easy listening is a pursuit of sound itself
0:11:08 > 0:11:11without worrying about its greater meaning.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14When you're a kid, you don't know what instruments are on a record.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16You just hear a noise.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21EASY LISTENING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
0:11:21 > 0:11:24When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the music on the test card.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27I used to like having BBC Two on in the background
0:11:27 > 0:11:32when children's programmes were on the other side, which drove my sister nuts.
0:11:34 > 0:11:39It sounded otherworldly because there were no vocals.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42There were no signposts as to what it was meant to be.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45A lot of it would have been easy listening.
0:11:45 > 0:11:52I used to record these things off the TV. I had to think of titles. I didn't know what they were called.
0:11:52 > 0:11:58You'd find that once you start arranging something for larger forces,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01it takes the edges off sonically.
0:12:01 > 0:12:07It softens things with all those multiple voices. You can play the exact same harmonic material,
0:12:07 > 0:12:12but the different timbre will make it sound "easy".
0:12:15 > 0:12:20In 1961, Billboard announced the official arrival of something called easy listening music
0:12:20 > 0:12:22by giving it its own chart.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26This was made up of anything that wasn't rock and roll,
0:12:26 > 0:12:32but many artists who found themselves on the chart were distinctly UNEASY with the term.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Billboard needed to know which chart to put it in.
0:12:35 > 0:12:41Radio needed to know which format to put it in, so they can attract a certain kind of advertiser.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46And easy listening was probably... It always kind of...
0:12:48 > 0:12:51You know, it wasn't my father's favourite term.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55I don't think it says much to be honest.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59What it says is it is not disturbing.
0:12:59 > 0:13:05It is music that is pleasant to hear, pleasant to listen to,
0:13:05 > 0:13:08but it's by no means easy music, not at all.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12I mean, the skills you have to have to write that kind of music
0:13:12 > 0:13:16and also to perform it are significant.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27I think the problem with the moniker "easy listening" is that it implies sterility.
0:13:27 > 0:13:33But I think when you listen to my father's arrangements, there's nothing sterile about them.
0:13:40 > 0:13:41In the early '60s,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45Bert Kaempfert, now also a talent scout for Polydor Records,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49was prowling Hamburg, looking for interesting musicians to sign.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53The Top Ten and Star Clubs were now the home of rock and roll
0:13:53 > 0:13:59and Kaempfert was impressed by a British band who called themselves The Beat Brothers...
0:13:59 > 0:14:01in those days.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03Yes, my father signed The Beatles.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07As a producer. It was a personal contract.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11He was very modern
0:14:11 > 0:14:17and he could feel the music and the drive and the passion that was in there.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20He was too much of a music lover himself.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26Kaempfert recorded four singles with The Beat Brothers backing the singer Tony Sheridan.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32But Polydor weren't interested and the group returned to the UK where they met Brian Epstein.
0:14:34 > 0:14:40Paul or John rang my father and said, "Look, there's someone here who can do something with us.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44"Would you let us go?" And my father said, "Of course."
0:14:45 > 0:14:49Kaempfert released The Beatles from their contract and Epstein moved in.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52Later, an executive from Polydor was sacked
0:14:52 > 0:14:58and Brian Epstein declared, allegedly, that he had never heard of Bert Kaempfert.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06If early easy listening had provided a refuge for older audiences
0:15:06 > 0:15:10wishing to avoid the jungle drums and harsh sounds of rock and roll,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14it was faced with a new challenge in 1963.
0:15:14 > 0:15:15# Ooh
0:15:15 > 0:15:18# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
0:15:18 > 0:15:22# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah With a love like that... #
0:15:22 > 0:15:27What would it do when The Beat Brothers became The Beatles
0:15:27 > 0:15:30and a new kind of popular teenage music was born?
0:15:34 > 0:15:39Big band member James Last had been in Hamburg when they first performed and was inspired
0:15:39 > 0:15:44by the early recordings of what was about to become a worldwide phenomenon.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28INSTRUMENTAL ARRANGEMENT: "Hey Jude" - The Beatles
0:16:55 > 0:16:59Most instrumental arrangements of British and American pop music,
0:16:59 > 0:17:05often performed in nonstop medleys with an emphasis on dancing and having a good time,
0:17:05 > 0:17:11would become hugely popular with older audiences not comfortable with the originals.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14This was the beginning of a strange, shadow world
0:17:14 > 0:17:20in which easy listening would deliver an alternative, more middle-aged pop culture.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24There was a kind of truth to it. It was like they were the avant-garde.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29When we look back on this peculiar history of popular music between 1950 and 2000,
0:17:29 > 0:17:35you'll probably learn more about it by listening to some James Last compilations than in any other way
0:17:35 > 0:17:41because you're getting to the technical essence of why it pleases people.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44Unlike a lot of American rock and roll,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47The Beatles seemed ready-made for easy listening treatment.
0:17:47 > 0:17:52Capitol Records arranger Stu Phillips was formulating a plan for a Beatles song book
0:17:52 > 0:17:56with the company's orchestra The Hollyridge Strings.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03We had very smart, sophisticated melodies on some of these songs.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06And I played around with them and I said,
0:18:06 > 0:18:11"If I do them a little different, they really are pleasant music."
0:18:11 > 0:18:17I said, "OK, what I need to know now is what songs are going to be in their first album."
0:18:18 > 0:18:22So we wired George Martin in England
0:18:22 > 0:18:29and asked him if he could help us out and tell us what he figured the first Beatle album was going to be.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35Phillips' easy listening versions of The Beatles' songs were an instant hit.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39Stripped of their vocals, incessant drumbeats and jangling guitars,
0:18:39 > 0:18:45Lennon and McCartney's melodies were given full rein with his lush string arrangements.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48Some people say it takes the soul out.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51It just is a different aspect of the same soul.
0:18:53 > 0:19:00I feel inspired when I listen to it. I feel invigorated. It cleanses the musical palette in a lot of ways.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04INSTRUMENTAL ARRANGEMENT: "A Hard Day's Night" - The Beatles
0:19:07 > 0:19:12This alternative shadow version of pop music was tailored for an older audience
0:19:12 > 0:19:17that in 1963 thought that The Beatles just made an unpleasant racket.
0:19:20 > 0:19:26We have in recent years raised them to such a totemic status that it's almost impossible for us to imagine
0:19:26 > 0:19:30that people didn't like them in the '60s. We think everybody liked them.
0:19:36 > 0:19:37It brings the song
0:19:37 > 0:19:42to an older audience. You hear it on the elevator.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45You hear it in the shopping centres.
0:19:45 > 0:19:51And you realise that the melodies were timeless
0:19:51 > 0:19:54and not just pop records of the time.
0:20:00 > 0:20:06Easy listening was now being played everywhere without offending anyone
0:20:06 > 0:20:08or demanding their attention.
0:20:08 > 0:20:14It was music to be heard, but not listened to while at work or at play.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17Some called it elevator music.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25Oddly enough, for something that was inoffensive, it became incredibly offensive, didn't it?
0:20:27 > 0:20:32It was for your parents, it was square, it was unthreatening.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35It was too soft, it was too sweet.
0:20:35 > 0:20:42It seemed to be a complete betrayal of the energy that was creating rock, you know.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45EASY LISTENING, MELODIC MUSIC
0:21:07 > 0:21:12I call all of it elevator music because it's going by the same principles.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14It's using certain instruments,
0:21:14 > 0:21:19under-arranging it in a certain manner to make you listen actively if you want,
0:21:19 > 0:21:23but also facilitating what you might call peripheral listening.
0:21:26 > 0:21:30American FM radio would come to be dominated by easy listening stations,
0:21:30 > 0:21:37all playing an easily digested diet of music that many music lovers regarded as inauthentic.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40But if it wasn't the real thing, what was it?
0:21:40 > 0:21:43MUSIC: "Magic Moments"
0:21:43 > 0:21:48There'd be an easy listening, beautiful music channel I would listen to,
0:21:48 > 0:21:55so in the daytime on Top 40 AM radio I would hear Neil Sedaka sing Laughter In The Rain,
0:21:55 > 0:22:00then there'd be a ghostly version of it by Lenny Dee and his organ.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04# Oh, I hear laughter in the rain... #
0:22:04 > 0:22:07I see no problem.
0:22:07 > 0:22:13A song can take different directions, different styles, done beautifully with strings.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35When you heard the elevator version of the song,
0:22:35 > 0:22:39you're listening to the original at the same time in your head,
0:22:39 > 0:22:43so there's this kind of what you would call a depth of field,
0:22:43 > 0:22:45an aural depth of field going on.
0:22:45 > 0:22:51We know the original songs, but yet... "Oh, my God, there's a version of Mellow Yellow,
0:22:51 > 0:22:56"but I can hear Donovan singing it while I'm hearing this orchestral group playing it."
0:22:59 > 0:23:04But these were times when ideological battle lines in music were being drawn.
0:23:04 > 0:23:10Rock and roll and pop had come to stand for something hard, uncompromising and young.
0:23:13 > 0:23:18Stu Phillips' easy listening versions attempted in vain to heal a generational rift
0:23:18 > 0:23:20that had already happened.
0:23:23 > 0:23:28The kids didn't buy 'em. The kids didn't buy that.
0:23:28 > 0:23:33That was sacrilege, what I was doing to their songs. No, they didn't buy 'em.
0:23:33 > 0:23:38I just admired what they were doing and felt I could do something with what they had,
0:23:38 > 0:23:44so that the parents of the kids that love it might find it interesting. And they did.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48I really felt that by the time people like Stu Phillips
0:23:48 > 0:23:52and The Hollywood Strings were doing covers of The Beatles
0:23:52 > 0:23:58and Elvis Presley and The Four Seasons and Simon And Garfunkel, that was a peaceful co-existence.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02It wasn't anti-pop. It was appreciation of the melodies.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04SHOUTS OF "Ole!"
0:24:08 > 0:24:12Easy listening found a much needed ambassador
0:24:12 > 0:24:16when in 1965, an attractive young man took the scene by storm.
0:24:19 > 0:24:24Herb Alpert, a classically trained trumpet player with a liking for jazz,
0:24:24 > 0:24:29had originally been inspired by the sights and sounds of the Tijuana bullfight
0:24:29 > 0:24:31to create an entirely new sound.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33The trumpet section in the stands
0:24:33 > 0:24:37would do this series of... # Da-da, ba-da-ba-da-bay... #
0:24:39 > 0:24:42Between that,
0:24:42 > 0:24:46you know, drinking some wine from a bota bag, it was a great experience
0:24:46 > 0:24:49and I translated that into a sound.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52LATIN-STYLE MUSIC
0:24:55 > 0:25:01I'm thinking, "This easy listening is not like something you have to sit down and hash out
0:25:01 > 0:25:05"and what the heck they're trying to do..."
0:25:05 > 0:25:12It had that commercial ring to it and it was not threatening, so it was easy to listen to.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19Herb's music ignored the angst, frustration and heartache
0:25:19 > 0:25:23associated with chart-topping rock and roll and pop.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27It was light, happy and easy to listen to and to make.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32I think it was easy because I had nothing in my head.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36I'd go into the studio with musicians that I liked, in the studio that I liked
0:25:36 > 0:25:42and I would just form this sound that was real easy for me to make.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46I recorded some songs in 20 minutes.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51So there was a humanness to it.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54And it...worked.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02Herb was the acceptable pop face of easy listening -
0:26:02 > 0:26:05the handsome front man of The Tijuana Brass.
0:26:06 > 0:26:11But easy listening music was usually created by shadowy arrangers,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16waving their batons, and anonymous session musicians.
0:26:19 > 0:26:25In Hollywood, Capitol Records agonised about what to put on the album covers
0:26:25 > 0:26:29for Stu Phillips and The Hollyridge Strings to help sell the music.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34They came up with all these crazy ideas for an album cover
0:26:34 > 0:26:40and one of them was myself and a bunch of little children ages four to seven.
0:26:40 > 0:26:46That was The Hollyridge Strings because we couldn't just photograph the musicians. It meant nothing.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50So the other idea is they went and got a whole bunch of secretaries
0:26:50 > 0:26:54and boy runners and everything else under the sun
0:26:54 > 0:26:59and they dressed them all up and we shot that.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02And then they had the lettering version.
0:27:02 > 0:27:08And by the time they got done, everyone decided they liked the lettering version.
0:27:08 > 0:27:14I guess they felt the names of the songs were going to sell that more than any crazy little picture.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21If audiences were familiar with the music of the famous easy listening arrangers,
0:27:21 > 0:27:26they could be forgiven for not knowing what they actually looked like.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31These were modest older men who often avoided the limelight.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35Despite writing easy listening classics like Spanish Eyes and Strangers In The Night,
0:27:35 > 0:27:40Bert Kaempfert didn't appear on stage until the early '70s.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45My father was not really interested in appearing in public.
0:27:45 > 0:27:50He was not very good at presenting the orchestra, fronting the band,
0:27:50 > 0:27:53going out to be the band leader, seen and filmed.
0:27:53 > 0:27:58He was interested in studio work. He loved his work at home.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03He did his arrangements, went to the studio and recorded his LPs.
0:28:03 > 0:28:09Then when they became famous and he was asked, "Would you mind coming and promoting the record,"
0:28:09 > 0:28:12he normally shied away from that.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17Kaempfert wasn't alone.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20The kings of easy listening were often eerily absent
0:28:20 > 0:28:25both from public life and from the sleeves of their albums.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29This was because they tended to look more like bank managers than pop stars,
0:28:29 > 0:28:33men who weren't pretty boys born to pout or strike a pose for the camera.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39This is a fairly early Ray Conniff,
0:28:39 > 0:28:43very sort of Mad Man look... or Mad Men, isn't it, look.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48There's an awful lot of girls on easy listening covers.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51The band leaders don't look great.
0:28:52 > 0:28:58The composers look even worse and the lyricists... Don't go there.
0:28:59 > 0:29:05Sammy Cahn said that Burt Bacharach was the only composer who didn't look like a dentist.
0:29:05 > 0:29:11So I suppose if you're going to have someone who isn't the band leader on the cover, have a pretty girl.
0:29:13 > 0:29:15Here's another Ray Conniff.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17This is slightly later, I think.
0:29:19 > 0:29:24Oh, there's Ray. You don't want him on the front, really, do you, in full colour?
0:29:25 > 0:29:28There's another one. A bit later, I think.
0:29:28 > 0:29:29A bit more sultry.
0:29:33 > 0:29:35Actually, this might be a bit earlier.
0:29:37 > 0:29:39Lots of beautiful girls.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42He was usually on the back.
0:29:42 > 0:29:47But he liked the mood that the covers set
0:29:47 > 0:29:50because they were usually quirky and stylised.
0:29:51 > 0:29:56Remember, they're band leaders and in the performances because it's kind of faceless musicians,
0:29:56 > 0:30:01it removes the emphasis on the individual and the individual artist
0:30:01 > 0:30:06who is expressing their angst or something that happened to them.
0:30:06 > 0:30:12It's not like someone there nagging, telling you about themselves all the time,
0:30:12 > 0:30:14like a Joni Mitchell album.
0:30:16 > 0:30:22Once you've removed the lead singer singing his own songs about himself or herself,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25then once you've got that out of the way,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28you can concentrate on the timbre and the different textures
0:30:28 > 0:30:33and the more interesting subtleties within the music and the sound.
0:30:38 > 0:30:45Musically, the big news of the early '60s was the rapid spread of British and American pop music.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49But as it developed and became more ambitious,
0:30:49 > 0:30:53pop would occasionally fuse with an easy listening aesthetic
0:30:53 > 0:30:57to produce a new kind of hybrid composition and sound.
0:30:58 > 0:31:00In the household of Henry Mancini,
0:31:00 > 0:31:03you could hear everything.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06MUSIC: "The Pink Panther Theme" - Henry Mancini
0:31:10 > 0:31:14The British invasion had descended upon my home.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19# I'm in pieces, bits and pieces... #
0:31:19 > 0:31:25I was a Dave Clark Five crazy person. Beatles, forget about it. All of it I was listening to.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29# All I do is sit and cry... #
0:31:29 > 0:31:33We played music and we played it loud and we played it all day.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41You know, my dad was a real huge Beach Boys fan.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45When we played Beach Boys records, he would really love it.
0:31:45 > 0:31:50I think it had to do with the harmonies and the melodies. They had such a unique sound.
0:31:54 > 0:31:59It wasn't his music that was playing. It was ours, so he was forced to listen to it.
0:31:59 > 0:32:04The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson is another easy listening master.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07I'm using "easy listening" here as a complement
0:32:07 > 0:32:11because what easy listening at its very best involves...
0:32:11 > 0:32:14You think of people like Jimmy Webb.
0:32:14 > 0:32:19It involves something that ultimately is deeply strange and mysterious.
0:32:19 > 0:32:24Well, I loved the rock palette mixed in with strings
0:32:24 > 0:32:29and I loved crashing those disparate elements together.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32I just used instruments.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36I used all kinds of instruments in different ways.
0:32:36 > 0:32:41# Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon...? #
0:32:41 > 0:32:48Jimmy Webb's compositions sometimes provide the perfect ground for rock and easy listening to do battle.
0:32:48 > 0:32:52# We could float among the stars together, you and I... #
0:32:52 > 0:32:58Despite being part of the generation that was preparing to turn on, tune in and drop out,
0:32:58 > 0:33:02Webb's songs were massively popular with the parents of his generation,
0:33:02 > 0:33:06as performed by artists from Frank Sinatra to Glen Campbell.
0:33:08 > 0:33:13His composition Up, Up And Away, originally sung by The Fifth Dimension,
0:33:13 > 0:33:16became an instant easy listening hit.
0:33:16 > 0:33:19He's not an easy listening composer.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23When he's composing, he's not writing for the easy listening market,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26but his songs were performed by other people,
0:33:26 > 0:33:31so Up, Up And Away was performed many, many times facelessly, so it became easy listening.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34# Up, up and away
0:33:34 > 0:33:39# In my beautiful, my beautiful balloon... #
0:33:44 > 0:33:47It's kind of a "whistle while you work" song.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50It's the only one I ever wrote like that.
0:33:50 > 0:33:55It was completely mindless and today, when I do Up, Up And Away,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57I'm very sentimental about it.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00It's like, "Were we ever that...
0:34:01 > 0:34:06"..you know, goosebump crazy that we loved life so much,
0:34:06 > 0:34:11"that we just wanted to get in a balloon and float away and that was OK?"
0:34:11 > 0:34:15Because that song's not about drugs. It's about balloons.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21You would see Up, Up And Away as a title much more on an album that wasn't Jimmy Webb's
0:34:21 > 0:34:24than was Jimmy Webb's.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27This album is The Billy Vaughn Singers,
0:34:27 > 0:34:31the title Up, Up And Away, again a very popular piece,
0:34:31 > 0:34:35one of the most popular pieces in terms of being covered.
0:34:35 > 0:34:42So the arrangers and producers of these kinds of albums, Jimmy Webb's material is very musical,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46so there's a lot of interesting musicality within the piece,
0:34:46 > 0:34:52so probably the arranger thought, "I'll do that one, rather than Louie Louie."
0:34:52 > 0:34:56And then... This is great, actually. This is a great record.
0:34:56 > 0:35:02"The Bright, Bouncy, Beaty Sound of Ray Martin, His Orchestra And Chorus."
0:35:02 > 0:35:09"Up, Up And Away". I don't know how many albums there were with hot air balloons on, but there was a lot.
0:35:09 > 0:35:15The fact that it has no meaning says everything about us and who we were and what we thought about
0:35:15 > 0:35:19and what we did and where we went with our lives
0:35:19 > 0:35:22because we really didn't care.
0:35:24 > 0:35:30Webb proved that easy listening didn't have to be easy, happy or wishy-washy.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33It could be melancholic, even existential.
0:35:33 > 0:35:38I like this one. # I am a lineman for the county... #
0:35:38 > 0:35:41APPLAUSE
0:35:41 > 0:35:45# And I drive the mainroad
0:35:45 > 0:35:48# I'm searching in the sun
0:35:48 > 0:35:54# For another overload
0:35:55 > 0:35:59# And I hear you singing in the wire... #
0:35:59 > 0:36:03A lot of the best easy listening music is really quite specific.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07Wichita Lineman is about a subject that nobody else has written about.
0:36:07 > 0:36:12# And the Wichita Lineman
0:36:14 > 0:36:18# Oh, he's still on the line... #
0:36:18 > 0:36:23I don't think to write a really good easy listening song, it has to be an easy subject.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27But they almost always tend to be love songs.
0:36:27 > 0:36:33Music journalists were confused by Webb's use of string arrangements and classic songwriting,
0:36:33 > 0:36:39by the audiences he attracted and by the old guard artists who clambered to perform his songs.
0:36:39 > 0:36:42They took a few swings at me
0:36:42 > 0:36:45for being a middle-of-the-road guy.
0:36:45 > 0:36:51"Jimmy Webb and His Orchestra or whatever you call it, they're in town tonight!"
0:36:51 > 0:36:57They'd prep my picture in a white suit in People Magazine
0:36:57 > 0:37:01and they'd say, "Who is this guy? Who cares?"
0:37:07 > 0:37:09INAUDIBLE
0:37:09 > 0:37:15As the '60s progressed, easy listening came to be more and more associated
0:37:15 > 0:37:18with a certain kind of sophisticated lifestyle -
0:37:18 > 0:37:21an aspiring, moneyed, adult existence
0:37:21 > 0:37:24in which music was merely the add-on,
0:37:24 > 0:37:30something that played in the background while you got on with more important things,
0:37:30 > 0:37:34something that didn't get in the way.
0:37:34 > 0:37:38You're creating a mood for people's lives, how they live, where they live,
0:37:38 > 0:37:42the furniture that they have, the cars that they drive...
0:37:44 > 0:37:46..the roads that they drive along,
0:37:46 > 0:37:49the sea in the middle distance.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55It's basically creating a soundtrack to a wonderful lifestyle.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58CAR APPROACHES
0:37:58 > 0:38:04We see it linked to this kind of groovy '60s notion of futurism
0:38:04 > 0:38:07or '50s notion of futurism
0:38:07 > 0:38:11and that notion of Space Age bachelor pad music.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15And there's something kitschily appealing about the circumstances
0:38:15 > 0:38:18in which it was supposed to be listened to.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24It would have been either for a romantic dinner
0:38:24 > 0:38:26or a seduction scene.
0:38:28 > 0:38:33Whether that was going to happen or not, it made you feel that that was a possibility in your life.
0:38:33 > 0:38:38It would've been a lifestyle thing and it wouldn't have just been about the music.
0:38:38 > 0:38:44It's made a lot of the time as a means of showing off your stereo equipment possibly to a young lady,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47possibly as a prelude to getting your leg over.
0:38:47 > 0:38:54The theory that these records can be used for seduction is implied, I think, by this cover here.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58I don't know who's on this, actually. They might be brother and sister.
0:38:58 > 0:39:03It could be The White Stripes of their time. Who knows their relationship?
0:39:03 > 0:39:06He looks a bit bookish. He's not really interested.
0:39:06 > 0:39:12He's showing off his hi-fi. She's wishing he had other things on his mind
0:39:12 > 0:39:16and wasn't just into showing off his super-stereo sound.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19Here...
0:39:19 > 0:39:21It's got further developed.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25It's getting a bit more intimate. This could be later in the evening.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29Another Pepe Jaramillo. Quite racy for a Pepe cover.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33He's usually more "sun and cactuses".
0:39:34 > 0:39:39And then here, this is a kind of voyeuristic thing going on here as well
0:39:39 > 0:39:42because this is Only Love by The Brass Ring.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47You've got a little peephole to see that this is...
0:39:48 > 0:39:52It suggests that's what listening to this...
0:39:52 > 0:39:54This is where it could get you.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57With a sore lip.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00Excruciating.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05Here we've got Aimi MacDonald here and Ronnie Carroll.
0:40:05 > 0:40:11This is a musical that Bacharach and David wrote - Promises, Promises,
0:40:11 > 0:40:16from the film The Apartment, I think it was. It was based on that.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19Great stuff.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23Fantastic kinky boots here. Nice slip-ons and white socks.
0:40:23 > 0:40:27Some Sta-Prest trousers.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30So it's kind of about swinging, those mid-'60s...
0:40:30 > 0:40:32Well, not swinging.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34It was about, um...
0:40:34 > 0:40:37Extra-marital sex. That's right(!)
0:40:40 > 0:40:42There's a difference!
0:40:44 > 0:40:48So, yes, I like this record, particularly the recording because it's very British.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52It's a very British version of a very American product.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00Despite the social unrest and political upheavals of the '60s
0:41:00 > 0:41:02or perhaps because of them,
0:41:02 > 0:41:07easy listening music resolutely avoided politics of any kind.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11It seemed disengaged
0:41:11 > 0:41:14with the world in which it was being made.
0:41:14 > 0:41:20Like the Strings of Mantovani playing in a world shocked to the core by a recent war,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23it seemed convinced that all was well.
0:41:25 > 0:41:30It doesn't appear to have any context, it doesn't appear to have any content.
0:41:30 > 0:41:32Lyrically, it's un-hip.
0:41:32 > 0:41:39It's always quite positive, quite cheery. It's not necessarily going to be dark.
0:41:39 > 0:41:43Those people that followed easy listening, whatever kind of easy listening it was,
0:41:43 > 0:41:45they didn't get Bob Dylan.
0:41:46 > 0:41:52And so, therefore, if you aligned yourself with those people, that was a naff thing to do.
0:41:52 > 0:41:57It's the mentality that you have to be either one thing or another thing.
0:41:57 > 0:42:02And I don't have it. I don't have that mentality.
0:42:02 > 0:42:08But I know that I've run into it and people have said, "Are you with us or against us?"
0:42:10 > 0:42:12And I said, "Well, I'm with you!"
0:42:13 > 0:42:19"Well, you know, but you can't play in Las Vegas. If you play in Las Vegas, you're against us."
0:42:19 > 0:42:26"Well, why is that? What does that have to do with it? That's just a venue where people go to hear..."
0:42:26 > 0:42:32"Yeah, but you can't play Las Vegas because that's 'the man'. That's working for 'the man', you know?"
0:42:32 > 0:42:35And this was real. This was real.
0:42:35 > 0:42:43It's not written anywhere that pop music, rock music, any kind of music, has to engage with current events.
0:42:43 > 0:42:49And I don't think it's necessarily a flaw in light music that it doesn't engage with the times
0:42:49 > 0:42:53because that's clearly the exact opposite of what it's intended to do.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57Its purpose is to disengage you from the times.
0:43:00 > 0:43:05Perhaps part of easy listening's apparent indifference to what was happening in the real world
0:43:05 > 0:43:09was the temperament and attitudes of its creators,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12men who thought that music and politics should be kept apart.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17My father was not a very political person,
0:43:17 > 0:43:21but he was a person with a strong desire for peace, you know.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25He had lived through the war and they were...
0:43:26 > 0:43:31They wanted things to be good and to become better.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33He wanted to make music to make people happy
0:43:33 > 0:43:38and he kept his own political views, which he had many, out of his music...
0:43:39 > 0:43:43"You know it's going on" was kind of my dad's attitude,
0:43:43 > 0:43:49especially when I kind of was saying how the Everyman listened to my dad's music.
0:43:49 > 0:43:52Everyman probably had a son dying in Vietnam.
0:43:52 > 0:43:57Does he then want to go home and listen to music about dying in Vietnam?
0:43:57 > 0:44:03No, maybe he just wants to listen to something that makes him happy and want to dance with his wife.
0:44:07 > 0:44:12You know, my dad, he was not a tumultuous kind of guy. He was very easy-going.
0:44:12 > 0:44:18He would much sooner write something pleasing than something erratic and crazy,
0:44:18 > 0:44:24but if he had to, if someone did a film on the Vietnam War and wanted his music,
0:44:24 > 0:44:26he'd be right there.
0:44:26 > 0:44:30But in terms of his own style and how he liked to project himself,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33he was an easygoing, peaceful guy.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38MUSIC: "Windmills of your Mind"
0:44:42 > 0:44:47Since Apocalypse Now, it's been assumed that the soundtrack to the Vietnam War was provided
0:44:47 > 0:44:53by the likes of The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and even Wagner.
0:44:55 > 0:44:57But easy listening was there, too.
0:45:02 > 0:45:07I have one wonderful thing somebody sent me of a soldier
0:45:07 > 0:45:09in Vietnam
0:45:09 > 0:45:15and he's in his little cubby-hole thing there and he's got a little table.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20And on that table is the Hollywood Strings.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28He actually carried that whole thing with him
0:45:28 > 0:45:33through from America to Vietnam and it was something that he played.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37MUSIC: "Good Vibrations"
0:45:43 > 0:45:48The second half of the '60s was the heyday of easy listening
0:45:48 > 0:45:53since it offered a pleasant refuge from many other musical forms
0:45:53 > 0:45:57that were straying into the danger zone of "difficult" music.
0:45:57 > 0:46:03Pop music develops in this insane way between the end of 1964 and the end of 1967.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06It's never changed as much since.
0:46:13 > 0:46:18Fuelled largely by drugs, it moves in this completely different direction.
0:46:20 > 0:46:26But at the same time classical music had changed and become a rather austere
0:46:26 > 0:46:28and foreboding place.
0:46:30 > 0:46:35Jazz had changed and become a lot more experimental.
0:46:37 > 0:46:45So unless you were prepared to put the work in, there isn't a lot for you other than light music.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53Ironically, it was also the heyday of easy listening because it WAS the late '60s
0:46:53 > 0:46:59when all musics were beginning to co-exist in an atmosphere of shared sonic experimentation.
0:46:59 > 0:47:05There was no exclusion. It wasn't like, "We're not gonna play this."
0:47:05 > 0:47:08There was this melange on the radio
0:47:08 > 0:47:11that created social progress.
0:47:11 > 0:47:17It created... "Oh, these people are OK because listen to this song.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19"I dig it."
0:47:19 > 0:47:25The fact that Jimi Hendrix might put on a Mantovani record just to get away from that damn acid rock
0:47:25 > 0:47:28that everybody was playing around him.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32MUSIC: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"
0:47:32 > 0:47:37Jimi Hendrix gave a great interview in a London paper about one day all music would be
0:47:37 > 0:47:44coalesced, all the different musics would be coalesced into one thing.
0:47:44 > 0:47:50And I was reading this interview and crying because I said, "This guy, he's a messenger.
0:47:50 > 0:47:55"He's telling us about the future of music."
0:47:55 > 0:47:57The only thing is that he was wrong!
0:47:57 > 0:48:01MUSIC: "A Swinging Safari" BY BERT KAEMPFERT
0:48:05 > 0:48:10as part of the Swinging Sixties, easy listening jumped on the same bandwagon as rock
0:48:10 > 0:48:14when it came to the imagery of the sexual revolution.
0:48:14 > 0:48:21Album covers were increasingly colonised by pseudo-psychedelic imagery and scantily-clad chicks.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31Apparently, easy now also meant available.
0:48:32 > 0:48:38But if it played its own part in the hippy project to unite all musics,
0:48:38 > 0:48:45the easy listening solution was very different from the result envisaged by the lofty quest
0:48:45 > 0:48:49that now dominated the experiments of progressive rock.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53It is indeed pre-rock,
0:48:53 > 0:48:57but it feels the pull of rock and the pull of all music.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59Easy listening has a lot of sources.
0:48:59 > 0:49:05So it will be aware of Latin rhythms, be aware of big bands,
0:49:05 > 0:49:07it'll be aware of country music, if you like.
0:49:07 > 0:49:13It picks and chooses from wherever, with no great respect from where.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18MUSIC: "I Am The Walrus" BY THE BEATLES
0:49:18 > 0:49:24Respectful or not, easy listening was now benefiting from a middle-aged backlash
0:49:24 > 0:49:30against the seemingly drug-obsessed youth culture and from rock's slide into the obscure.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33# I am he as you are he As you are me
0:49:33 > 0:49:37# And we are all together... #
0:49:37 > 0:49:42A lot of people are turned off by that, baffled by it. Older people in particular.
0:49:42 > 0:49:47Even if they were into The Beatles a little bit to start off with.
0:49:47 > 0:49:52And that's because if you were 40 in 1965, they were in their 20s.
0:49:52 > 0:49:57Of course you don't want to listen to I Am The Walrus.
0:49:57 > 0:50:03If you look at the charts in 1967... Again, you think 1967, the Summer of Love, Jimi Hendrix.
0:50:04 > 0:50:09The most prevalent trend in the singles chart in Britain in 1967 is
0:50:09 > 0:50:12sort of very mawkish easy listening.
0:50:12 > 0:50:18The bestselling records were Ken Dodd or Engelbert Humperdinck, Val Doonican.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21They sold huge amounts of records.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25# Tears for souvenirs
0:50:25 > 0:50:30# Are all you left me... #
0:50:30 > 0:50:36If you look at the bestselling lists in the '60s, most of the Top Tens are people like that,
0:50:36 > 0:50:39not The Who or The Kinks.
0:50:39 > 0:50:44People talk about Engelbert Humperdinck keeping The Beatles off the top of the charts
0:50:44 > 0:50:47as though that's an anomaly. That's a trend.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52# Please release me
0:50:52 > 0:50:55# Let me go... #
0:50:55 > 0:51:00I didn't go for, "Ah don't love you any mowah!" You know, all that.
0:51:00 > 0:51:06# I don't love you any more... #
0:51:06 > 0:51:12His version of Please Release Me was a slower, lusher, more romantic version of a country song
0:51:12 > 0:51:17that had already been a hit for Dolly Parton in the States.
0:51:17 > 0:51:19She's two very good friends of mine.
0:51:21 > 0:51:26Dolly Parton. She's a lovely lady. You just got it, didn't you?
0:51:26 > 0:51:28- Just got it.- A bit slow!
0:51:30 > 0:51:34# That I will always
0:51:34 > 0:51:38# Want her near... #
0:51:38 > 0:51:44It seemed shocking that the record prevented The Beatles from having their 13th number one hit
0:51:44 > 0:51:49with a double A side of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54- It was shocking, yeah. - Was it a bit like, "Yes!"?
0:51:56 > 0:51:58I said, "Yes!"
0:51:58 > 0:52:01But I just went, "Yeah.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04"I hope they're not mad at me."
0:52:05 > 0:52:11# Let me go! #
0:52:12 > 0:52:16There had been a period without many singers like that, but only briefly.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24It wasn't really a throwback. It was more a continuation of what had gone before.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29Country Joe and the Fish didn't mean as much in 1967 as Tom Jones did.
0:52:29 > 0:52:35Listening to the chart, you get a good idea of what it was like to live in Worcester in 1967,
0:52:35 > 0:52:37rather than hanging round Soho.
0:52:37 > 0:52:42It was a release valve for all that stuff that was going on at the time.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47And when this ballad came along, people went, "Wow!"
0:52:47 > 0:52:52They listened to all the rock and roll stuff going on, which I loved.
0:52:52 > 0:52:58Then all of a sudden this ballad surprised people. It took them by surprise, more than anything else.
0:53:00 > 0:53:07Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park, composed as part of an intended cantata, was a more surprising hit.
0:53:07 > 0:53:13Originally sung by the actor Richard Harris, it was elaborately orchestrated, lasted over 7 minutes
0:53:13 > 0:53:17and had a weird lyric about a melting cake.
0:53:17 > 0:53:19It's totally eccentric,
0:53:19 > 0:53:22but yet contains elements
0:53:22 > 0:53:27of mass appeal. That, to me, is another trick of easy listening.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31# Someone left the cake out in the rain
0:53:32 > 0:53:36# I don't think that I can take it
0:53:36 > 0:53:39# Cos it took so long to make it
0:53:40 > 0:53:46# And I'll never have that recipe again... #
0:53:46 > 0:53:51Superficially, a lot of that extreme '60s LA pop easy listening
0:53:51 > 0:53:58seemed to, you know, avoid some of the rules of making it palatable to the mass audience,
0:53:58 > 0:54:00yet still made it palatable to them.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03MUSIC: "This Guy's In Love With You"
0:54:05 > 0:54:08Herb Alpert didn't have any mass appeal problems.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13Even when he turned his hand to singing in 1968, it was, as ever,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16all very easy and very successful.
0:54:17 > 0:54:23This Guy's In Love was very easy because I have a friend by the name of Burt Bacharach!
0:54:23 > 0:54:26Who writes a good song with Hal David.
0:54:26 > 0:54:30# Yes, I'm in love... #
0:54:31 > 0:54:35"Who looks at you the way I do?" Hello.
0:54:35 > 0:54:37That's heavy.
0:54:37 > 0:54:43# If not I'll just die... #
0:54:57 > 0:55:01As the '60s closed out with guitars in overdrive,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04The Carpenters appeared, like an aberration.
0:55:04 > 0:55:11A smiling, clean-cut, brother and sister act that was soft, smooth and easy on the ear.
0:55:11 > 0:55:16They seemed to come from another time, or another history,
0:55:16 > 0:55:22but Herb Alpert signed them to his own easy listening star label, A&M Records.
0:55:22 > 0:55:25They were thought of as old-fashioned and a little corny.
0:55:25 > 0:55:32It wasn't music I normally listen to, but I recognised something in her voice.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34# I think I'm gonna be sad
0:55:34 > 0:55:39# I think it's today Yeah... #
0:55:39 > 0:55:42I was born a throwback
0:55:43 > 0:55:48with a love not only for music, different types, but for records
0:55:48 > 0:55:53as well and sound. And radio.
0:55:53 > 0:55:59So my arrangements, my songs and all, have a little bit of this and a little bit of that,
0:55:59 > 0:56:03and have their own sound to them.
0:56:03 > 0:56:09There was a year there that records did not sell.
0:56:09 > 0:56:14It was like they tanked and the feedback I was getting from my own company was,
0:56:14 > 0:56:17"Why did you sign these turkeys?"
0:56:20 > 0:56:25Herb decided to give them one more chance and handed Richard Carpenter
0:56:25 > 0:56:31a little-known Burt Bacharach composition previously recorded by Dionne Warwick.
0:56:31 > 0:56:33PIANO INTRO TO "Close To You"
0:56:40 > 0:56:42I looked at the song and the melody.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51And I came up with my arrangement, which is a slow shuffle.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54Chunk-a, chunk-a, chunk-a.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01# Why do birds... suddenly appear...chunk-a... #
0:57:01 > 0:57:06# Every time you are near
0:57:06 > 0:57:09# Just like me
0:57:09 > 0:57:11# They long to be
0:57:11 > 0:57:15# Close to you... #
0:57:15 > 0:57:20The version that Burt had done with Dionne, it's straight eight.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23# ..suddenly appear... #
0:57:23 > 0:57:25It's the bom ka-dunk...
0:57:25 > 0:57:31# Every time... # For me, it just needed that little bit.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34# Just like me
0:57:34 > 0:57:37# They long to be
0:57:37 > 0:57:41# Close to you
0:57:42 > 0:57:47# On the day that you were born the angels got together
0:57:47 > 0:57:52# And decided to create a dream come true... #
0:57:53 > 0:57:55And, uh...
0:57:55 > 0:58:01..it made... it just made a hell of a difference. It made a hell of a difference.
0:58:02 > 0:58:09# Waa-aa-aah Close to you... #
0:58:09 > 0:58:13The Carpenters had breathed new life into the art of vocal easy listening
0:58:13 > 0:58:20but by the early '70s the orchestral music of arrangers like Ray Conniff, Percy Faith and Bert Kaempfert
0:58:20 > 0:58:22had quietly slipped from view.
0:58:24 > 0:58:26Virtually overnight.
0:58:28 > 0:58:31# Close to you... #
0:58:31 > 0:58:38One theory I have is that certain people took over management of record companies
0:58:38 > 0:58:43and they didn't want to hear it any more. It was baby boomers taking power
0:58:43 > 0:58:46and wanting new stuff.
0:58:46 > 0:58:52My father was massively popular in the United States until about the early '70s.
0:58:52 > 0:58:54The '60s were really his heyday.
0:58:54 > 0:59:00The charts were Ray Conniff, Elvis Presley and The Beatles. They were the three biggest artists.
0:59:00 > 0:59:05There are a lot of, you know, pop and rock music...
0:59:05 > 0:59:07..zealots out there
0:59:07 > 0:59:12who really think that all of that other music was...ugh.
0:59:23 > 0:59:27Despite the fall from grace of its orchestral originators,
0:59:27 > 0:59:33easy listening was gliding through the century, taking many different, sometimes surprising forms.
0:59:33 > 0:59:36It would even enjoy a revival.
0:59:36 > 0:59:39The good life still needed a soundtrack.
0:59:39 > 0:59:44# Not a cloud in the sky Got the sun in my eyes
0:59:44 > 0:59:50# And I won't be surprised if it's a dream... #
0:59:50 > 0:59:57Easy listening would also provide a safety net for some pioneering rock and roll and pop artists
0:59:57 > 0:59:59who were, inevitably, getting older.
0:59:59 > 1:00:06- # Down dooby-doo down down... # - In 1975, Neil Sedaka showed how a maturing rock and roll performer
1:00:06 > 1:00:12could drift into the world of easy listening with exactly the same material.
1:00:12 > 1:00:15# Breaking up is hard to do... #
1:00:15 > 1:00:20Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, I wrote it in 1962 as a rock and roll song.
1:00:20 > 1:00:25The tune originally was a sad lyric with a happy tune.
1:00:25 > 1:00:28# Down dooby-doo down down...
1:00:28 > 1:00:32# Breaking up is hard to do
1:00:32 > 1:00:34# Don't take your love... #
1:00:34 > 1:00:39A sad...sentiment with a happy tune.
1:00:40 > 1:00:41But yet...
1:00:41 > 1:00:45it again was a number one song 15 years later
1:00:45 > 1:00:47as a slow, romantic ballad.
1:00:47 > 1:00:55# Don't take your love
1:00:58 > 1:01:01# Away from me
1:01:02 > 1:01:06# Don't you leave my heart
1:01:06 > 1:01:10# In misery... #
1:01:11 > 1:01:18My songs are right in the middle of the pop, of the rock...
1:01:18 > 1:01:24# Breaking up is hard to do... #
1:01:24 > 1:01:27They kind of span in-between those
1:01:27 > 1:01:30and the easy listening.
1:01:30 > 1:01:36The easy listening stations started playing maybe James Taylor, certainly us.
1:01:38 > 1:01:43And all of a sudden we kind of created a whole new...
1:01:45 > 1:01:49..category, which was adult contemporary.
1:01:49 > 1:01:52- Which...- What does that mean?
1:01:52 > 1:01:56It means it's a different name for easy listening!
1:01:58 > 1:02:04# My love must be a kind of blind love... #
1:02:04 > 1:02:07Baby boomers were getting older and started wanting to relax.
1:02:10 > 1:02:16They found music with vocalists that... The Eagles could very easily segue into easy listening.
1:02:16 > 1:02:21And I think some of those performers did do some easy listening stuff.
1:02:21 > 1:02:25# Take it easy
1:02:25 > 1:02:28# Take it easy
1:02:28 > 1:02:35# Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy... #
1:02:35 > 1:02:40The charts now throbbed with the biorhythms of middle-aged America,
1:02:40 > 1:02:44mixing country and western stars with ageing folk hipsters.
1:02:52 > 1:02:58Having recovered from a period of career success overload, Herb Alpert was back,
1:02:58 > 1:03:03minus the Tijuana Brass, with his own smooth, easy jazz.
1:03:06 > 1:03:10But through it all there was always Richard and Karen Carpenter,
1:03:10 > 1:03:15working their way towards worldwide album sales of over 100 million.
1:03:18 > 1:03:22Their global success now guaranteed the survival of Herb's record label,
1:03:22 > 1:03:28but to some executives at A&M, easy listening music was still a middle-aged embarrassment.
1:03:30 > 1:03:32That kills me. I...
1:03:32 > 1:03:36There were a whole lot of people at the label
1:03:36 > 1:03:44who really... begrudged us our success, which in turn was THEIR success!
1:03:44 > 1:03:46# Long ago
1:03:46 > 1:03:50# And oh so far away... #
1:03:50 > 1:03:53They got to keep their jobs!
1:03:54 > 1:03:57I suppose they're aimed at...
1:03:57 > 1:03:59Yeah, a kind of audience
1:03:59 > 1:04:02that had grown out of pop music.
1:04:04 > 1:04:10I imagine the Carpenters were for people who grew up with Herman's Hermits rather than The Who.
1:04:11 > 1:04:14And this is their adult music.
1:04:14 > 1:04:20# Talking to myself and feeling old
1:04:21 > 1:04:24# Sometimes I'd like to quit
1:04:24 > 1:04:26# Nothing ever seems to fit
1:04:26 > 1:04:30# Hanging around
1:04:30 > 1:04:33# Nothing to do but frown... #
1:04:33 > 1:04:38If you listen to Rainy Days and Mondays, that's like a record
1:04:38 > 1:04:45that sounds like it's really delving into the soul of a woman doing the ironing while on Valium.
1:04:45 > 1:04:47# Rainy days and Mondays
1:04:47 > 1:04:53# Always get me down... #
1:04:54 > 1:05:00A song like Goodbye To Love is about as emotionally intense a four minutes of music
1:05:00 > 1:05:02as has ever been recorded.
1:05:02 > 1:05:08# No-one ever cared if I should live or die
1:05:08 > 1:05:14# Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by
1:05:14 > 1:05:16# And all I know of love... #
1:05:16 > 1:05:20There's something not quite right. It is quite unsettling.
1:05:20 > 1:05:25It always felt a little bit like that. It was too good to be true.
1:05:25 > 1:05:29Obviously, with hindsight, we know there were problems.
1:05:29 > 1:05:34They shouldn't have toured nearly, nearly as much
1:05:34 > 1:05:38and I should have spent... Well, taking everything into consideration,
1:05:38 > 1:05:44Karen passing on at 32 years of age and everything else,
1:05:45 > 1:05:48but... just shouldn't have done all that.
1:05:48 > 1:05:53We should have concentrated more on...just making records.
1:05:53 > 1:05:55And...
1:05:56 > 1:05:59And me writing some more songs.
1:06:00 > 1:06:06We get so obsessed with the idea of how things turned out and it became Woodstock and Altamont
1:06:06 > 1:06:11that the idea that many millions didn't agree with that or like that
1:06:11 > 1:06:15and found rock music extraordinarily repetitive and rough and peculiar,
1:06:15 > 1:06:19in their heads something like The Carpenters was natural.
1:06:19 > 1:06:25It wasn't just... once Heartbreak Hotel came out,
1:06:25 > 1:06:29that that was it and everything was rock and roll and pink and black.
1:06:29 > 1:06:32It wasn't like that at all.
1:06:33 > 1:06:36It was a mixture.
1:06:36 > 1:06:39And all one has to do is look at the pop charts
1:06:39 > 1:06:46and see that...at the same time that Heartbreak Hotel was a number one record,
1:06:46 > 1:06:50so was Hot Diggity by Perry Como.
1:06:50 > 1:06:54And the same thing is happening in the '60s on satellite radio.
1:06:54 > 1:06:59To them, the '60s doesn't start until The Beatles hit.
1:06:59 > 1:07:01In late '63 or early '64.
1:07:01 > 1:07:05So forget nineteen-sixty-one, two and three!
1:07:07 > 1:07:11And it's starting to happen now to the '70s.
1:07:11 > 1:07:14If they're doing the '70s,
1:07:14 > 1:07:17you bet your bottom dollar it's going to be disco.
1:07:18 > 1:07:22Period. Like nothing else existed in the '70s.
1:07:22 > 1:07:28Rock historians weren't very interested in telling the story of Nelson Riddle,
1:07:28 > 1:07:31but more Frank Sinatra.
1:07:31 > 1:07:36They weren't interested in telling the story of Burt Bacharach, but Bob Dylan
1:07:36 > 1:07:40because, you know, this story over here is more ethereal in a way.
1:07:40 > 1:07:48It's doing interesting things, but not leaving great cultural traces like Dylan and Hendrix.
1:07:48 > 1:07:52# So many nights
1:07:52 > 1:07:57# I'd sit by my window... #
1:07:57 > 1:08:02You Light Up My Life was number one for umpteen weeks.
1:08:03 > 1:08:05It was inspirational.
1:08:06 > 1:08:10You had to stop your car...
1:08:10 > 1:08:14and, and weep when you heard that.
1:08:14 > 1:08:18MacArthur Park was another...
1:08:18 > 1:08:23It was a magnificent, innovative Jimmy Webb piece
1:08:23 > 1:08:28that was so above the throng, you had to stop your car.
1:08:28 > 1:08:33People say, "I don't listen to that kind of music."
1:08:34 > 1:08:36What is that?
1:08:36 > 1:08:40We never even thought about that.
1:08:41 > 1:08:46It was like, "Oh, yeah, did you hear that crazy Three Dog Night song about Jeremiah was a bullfrog?"
1:08:46 > 1:08:53Anything goes. Flo and Eddie, Frank Zappa, whatever. Let's play some music here.
1:08:53 > 1:08:58# I'll find the place to rest my spirit if I can
1:09:00 > 1:09:05# Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
1:09:07 > 1:09:14# Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
1:09:15 > 1:09:18# But something will remain... #
1:09:18 > 1:09:23Now we do know that our music... that we are what we hear.
1:09:23 > 1:09:27We're not what we eat. We are what we hear.
1:09:27 > 1:09:32# Nobody does it better... #
1:09:32 > 1:09:38In 1979, Billboard's Easy Listening chart was officially rechristened the Adult Contemporary chart,
1:09:38 > 1:09:45where '60s acts grow old gracefully alongside new easy listening and middle of the road performers.
1:09:45 > 1:09:51# ..half as good as you
1:09:51 > 1:09:54# Baby, you're the best... #
1:09:54 > 1:09:56I was a ghost from the '50s.
1:09:56 > 1:10:03People asked, "Didn't you used to be Neil Sedaka?" I was favoured on the Adult Contemporary
1:10:03 > 1:10:10because of my age. Things that went to number 15 on the Pop went to number one in Adult Contemporary.
1:10:10 > 1:10:15Adult Contemporary, I thought, was an attempt for the baby boomers
1:10:15 > 1:10:18to have their own version of easy listening music.
1:10:18 > 1:10:22You listen to stars that were cutting edge.
1:10:22 > 1:10:28The ones that survived went on to do very middle of the road stuff. Imagine if Jim Morrison was alive.
1:10:28 > 1:10:33He'd be crooning Sinatra songs. It would be very frightening.
1:10:33 > 1:10:39Not at all frightening was a young, good-looking Frenchman called Philippe Pages,
1:10:39 > 1:10:45who had trained as a concert pianist but was attracted to the melodies of British and American pop music.
1:10:45 > 1:10:50In 1976, he changed his name to Richard Clayderman
1:10:50 > 1:10:56and became the reigning champion and pretty face of instrumental easy listening and light music.
1:10:58 > 1:11:01TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH:
1:11:01 > 1:11:05It was the music that I liked to interpret.
1:11:05 > 1:11:11Everything I listened to by The Beatles or other groups I wanted to transcribe for piano.
1:11:11 > 1:11:18I really enjoyed them more than classical music. Was I gifted enough to be a classical pianist?
1:11:18 > 1:11:20I don't think so.
1:11:22 > 1:11:26It's the melodies that I try to feel the most when I play them.
1:11:26 > 1:11:32It's a music that is half-classical because of the arrangements and half popular music
1:11:32 > 1:11:36because it is much simpler than classical music.
1:11:39 > 1:11:45When I met him he was 23. He was OK, good-looking, but not exceptionally good-looking.
1:11:45 > 1:11:48But he was good-looking.
1:11:48 > 1:11:54But every month after I have met him, he was looking better.
1:11:56 > 1:12:04He was looking at people while playing. This is one of the keys of his super, super success.
1:12:04 > 1:12:08He was not a piano player watching his keyboard.
1:12:08 > 1:12:11He was a piano player watching the audience.
1:12:13 > 1:12:17Songwriter, producer and manager Olivier Toussaint chose Clayderman
1:12:17 > 1:12:23to perform his song Ballad for Adeline, which became an instant easy listening classic.
1:12:44 > 1:12:49In fact, Ballade pour Adeline seems to be simple, but it's not so simple, you know.
1:12:49 > 1:12:56But it's not complicated. It's a combination of something not complicated, but sophisticated,
1:12:56 > 1:13:00simple, but without being...
1:13:00 > 1:13:04- Oh! - LAUGHTER
1:13:07 > 1:13:14You've got to add something with the orchestra to make it pleasant, to make it easy to listen
1:13:14 > 1:13:19while making the piano sounding like a star.
1:13:22 > 1:13:28Always...not always, but most of the time, bring drums.
1:13:28 > 1:13:32Drums, bass, guitars. Like a pop recording, you know?
1:13:35 > 1:13:40But if you listen to it, it's not disturbing. And that's the key.
1:13:50 > 1:13:57As for easy listening music, it's a music we can listen to in different situations.
1:13:58 > 1:14:01At home, in the car, at a restaurant.
1:14:03 > 1:14:07It's a music we can listen to with pleasure everywhere.
1:14:08 > 1:14:12So I think that easy listening fits me well.
1:14:12 > 1:14:14It's grand. It's good.
1:14:19 > 1:14:23# I'm easy like Sunday morning
1:14:25 > 1:14:30# That's why I'm easy
1:14:32 > 1:14:39# I'm easy like Sunday mo-o-orning... #
1:14:39 > 1:14:41Easy listening is fine, it's fine
1:14:41 > 1:14:46because there are times when you want to sit back and just, you know,
1:14:46 > 1:14:52just relax and listen to music that is going to be soothing to the mind and to the heart.
1:14:52 > 1:14:56And...I got into that category.
1:14:56 > 1:14:58MUSIC: "Casino Royale"
1:15:05 > 1:15:11For a '60s easy listening singer like Engelbert Humperdinck, you could do a lot worse
1:15:11 > 1:15:17than take that well-trodden trail to where the old kings of easy, like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin,
1:15:17 > 1:15:22and the odd rock and roll legend like Elvis Presley, found a home.
1:15:22 > 1:15:28The city of inauthenticity, where the crap tables jumped and the easy cabaret went on forever.
1:15:28 > 1:15:30Las Vegas.
1:15:32 > 1:15:37Actually, it was very exciting in the early days of Las Vegas.
1:15:37 > 1:15:43The first hotel I ever played at, the Riviera Hotel, Dean had a piece of it.
1:15:43 > 1:15:47He had a piece of the hotel and he'd make cracks onstage.
1:15:47 > 1:15:52"You know, I got a piece of this hotel. I've been here two weeks now
1:15:52 > 1:15:57"and I've checked every room. I can't find her."
1:15:57 > 1:16:03# When the moon hits your eye Like a big pizza pie That's amore... #
1:16:03 > 1:16:08He took a shine to me, so he put his name up on the marquee.
1:16:10 > 1:16:13"Dean Martin presents Engelbert Humperdinck."
1:16:15 > 1:16:19He never called me Engelbert or Enge.
1:16:19 > 1:16:23"Humpy Bumpy Lumpy Dumpy, sit over here, pal." He'd do that.
1:16:23 > 1:16:28And I had great times with that magnificent person.
1:16:28 > 1:16:33# That's amore. #
1:16:38 > 1:16:43Las Vegas could have witnessed the end of the easy listening story.
1:16:43 > 1:16:49The music might have withered and died there in the desert heat, but that didn't happen.
1:16:51 > 1:16:57By the late '80s, its emphasis on the delights of simply absorbing some pleasant sounds
1:16:57 > 1:17:03found contemporary expression in some of the most unlikely situations.
1:17:03 > 1:17:09Easy listening was alive and well. It was just chilled out on Ecstasy.
1:17:09 > 1:17:11At the time,
1:17:11 > 1:17:15both of us were in clubs in Newcastle that were like the Hacienda.
1:17:17 > 1:17:23When you came home, you listened to another kind of music, which didn't really have a name.
1:17:23 > 1:17:26You'd put on something to relax to.
1:17:26 > 1:17:32It might be Penguin Cafe Orchestra or William Orbit or a bit A Man Called Adam,
1:17:32 > 1:17:37those kinds of things. That later became what people called chill out,
1:17:37 > 1:17:40which is not really something I'd...
1:17:40 > 1:17:44I don't really like the word. I don't like the word.
1:17:44 > 1:17:50But it was a very... There was a lot of different kinds of sort of down tempo music.
1:17:55 > 1:18:02If you were looking for the happy impulses of a kind of easy listening music in the pop charts of the '90s,
1:18:02 > 1:18:04Lighthouse Family had it all -
1:18:04 > 1:18:10a posy-Ecstasy journey to the heart of a music designed to celebrate the good life.
1:18:10 > 1:18:13# Lifted
1:18:13 > 1:18:18# Lifted, lifted
1:18:20 > 1:18:24# We could be lifted from the shadows
1:18:25 > 1:18:30# Lifted... #
1:18:30 > 1:18:37I think we did actually have our roots in happy, uplifting house music
1:18:37 > 1:18:41of the late '80s, early '90s.
1:18:41 > 1:18:45We just created the sort of sounds that made us feel good.
1:18:45 > 1:18:48And that was what we set out to do,
1:18:48 > 1:18:52to create those sort of songs that did that, for us.
1:18:52 > 1:18:55- # We could be- Lifted...- #
1:18:55 > 1:18:59It's like you create this little world, this mood.
1:18:59 > 1:19:04And I think... Ocean Drive is a blueprint of that.
1:19:04 > 1:19:08I think it is that. It's this kind of...blue sky,
1:19:08 > 1:19:12feel good sunshine coming out of the speakers.
1:19:17 > 1:19:22Cos we hear what people say about Lighthouse Family.
1:19:22 > 1:19:27It's like they're saying it doesn't mean anything. Well, it does.
1:19:27 > 1:19:31You might not like it, or get it,
1:19:31 > 1:19:34but it does actually mean something.
1:19:34 > 1:19:38And it isn't just there to make the room look pretty.
1:19:38 > 1:19:41# So blue
1:19:41 > 1:19:47# The sun's gonna shine on everything you do... #
1:19:47 > 1:19:53Only somebody who doesn't understand the whole purpose of what it's about would say,
1:19:53 > 1:19:57"This type of music makes you feel good so it is not music."
1:19:57 > 1:20:02Ultimately, it's about trying to get the best out of life.
1:20:02 > 1:20:07That's the fundamental of it. Trying to get the best out of life.
1:20:10 > 1:20:16# The boys watch the girls while the girls watch the boys who watch the girls go by
1:20:16 > 1:20:21# Eye to eye, they solemnly convene to make the scene
1:20:21 > 1:20:25# Making music to watch girls by. #
1:20:25 > 1:20:29Maybe the best of life had already happened. Who could tell
1:20:29 > 1:20:35in a culture now dominated by post-modernism, post-feminism and post-everything?
1:20:35 > 1:20:41In a world in which recycling, appropriation and nostalgia were everywhere,
1:20:41 > 1:20:48that old enemy of everything that was supposed to be authentic in music enjoyed a revival.
1:20:48 > 1:20:53Austin Powers was unfrozen and Burt Bacharach was rediscovered.
1:20:55 > 1:21:00Easy listening was back, relaxing us into the 21st century.
1:21:02 > 1:21:05MUSIC: "Soul Bossa Nova"
1:21:05 > 1:21:11This was obscure music. This was music that no-one really knew and people still crave that.
1:21:11 > 1:21:17The paradox was they were craving music dismissed originally as unhip.
1:21:17 > 1:21:19They were finding that to be hip.
1:21:21 > 1:21:26All this cool and uncool business. I... You know, really.
1:21:29 > 1:21:31I'm just sick to death of hearing it.
1:21:31 > 1:21:34It's...poppycock!
1:21:34 > 1:21:41These sounds that suddenly, freed of the rift that there was in the '60s between one and the other,
1:21:41 > 1:21:43were liberated.
1:21:43 > 1:21:49I think the young generation now likes that music. They chill out with that kind of music.
1:21:49 > 1:21:52They say it's great to chill out to.
1:21:52 > 1:21:56Music that is exciting enough not to be boring.
1:21:56 > 1:22:02You have enough to listen for, but you can also just have it play on the side while you do something.
1:22:04 > 1:22:09Easy listening might have become interesting as a retro experience,
1:22:09 > 1:22:14but we rarely heard about its life as a hugely successful music that was still happening.
1:22:19 > 1:22:22Contemporary easy listening was, as ever,
1:22:22 > 1:22:26ignored by music journalists or dismissed as totally unhip.
1:22:29 > 1:22:36Press people do not like that kind of music and they do not like people having such a big success
1:22:36 > 1:22:42with that kind of music. What can I do? Imagine, for example, Richard Clayderman is beloved
1:22:42 > 1:22:46by two critics in the world, but hated by millions of people.
1:22:46 > 1:22:50I really would prefer the opposite side of my story.
1:22:50 > 1:22:55PLAYS "Ebony and Ivory"
1:22:55 > 1:22:59Richard Clayderman now has 350 gold and platinum albums to his name
1:22:59 > 1:23:03and has recorded more than 1,200 songs.
1:23:03 > 1:23:11He's performed 2,000 concerts and has received more than 50,000 bouquets of flowers from his fans.
1:23:11 > 1:23:16According to the Guinness Book of Records, he is the most successful pianist in the world
1:23:16 > 1:23:22and has spent 20 of the last 30 years away from home, playing his music across the globe.
1:23:27 > 1:23:33When I'm in China, I interpret some Chinese melodies and the public is really touched.
1:23:33 > 1:23:39When I'm in South America, I'll interpret some melodies that are well-known there.
1:23:39 > 1:23:43My repertoire is different, but the way I interpret things is the same.
1:23:48 > 1:23:53Very often, I play pieces by Billy Joel, Elton John or Stevie Wonder.
1:23:53 > 1:23:56Onstage I do a medley of Stevie Wonder songs,
1:23:56 > 1:24:02but again I do it in my own style with my piano. I try to bring something different to them.
1:24:05 > 1:24:10When I think of easy listening, I think of an alternate history of pop
1:24:10 > 1:24:16where the blues and jazz sort of only happened in a white way, if you like.
1:24:20 > 1:24:26I think of the sting of rock and roll not happening in easy listening.
1:24:26 > 1:24:33Incredibly tuneful, so it's deeply, deeply enjoyable, to an extent.
1:24:33 > 1:24:37In America, when they evoke Richard's music,
1:24:37 > 1:24:40they say elevator music
1:24:40 > 1:24:46because they try to find a way to do something which would be like...
1:24:46 > 1:24:48..to hurt you.
1:24:48 > 1:24:50But, em,
1:24:50 > 1:24:57I said easy listening because we don't know how to... how to describe this music.
1:25:00 > 1:25:05Easy listening can always be new because it always has someone else's new music,
1:25:05 > 1:25:12however spiky, sexy or subversive, to inspire it to new heights of mildness, joyousness
1:25:12 > 1:25:14and mass acceptability.
1:25:16 > 1:25:21James Last, who in the '70s was pumping out two albums every month,
1:25:21 > 1:25:25refuses to grow old and intolerant of pop music.
1:25:25 > 1:25:29He's still determined to elevate the latest thing.
1:25:40 > 1:25:46# Can't read my, can't read my No, he can't read my poker face
1:25:46 > 1:25:49- #- She's got to love nobody
1:25:49 > 1:25:54# Can't read my, can't read my No, he can't read my poker face
1:25:54 > 1:25:56- #- She's got to love nobody...- #
1:26:17 > 1:26:20If it's done well,
1:26:20 > 1:26:24certain people just make whatever it is look easy.
1:26:25 > 1:26:27So Bing Crosby...
1:26:28 > 1:26:33There are more men, I guarantee you, in the shower especially,
1:26:33 > 1:26:37thinking, "I sound just like him! He's just a lucky stiff!"
1:26:39 > 1:26:43We think it lacks all the fibre and the dirt and the rebellion,
1:26:43 > 1:26:49but in another sort of way it's got its own mystery and its own quality
1:26:49 > 1:26:55as the production of musicians who didn't follow the party line of what was important to follow.
1:26:55 > 1:26:57Quite a brave, radical decision!
1:26:57 > 1:27:01MUSIC: "A Swinging Safari" BY BERT KAEMPFERT
1:27:24 > 1:27:26Hello? Can someone let me out the booth?