As a child of the mid 70s, the image and brand of James Last is seared into my consciousness, aided by having been brought to one of his gigs at a wildly young age. It’s nice to know that his talents for arrangements and choosing top players has had some recognition in recent years.
RIP James Last
by 49 Comments
No, no! Not the James Last LP! That’s against the Geneva convention! Even the yanks didn’t stoop that low in Central America. Oh God, OK I’ll talk. What do you need to know? Deep cover agents? Listening device locations consulate by consulate? Latest satellite capabilities? Anything, anything, just don’t drop that needle!!!!
Reminds me of a famous joke:
What has the horns at the back and the arsehole at the front?
(Possibly not the most appropriate time to resurrect this one)
Oddly enough I just to,d Mrs.T this one but I have it as “what’s the difference between the James Last orchestra and a cow”…
Quite so Twang. I abbreviated it somewhat but I always heard it as a Rhino
He had his moments. This is brill!
R.I.P.
Someone on Twitter has just extended their sympathies to me “at this difficult time”. The cheek! I only have two JL records, and one of them is a Christmas album, which is entirely excusable.
There are 12 days of Christmas, so there must be at least 2 such albums available.
There are no excuses.
Only one way to remember the great man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF2ODWluPlY
If find James Last far more tolerable than the Cliff Adams Singers.
He’s good, but he’s no Geoff Love.
Afterword T-Shirt
I began as a scoffer ( JL was a deep vein of mirth for myself & some pals from way back) but his ‘ strictly easy’ approach even with ‘Silver Machine’ has tickled me & for a long time regardless of bountiful Fromage.
RIP Hansi – as he’s known those cognoscenti who like a bit of the old ‘Sing Mit’
And here he is tackling Zeps Immigrant Song (from1.10)
R.I.P James
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq-S3J_QQ4s
I saw him at the Ahoy in Rotterdam many years ago and will never forget the twin-set brigade jumping out of their seats to bop to his rehashes of forgettable seventies rock and the bouncers trying and failing to get them back to their seats.
I worked at Woolies in the seventies and the buyer (Known as Audio Jones) for the music department confessed to being a bit of a James Last man. That’s when I knew the writing was on the wall for the company.
Jeez, you gave me a turn. I looked at Recent Updates and for a second I thought it said RIP James Blast!
Are you well brother James?
All piss-taking aside, its a shame..
It’s not something I’d spend huge amounts of time listening to, but he did have his moments. And it was generally just a bit of jaunty fun. I’m kind of glad that someone made that noise, and that some people liked it.
Indeed and although not really to my taste, his music was much enjoyed by my old man, and millions more. Not high art by any means but so what?
Here’s hs version of In a gadda da vida at about 1:50, or as he would have called it La la lala la lala
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57WOKs9naeI
I don’t think it’s disrespectful to show Peter Cook’s sketch from Saturday Live:
“Fresh air is a wonderful invention, and in Britain there is still little bit of it about”
Death: stopping people saying you’re a bit pony since, well, forever.
James Last, Geoff Love (aka Manuel and His Music Of The Mountains) and Mantovani. My late Dad’s record collection was only redeemed by a couple of Sinatra albums.
Brings back memories of my childhood and not good ones. Mum had fucking loads of his records and Burt Kaempfert and Herb Alpert and Mantovani and his fucking mountain music. All dross yet Herb became cool. How come?
Oh Steve, Steve, Steve. Manuel had his mountain music, not Mantovani. Any traumatised child of the 70s will know that Manuel was but a thin and sad disguise for the maestro who was Mr Geoff Love.
All, I may add, on the strangely defunct and tragically misnamed Music for Pleasure label, from EMI. [That’s far too much knowledge on the subject…..Ed].
More Love facts: I bought this at the weekend, by pianist Pepe Jaramillo. In teeny writing on the back it reads “Arranged and conducted by Geoff Love”. He got around, dinnee?
http://i1350.photobucket.com/albums/p773/minibreakfast/DSCN0084_zps9blmt9yt.jpg
Geoff Love wrote the theme to Bless This House
Herb Alpert did the definitive version of This Guy’s In Love With You. One of the greatest Bacharch singles and one of the greatest pop singles ever made. Got quite a bit of coolness from that acheivement.
Couldn’t agree more with your comment AS.
At our wedding last year, TGILWY was the first song that Carol & I danced to at our reception.
(I picked it, Carol is a civilian! )
I have always loved that song.
When people think of James Last they usually think of the Non-Stop series of albums which sold millions over decades. They were medleys of pop hits, and in truth they weren’t very good. I was fortunate that the James Last records I grew up with in our house from when I was about 4 or 5 were the ones that showcased his great talent for arranging easy listening and classical, such as the “In Concert” series, or 1967’s wonderful “Games That Lovers Play”, whose title track became his theme tune. I don’t regret hearing any of them – they helped in a small way shape my music tastes throughout my life, particularly my love of melody.
I went with my Dad 3 or 4 times to see Last live, first in 1980 in the Belfast Maysfield Leisure centre (I think I still have a cassette somewhere), and finally the Royal Albert Hall a few years ago, and I enjoyed it each time. He also wrote this unforgettable song, which like the best of his work is big on melody and flair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdBssV02a0
Here’s an oddity. Shambling, but oddly funky baseline, coupled with an interesting arrangement. Better than the job the Shadows did on it it, anyway…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=74&v=DEcUHQsbjWs
I once inadvertently saw the James Last Orchestra perform!
It was 1983 and I was hitching around south west Ireland with my mate, Charlie. We’d spent some time on the Dingle peninsula and met a couple of lovely French girls there and after a few days had reluctantly said good bye to them and headed back to Tralee, which had been a sleepy little place the week before. Blimey, what a difference! People everywhere. A whole street full of gypsy fortune tellers in caravans, people falling into and out of pubs and tents in every field around town. It was the Rose of Tralee Festival.
We pitched up on a field where numerous others were camped and set about cooking up some food. We’d just finished eating when suddenly ‘Eye of the Tiger’ started up, but nothing like the Survivor version. We couldn’t make out where it was coming from, so we set off to find the source of the music.
It was coming from the football ground, which didn’t have a stand at the end, so we could see right through to the stage, where a white suited figure was conducting an orchestra of sickly sweet strings plus female singers in white gowns. The stage was glittery and kitsch. I can’t remember what else was played and we didn’t hang around for long, but that was an experience we didn’t think we’d have!
A couple of days later, we arrived at a campsite somewhere near Ballinskelligs and the TV in the site office was still showing highlights of the James Last set and the beauty pageant to find the Rose of Tralee. It seems it was a really big deal in 1983. I wonder if it still is?
I won’t waste time eulogizing about this guy. Basically, he produced holiday camp Butlins music which offended my ears as soon as I heard it on TV during the early 70s. My gawd it’s so awful there aren’t enough expletives to describe it.
Australians often bemoan the tyranny of distance – but I think it saved us from a visit by James Last.
There was a clutch of artists some mentioned above that seemed to the be staples to be played on the Kiesler solid state stereogram.
JL
Bert Kaempfert
Mantovani
Those Moog records
Nana Mouskouri
and as they parodied in Get
Smart Herb Talbert and the Tijuana Tin.
@mike-hull That’s a great story. I remember that gig was a big deal at the time, the spin off album was advertised everywhere.
I found myself watching it last year on YouTube as I worked in Kerry & Tralee recently. It’s a pretty interesting snapshot of eighties Ireland.
It’s worth watching the crowd going mental for the tune at the start which is the theme to RTE’s The Sunday Game, and is part of the Irish psyche as the Match If The Day theme is in the UK.
I didn’t know that James Last WROTE the theme to the Sunday Game…
RIP JAMES “MR MUSIC” LAST YOU WERE ALWAYS FIRST IN ARE HEARTS “JAMES’ GOOD ON YOU MATE THEYLL BE ROCKING’ IN HEVAN TONIGHT ARE THOUHGTS ARE WITH HIS FAMLY AND FREINDS AT THIS TIME GUESS ILL BE PLAYING SOME JAMES LAST ALBUMS TONIGHT LOUD RIP MATE RIP
That is frighteningly good, Mr Sauce.
While I wish no-one dead and I want everyone to be happy and healthy – I do have a hard time caring about this news. I am sure if the boot was on the other foot Mr Last would have shrugged at the news of my demise too. So no hard feelings then.
As used by Danny Baker.According to my mate Keith who knows these things,Big Jim Sullivan was in James’ band for 2 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4-1nz8rN-M
James Last. He produced this all-time nugget:
He was probably the only bandleader ever to set up pension funds for his musicians (at the height of Last’s career in the 60s/70s, the James Last Orchestra had its own holiday resort, free to use by its members).
And apart from Big Jim Sullivan – quite a lot of Krautrock musicians ended up in the James Last band.
Good on you, Fatima, for mentioning his pension plan. I suspect there are very few other bandleaders who can claim to have done that.
And the holiday centre story was amazing. For me though, that would really be the Last Resort!
Hmmm …. pension plans …..Rock ‘n Roll!!!
Not very rock’n’roll indeed, but a big band and an orchestra is like a company (most classical orchestras are managed and organized like a government office). I guess no member of the James Last Orchestra asked for “Rock’n’Roll!” when their boss decided to invest a huge part of his earnings to secure pensions for the people working for him.
If you want rock and, err: roll you can always audition for The Fall or the E Street Band I guess.
The bloke on the right – could it be the La La Song Guy?
Influential fashion icon, though.
Not to mention Derek Watkins, who played with just about everybody (Beatles, Sinatra, etc.), and was a long-term member of Last’s orchestra.
http://derekwatkins.co.uk/about.html
Well said too Fatima about the pension plans – I never knew that. Kinda makes some of the negative comments on this RIP thread seem even more sour. OOAA and all that…
Imagine a Fagen vocal on top of this. Add a twisted lyric, surface nice but slightly deranged
– and Hey Presto, it’s Steely Dan!
James Last: Love For Sale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOeiVE5VxyE
It’s indeed Steely Dan – the “Well-Kept Secret” album was recorded with the same L.A. musicians (Wilton Felder, Tom Scott, et al).
Have never knowingly heard a note of his music, but the obituary in The Times was enlightening and entertaining. He clearly spread a great deal of happiness and seemed a very decent bloke to the musicians who worked for him. Certainly, nicer and much more generous bandleader than Zappa, whose biography I’ve just finished. I’ve grown a lot more forgiving and less sneering in my dotage as regards the music others may choose to listen to. My beloved partner likes Lionel Ritchie very much and, if listening to him brings her great pleasure, who am I to carp at her choice? I bought her a ticket to see him a few years ago and she ended up smack in the middle of the front row. To top it all, Lionel sang alll his love ballads directly to her and her face was prominently displayed on the giant video screens. She was highly embarrassed. Anyway, ‘My Destiny’ is a belter of a song, particularly the segment where he sings ‘it’s alright, do it again..’
My Uncle George, who was a huge piano jazz fan, Erroll Garner, Albert Ammons, as well as liking Aretha Franklin as much as Ella, probably introduced me more to the idea of listening to music for the musics sake, rather than as disposable background, than any other individual, bizarrely developed a late passion for Last. I couldn’t and didn’t get it then. Have just listened to some of these clips to see if I was wrong.
I wasn’t. They remain unmitigated tripe.