Full Impressions!

Following this month's earlier announcement of a Record Day Exclusive edition of the previously unreleased alternate takes from the original recording sessions that produced 1964's Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Craft Recordings has just announced the expanded edition of that classic album, to help celebrate this 75th anniversary year of Peanuts.

Available for pre-order today on two-CD and digital platforms, the newly remastered album includes the aforementioned 11 previously unreleased outtakes, along with the original album's longtime favorite tracks: “Linus and Lucy,” “Baseball Theme,” “Charlie Brown Theme” and many others.

Street date is April 11.

Read the full Craft press release here. Pre-orders can be made here.

The tracks are newly remastered from the original tapes by Grammy Award-winning engineer Paul Blakemore. The package also includes new liner notes by ye humble blogmeister, along with essays from producer Lee Mendelson and music journalist Ralph J. Gleason, both of which appeared in the album's original gatefold pressing.

(It's important to note, however, that Mendelson's notes were dropped when the LP was reissued in a standard, single-sleeve jacket. Re-reading Mendelson's notes today is quite eye-opening!)

Track Listing (CD/Digital):

Disc 1:

1.    Oh, Good Grief

2.    Pebble Beach

3.    Happiness Theme (Happiness Is)

4.    Schroeder

5.    Charlie Brown Theme

6.    Linus and Lucy

7.    Blue Charlie Brown

8.    Baseball Theme

9.    Frieda (with the Naturally Curly Hair)

Disc 2:

1.    Linus and Lucy (Studio Test)

2.    Linus and Lucy (Take 3)

3.    Happiness Theme (Happiness Is) (Take 4)

4.    Pebble Beach (Take 7)

5.    Baseball Theme (Take 1)

6.    Oh, Good Grief (Take 1)

7.    Schroeder (Take 3)

8.    Baseball Theme (Take 2)

9.    Oh, Good Grief (Take 1/Later Session)

10.  Schroeder (Take 2)

11.  Blues for Peanuts

12.  Charlie Brown Theme (Take 4)

13.  Blue Charlie Brown (Take 1)

14.  Frieda (with the Naturally Curly Hair) (Take 1)

15.  Fly Me to the Moon

16.  Autumn Leaves

This year is becoming quite the Guaraldi extravaganza! 

Record Store Day surprises!

Guaraldi fans are in for quite a treat, when April 12 — Record Store Day — rolls around.

We’re already primed for the upcoming release of It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, as detailed in this earlier post.

But as an additional bonus, the folks at Lee Mendelson Film Productions have just announced a Record Day exclusive of this album: individually foil-stamped and numbered, on — are you ready for this? — egg-shaped vinyl. To drive folks even crazier, the LPs will come in five different colors ... and they’re “mystery colors.” You won’t know what you’ve got, until you take it home and check it out.

Additional details can be found on the official LMFP press release, and full details about all of the album’s iterations are available on this LMFP master release.

But wait ... there’s more!

The crafty folks at Craft Recordings (sorry, couldn’t resist) have kept this release secret until now: a Record Store Day exclusive version of Guaraldi’s Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

But no; not the 1964 album that we all know and love. 

This LP will feature new and unreleased alternate takes of songs from the original recording sessions!

 

Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown (Alternate Takes) features two alternate versions of “Linus and Lucy,” including an early studio test; outtakes of “Oh, Good Grief”; the charming ode to fellow pianist “Schroeder”; the sweepingly carefree “Baseball Theme,” and more. 

“It’s not a children’s album,” All About Jazz pointed out, “but rather a top-notch series of breezy jazz treatments.”

 

This edition is pressed on sky-blue vinyl, limited to 3,400 copies, and mixed and mastered from the original analog sources by Grammy Award-winning engineer Paul Blakemore. The lacquers were cut by Matthew Lutthans at Cohearent Audio.

 

The track list:

 

Side A

1. Linus and Lucy (Studio Test)

2. Linus and Lucy (Take 3)

3. Happiness Theme (Happiness Is) (Take 4)

4. Pebble Beach (Take 7)

5. Baseball Theme (Take 1)

6. Oh, Good Grief (Take 1)

7. Schroeder (Take 3)

8. Baseball Theme (Take 2)

9. Oh, Good Grief (Take 1 / Later Session)

 

Side B

1. Schroeder (Take 2)

2. Blues for Peanuts

3. Charlie Brown Theme (Take 4)

4. Blue Charlie Brown (Take 1)

5. Frieda (With the Naturally Curly Hair) (Take 1)

Double-CD and digital release will occur on April 4; see this updated post.

This album is one of Craft's seven RSD releases; full details are here.

The complete list of RSD exclusives can be found at the Record Store Day website, which also includes a list of participating stores across the country. But remember: That list never is complete, so it’s best to call your favorite brick-and-mortar record store, in order to reserve or purchase one or both of these albums.

And should it prove necessary, on April 12 ... get in line early! 

Yet more vinyl madness: It's a strike!

We’ve come to expect numerous vinyl variants of A Charlie Brown Christmas at this time of the year -- see this earlier post -- but this comes as a surprise.

Turntable Lab has just entered the fray, with a special-edition pressing of A Boy Named Charlie Brown on yellow wax, along with record mats, tote bags and T-shirts, all available in multiple colors. This new “Peanuts collection” is available to pre-order now at TurntableLab.com, and due out December 8.

 

This vinyl reissue of the classic 1964 soundtrack is being released in partnership with Craft Recordings. The album is newly remastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. The exclusive yellow vinyl variant comes with a custom obi-strip, and includes eight collectible baseball cards that showcase Charlie Brown’s team of misfits: Snoopy, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, Linus and Lucy Van Pelt, Franklin Armstrong, Schroeder, and, of course, manager and pitcher, Charlie Brown. The back of each card includes key stats for each player, including field position and favorite sandwich.

The collection’s premium reversible Peanuts Comic Strip Record Slipmat is available in blue, green, and grey. The Peanuts Record Shopping Tote is available in black and natural, and the 100% cotton Peanuts Record Shopping Shirt is available in black, royal blue and gold. The 10 oz cotton canvas tote features silkscreened graphics on both sides and comfortably holds about 30 records. TTL offers the album on its own, or bundled with the Peanuts tote.

I’ll let Turntable Lab co-owner Peter Hahn have the final words:

“As a lifelong Peanuts fan, this collaboration was a dream come true. First and foremost, I wanted to get the ‘Buying Records Cheers Me Up’ panel onto quality, well-printed shirts. That image always spoke to me. For the slipmat design, we were able to dig through the Peanuts archive to find our favorite music- and record collecting-themed strips. We laid them out simply so you could almost read it like a comic book, in between the time you change records. We’ve been using these for a while now, and we’re continually finding new nuances in Charles Schulz’s work.”

I suspect this LP and its accessories will find their way under numerous Charlie Brown Christmas trees this holiday season... 

More bits and bobs

My ongoing dive into newspapers.com continues to reveal all sorts of informational nuggets. Most wind up in my Guaraldi Timeline, which is expanding at an exponential rate, but others are worthy of a few paragraphs here.

Enjoy!

********

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ralph J. Gleason interviewed Guaraldi while the pianist still was a member of Cal Tjader's Quintet, for a feature story that appeared November 30, 1958. Vince's comments included these revealing passages:

"I first heard boogie woogie on Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall [a radio variety program that aired from 1933 to 1949]. Some guy played it and explained the different basses. I learned my first tune in G-flat, played on the black keys. It's an easy way to learn to play the piano. At first I just played in the house, though.

"Boogie woogie has helped me a lot, for a blues taste. Those cats had a good time; I still have their albums, and I still play them. You can adapt a lot of what they do to Latin music, for instance."

And, when asked to name his favorite musician, Guaraldi replied, "Zoot Sims is my favorite saxophone player. He can make me cry. He's a guy that it's in his soul to play. It's beautiful. It's not out-of-the-book-let's-go-to-school. He's a human being."

********

The national tour with Dick Gregory and vocalist Margie McCoy, in late 1963, hit quite a few colleges and universities. One such stop, on October 31, was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in California. In anticipation of that visit, a journalist for the campus newspaper — the El Mustang — ran a feature article that included this intriguing information about Guaraldi, along with a few quotes:

The pianist is one of the few recording artists to double as both recording director and producer.

"I plan to record new talent as well as established artists," Guaraldi says, "and will make a special attempt to discover the unknown artist of today."

The director-composer calls a great deal of this country's music put out under the label of bossa nova "sheer nonsense."

I have to say "Do tell!" to the first comment. The sole A&R (Artists & Repertoire) credit Guaraldi possesses, to my knowledge, is for Bola Sete's 1965 Fantasy album, The Incomparable Bola Sete. And Guaraldi can hardly claim to have "discovered" Sete.

The second comment generates a raised eyebrow and thoughts of sour grapes...

********

When the Gregory/Guaraldi/McCoy show was reviewed by El Mustang's Lynne Prindle a few days later, on November 5, she gave a droll opening to the paragraph devoted to the trio:

Vince Guaraldi's Trio, headed by a little man covered with a handle bar mustache, banged out its impressions of such songs as "Limehouse Blues," "Fly Me to the Moon" and their interpretation of Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky." Highlight of the trio set was the song Guaraldi wrote and recorded, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind."

Think we should give Prindle credit for intentionally including the word impressions?

********

The Gregory/Guaraldi/McCoy tour subsequently stopped at the University of California, Davis, on November 3. In the review that ran November 5 in the campus newspaper, the California Aggie, the unnamed critic concluded the paragraph about Guaraldi thusly:

The trio finished up with their popular "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and the Fats Waller tune, "Litter Bug Waltz."

(Oopsie!)

********

Richard Haddock's terrific interview with Guaraldi, in the San Francisco Examiner on March 29, 1964, includes these highly informative quotes:

"I listen to everybody," Vince replies, to the usual question about musical influences. "There were really only three main departure points in jazz piano: James P. Johnson, Earl Hines and Bud Powell. They're all great, but Powell had the biggest influence on me.

"I also like the awkward grace of Thelonious Monk very much. And then there are Art Tatum and Duke Ellington: each in a class by himself, over and above the rest. I hear Chopin in Tatum, and the classical composer in Duke."

********

Finally, Herb Caen's April 17, 1964, column — which appeared in numerous San Francisco Bay Area newspapers — had this to say about an upcoming documentary about Charles M. Schulz:

Producer Lee Mendelson's TV special about Charles Schulz, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, will have Vince Guaraldi playing the piano for Schroeder, and Cal Tjader beating the vibes as Snoopy."

Well, we know that turned out to be half correct...!

Take us back to the ball game!

Grab your wallets; Craft Recordings is about to spend a lot of your money again.

The label recently announced a vinyl reissue of the classic album, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Its nine evocative cues by the Vince Guaraldi Trio have been newly remastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray, at Cohearent Audio.

In stores July 16 and already available for pre-order, the LP  includes a special bonus: eight collectible baseball cards that showcase Charlie Brown’s team of misfits: Snoopy, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, Linus and Lucy Van Pelt, Franklin Armstrong, Schroeder, and, of course, manager and pitcher, Charlie Brown. The back of each card reveals key stats for each player, including  field position and favorite sandwich.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown will also be offered in three colorful variants: a green-grass pressing at Target; a sky-blue version for VinylMePlease; and a baseball mitt-brown edition at the Craft Recordings Store, limited to 350 units (and, alas, already sold out). 

Additionally, one of the album's most memorable tracks, the up-tempo “Baseball Theme,” will be available for the very first time as a stand-alone, 7-inch single, exclusively for Record Store Day 2021. The A-side features 1964's original soundtrack version of the song, while the B-side is an alternative studio take never before available on vinyl (although it is included on the album's 2014 CD re-release). 

“Baseball Theme” was one of many tunes Guaraldi wrote for the never-released 1964 documentary, A Boy Named Charlie Brown: to be used in a sequence devoted to Charlie Brown’s ill-fated efforts on the ball field. Guaraldi deftly leads his trio through the up-tempo instrumental track, accompanied by bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey. 

The limited-edition single is pressed on white vinyl and housed in a colorful jacket, featuring whimsical, baseball-themed images of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Visit recordstoreday.com for a list of participating indie retailers. 

More bits and bobs

Continuing our engaging journey through various newspaper archives...

Beloved San Francisco-area journalist Herb Caen's April 17, 1964, column -- appearing in the Santa Maria Times, among other outlets -- offered this update on producer Lee Mendelson's in-the-works TV special, A Boy Named Charlie Brown:

"It will have Vince Guaraldi playing the piano for Schroeder, [and] Cal Tjader beating the vibes as Snoopy."

Alas, we know that if Tjader was part of the special's original one-hour edit, his participation wound up on the cutting-room floor, when Mendelson trimmed it down to 30 minutes. And the little documentary still didn't sell.

********

Jazz columnist Richard Hadlock published a terrific (and lengthy) interview with Guaraldi in the San Francisco Examiner, on March 29, 1964. When asked about his influences, Guaraldi replied:

"I listen to everybody. There were really only three main departure points in jazz piano: James P. Johnson, Earl Hines and Bud Powell. They're all great, but Powell had the biggest influence on me. I also like the awkward grace of Thelonious Monk very much. And then there are Art Tatum and Duke Ellington: each in a class by himself, over and above the rest. I hear Chopin in Tatum, and the classical composer in Duke."

When asked if he got tired of playing "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" over and over and over again, Guaraldi insisted otherwise.

"Not at all. For one thing, we keep changing the way we do it. Basically, it's only a skeleton to improvise on, to play new chord uses on. Oh, when you do it six times a night, it can get to be a bore, but I'm not really tired of the tune. I play better on my own compositions anyway. The main thing is the feel you get when you're really communicating, and 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind' helps to reach people. The concert we did at the Museum of Art recently with Bola Sete, that had the happy feel to it."

You're finally a film score, Charlie Brown!

If you’ve glanced at the album cover alongside these words, you already know the happy news.

And yes: It’s amazing.

The specialty soundtrack label Kritzerland, known for its prestige handling of expanded, long unavailable and/or previously unreleased scores, has produced a full-score album of the Academy Award-nominated music from the 1969 film A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

And it features lots of previously unavailable Guaraldi tracks, along with all the clever Rod McKuen songs, and John Scott Trotter’s supplemental orchestral cues, as heard in the film, and in gloriously clear stereo sound. But wait, there’s more: The disc also includes a bunch of nifty bonus tracks!

(It should be noted — for archivists who pay attention to such things — that this now is the third album with this title, and is distinct from Guaraldi’s 1964 Fantasy album, and Rod McKuen’s 1970 Stanyan Records album.)

Additional information about this new release can be found at Kritzerland’s web site. (No, it won’t be available via Amazon, nor will it ever pop up in a brick-and-mortar store.) Bear in mind, as well, that this is a limited-issue release of 1,000 copies. Some previous releases have sold out in a matter of weeks or even days, so don’t delay. [Update on March 24, 2017: It sold out in a week!]

Honestly, I never thought this moment would come.

In Chapter 13 of my book, I briefly discuss the Columbia soundtrack LP produced to accompany the film upon release — actually a “storybook” album that clutters all of its music with dialogue — and I conclude with this paragraph:

Unfortunately, the soundtrack album went out of print rather quickly and never was re-issued on CD. To this day, it remains one of the great Holy Grails for Guaraldi fans. In the early 21st century, an ambitious attempt was made to produce a music-only CD of the soundtrack, which would have allowed some of Guaraldi’s best work to shine, notably with extended versions of “Skating” and “Blue Charlie Brown.” But the rights issues had grown labyrinthine with the passage of so many decades. Despite a heroic four-year struggle, the project was abandoned.

That final sentence understates the agonized frustration of those who tried so hard to get that CD released. I watched from the sidelines.

Years passed. Occasional updates arrived, but the prognosis began to look grim. Cinema Center Films had ceased to exist as a production entity decades earlier, and Columbia Records had been swallowed up by Sony. Numerous other entities also were involved.

Ultimately, it appeared that everybody on our team had surrendered.

More time passed.

And then, suddenly, a flow of fresh correspondence erupted toward the end of last year. Contrary to what I had assumed, a few key people hadn’t given up (and boy, more power to them, for patience and perseverance). Messages flew back and forth during the past few months, and you can see the happy result above.

I wrote fresh liner notes for the Kritzerland release; that essay is supplemented by a track-by-track discussion that you can find here. It was a lot of writing and editing in a very short period of time, because — after so many years of inactivity — everything now happened quickly. Not that I minded, because ...

... the long wait is over!

The Peanuts Connection: Down to the last note!

I first "met" Rob Kirby when he was one of several hundred individuals who submitted an essay for 2009's Security Blankets: How Peanuts Touched Our Lives, the book I co-edited with Don Fraser. Rob's essay was charming, warm and droll: precisely the sort of "personal touch" that we were seeking. He easily made the cut, and his contribution — and a similarly droll photo — can be found on Page 75.

Rob's essay also acknowledged his fondness for Guaraldi, and recognition of the major impact that Vince's music had on the early Peanuts TV specials. Our shared interest kept us in touch, exchanging notes every so often, with Rob occasionally hinting at a "big project" that he kept meaning to tackle.

Typical British understatement.

Rob has completed his labor of love, and it's astonishing. Starting with the Music Use Sheets that I had posted on one of my many Guaraldi web pages, and armed with DVDs of every Guaraldi-scored Peanuts TV special — and the big-screen film A Boy Named Charlie Brown — along with all the albums of Guaraldi's music available to the mainstream public, Rob meticulously analyzed every second of music in each film, cross-checking against the titles indicated by the Music Use Sheets, and in many cases filling in additional data and correcting mistakes. (As I explain, in that page's introduction, Music Use Sheets are "dynamic" documents that undergo changes en route to a finished product, much the way scripts can change during filming. Initial intentions notwithstanding, when it came time to edit a given scene, a last-minute decision might be made to drop a planned cue, or add one where music hadn't originally been requested. The Use Sheets kindly shared by Lee Mendelson, many years ago, gave no indication of what part of production they represented. A few dovetailed very neatly to an animated special as aired; others did not.)

Rob's efforts allowed me, at long last, to amend that page so that the Music Use Sheet list for each film now accurately reflects the finished product; the results can be viewed here.

But that's only the tip of Rob's research. He also carefully analyzed every cue, from the shortest snippet to a full-length melody, to determine uniqueness. Many of Guaraldi's most popular Peanuts themes appear multiple times in a given TV special, in some cases in different arrangements or different "takes" (as is the nature of jazz). That distinction wasn't mentioned in the original Music Use Sheets; thanks to Rob, we now know — as just one example — that several different versions of the "Baseball Theme" are used in 1966's Charlie Brown's All-Stars, only one of which matches the version included on Guaraldi's album, Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

And that's the other great feature of Rob's work: He also identified where specific cues — which is to say, a precise arrangement — can be found, among Guaraldi's various albums.

Along the way, he uncovered a few surprises, and made some savvy observations.

He realized, for example, that the delightfully upbeat version of "Peppermint Patty," heard midway through 1967's You're in Love Charlie Brown, is a bonus track on the CD re-release of Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus. Along a similar line, the terrific, brass-heavy arrangement of "Linus and Lucy," heard midway through 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, can be found on the CD The Charlie Brown Suite and Other Favorites, where it's titled "Linus and Lucy with the Band."

Rob also has a keen ear, having recognized something that I'm ashamed to admit I've missed, all these years: The cue "Bon Voyage," heard early in 1968's He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown, clearly is adapted from the song "Monterey," one of the other tracks on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus.

On a more sobering note — literally — Rob noticed that most of the cues written for 1976's It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown sound suspiciously similar to earlier tunes such as "Christmas Time Is Here," "Joe Cool" and the aforementioned "Baseball Theme." An overly hasty assumption might suggest that Guaraldi was running out of creative juice, but I strongly doubt that; it seems much more likely that Guaraldi's very poor health affected his work on this special. Remember, he died right after finishing the studio recordings for this show.

My Music Use web page doesn't begin to cover all of Rob's thorough research, which must be appreciated in its entirety, at his blog. (You'll also want to read his detailed account of what prompted this project, and how he approached it.) As he explains, in his key, bold entries refer to specific arrangements of cues that can be found on various Guaraldi albums. Green entries address disputed existing information, and blue entries refer to cues that were rearranged and re-recorded on albums by Guaraldi or George Winston.

Granted, Rob's efforts represent a degree of "geeking out" that'll likely be appreciated — to the proper degree — by only a small handful of people. But as somebody who shares Rob's obsessive research tendencies, I regard his work as an invaluable document, and a resource of historic proportion.

On top of which, it's a lot of fun to read!

A little of this, a little of that: The spring 2016 edition

I’m always delighted when fresh information allows a new entry to be placed in my timeline of Guaraldi’s activities ... and even more pleased when said information simultaneously solves a mystery.

My good buddy Doug — a frequent contributor to this blog — has been investigating Dave Brubeck of late, via various archives that included expanded subscription access to Newspaper.com, a fabulous site that I frequently consulted while researching my Guaraldi bio. My (roughly) year with Newspapers.com was back in 2010 and ’11; the nifty thing is that the site continuously expands, as more digitized publications are added to the archive. Thus, when Doug also indulged a whim to investigate Guaraldi a bit, he came across several items I’d not seen before.

The first is a TV program description. The Thursday, April 20, 1961, issue of San Rafael’s Daily Independent Journal, in writer Hal Case’s “Checking the Channels” column, includes this paragraph:

Another KQED attraction [Friday] night, at 10:30, will be a one-time-only battle of talent between three artists in different fields: illustrator Don Freeman, jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, and pantomimist Bernard Bragg. The trio will challenge each other to ad lib performances.

In an earlier Independent Journal issue (Saturday, April 15), the actual TV listing titles this half-hour special Trio, with a brief explanation that reads “artist Don Freeman, pianist Vince Guaraldi and pantomimist Bernard Bragg.”

The program likely was broadcast live from San Francisco’s KQED Channel 9 studio, and there’s no evidence that a recording has survived. (More’s the pity.)

Freeman died back in 1978, after a successful career as an author and illustrator of children’s books; his best-known title likely is Corduroy. His son has mounted a loving tribute website. Bragg had a long and successful career as a performer, playwright, director and poet; his website is filled with information, photos and video clips.

But here’s the really cool part:

The first printing of my book incorrectly identified the individuals in this photo, on Page 162, as Guaraldi, director Lee Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez. Several people quickly pointed out the error, including Mendelson himself (which once again demonstrates the folly of relying on a single, so-called “authority” for information, and the need to double- and triple-source everything). Subsequent printings corrected that error, but nonetheless left me clueless regarding the identities of the other two men. Well, early 1960s photos of Bragg and Freeman have left no doubt: This photo, reprinted above, must’ve been taken at KQED either before or after the show. From left, we’re looking at Guaraldi, Bragg and Freeman.

And, so, another mystery yields to determined investigation. Way to go, Doug!

And the Hits just keep on coming!

As Guaraldi fans know, this is a big year for Dr. Funk — being the 50th anniversary of both his Grace Cathedral Jazz Mass, and the television debut of his Peanuts themes in A Charlie Brown Christmas — and Fantasy Records isn’t missing the opportunity to acknowledge these milestones.

The first treat arrives today, with the CD release of Peanuts Greatest Hits, a fresh assortment of Guaraldi’s most iconic themes for Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang. (A brand-new vinyl version will follow in September.) You’ll find the usual suspects, most notably “Linus and Lucy” (of course!), “Charlie Brown Theme,” “Oh, Good Grief” and his three compositions from A Charlie Brown Christmas. But the collection also includes a track that is relatively new to Fantasy: Guaraldi’s vocal rendition of the droll “Little Birdie,” previously available only on Peanuts Portraits.

Fantasy once again was gracious enough to let me write some new liner notes, and I wove that essay around a tantalizing “what if” that might have taken place in an alternate universe. In our real world, the first Guaraldi Peanuts tune most of us heard was “Christmas Time Is Here,” which plays over the opening scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas. But what if director/producer Lee Mendelson had been able to sell his earlier documentary, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, to a television network? How would that have affected the sequence in which we initially heard the 12 tracks on this new collection?

(Hey, I needed a fresh “hook” with which to approach these liner notes, and that seemed as good as any!)

Fantasy has additional plans between now and the end of the year. The 1998 CD release, Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits, will be re-issued on vinyl. Much more ambitiously, 2009’s double-CD set, The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, will be re-released as a 4-LP, 180-gram vinyl box set: a lovely package that will include a poster of Schroeder and Guaraldi, enhanced liner notes with lots of 1960s-era Guaraldi photos and ephemera from my personal collection. Finally, perennial favorite A Charlie Brown Christmas will celebrate its golden anniversary in multiple formats (final details not yet set; stay tuned).

Those of us who still prefer the “warmth” of vinyl clearly have ample reason to celebrate.

But wait, there’s more!

Fantasy and the Concord Music Group have generously agreed to offer a few free CD copies of Peanuts Greatest Hits to my faithful blog followers. Merely handing them out would be too easy, so I’ve decided to turn it into a contest. Discs will be sent to the first five people who correctly answer this question:

Name two non-Peanuts Guaraldi compositions that he recorded on more than one Fantasy (vinyl) LP, back in the day (prior to 1970). Do not include 1964’s Jazz Impressions in your search, as its entire contents are drawn from earlier albums. And remember: Fantasy only. Don’t send me titles that popped up on Warner Bros., Crown or any other label.

Send your answers to the e-mail address at right ("Email Derrick"). Please do not send them as comments, because I'll simply delete them. (Besides which, I'll need your e-mail address.)

Good luck!

******

August 1 Addendum:

The contest is over, and many thanks to all of you who participated. Frankly, I'm quite surprised; I wasn't aware my readership was this large, or this gracious. Many of you wrote very nice comments about this blog, and my book, which I greatly appreciate. Makes all the supplementary research efforts even more rewarding.

That said, the correct answers are:

"Ginza," also known as "Ginza Samba," appears on three albums: Modern Music from San Francisco, Cal Tjader/Stan Getz Sextet and From All Sides.

"Star Song" appears on Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete & Friends and The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi.

And our five winners are:

Brad Adams
Damon Carmona
Dylan DeFeo
Scott McGuire
Michael Shirey

CDs will be on their way to you soon!

A rather confused 'Boy'

Silly me: Until a few hours ago, I thought Fantasy's Max Weiss was solely responsible for the error-prone liner notes on Guaraldi's LPs, back in the day.

Turns out Columbia Records is equally guilty.

The Rod McKuen album

The past several hours of research and careful listening were prompted by a recent discussion in the Film Score Monthly message board, which undoubtedly resulted from the recent announcement of the CD re-issue (at long last!) of a Rod McKuen LP that is significant with respect to the Peanuts/Guaraldi oeuvre. The FSM thread's initial post is an honest attempt to distinguish between the Guaraldi combo's A Boy Named Charlie Brown album, with music drawn from the 1963 Lee Mendelson documentary that he never was able to sell to television; and the 1970 Columbia Records story-score LP, also titled A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and which served as the closest thing to an actual soundtrack for that 1969 film; and Rod McKuen's 1970 LP, also rather deceptively titled A Boy Named Charlie Brown, which appears to be a film score but actually is a collection of McKuen's music from the Peanuts film and three other movies he scored, Joanna, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Me, Natalie. It's worth noting, as well, that the McKuen album tracks are re-recordings and different performances, and not actual music from the film(s) in question.

Got all that?

Unfortunately, the initial FSM post and subsequent dialogue revealed misinformation regarding how many songs McKuen actually contributed to the 1969 Peanuts film, which piqued my curiosity ... and led to my discovery that the Columbia Records story-soundtrack LP is guilty of serious errors.

And, sadly, these mistakes have been repeated by no less an authority than the American Film Institute's Catalog of Feature Films 1961-1970, which has a blatantly wrong entry regarding A Boy Named Charlie Brown; this was duly cited by an FSM message board contributor who certainly had no reason to suspect an AFI publication.

All of which goes to show how pernicious bad data can become, once it migrates to the Internet.

This blog post, then, is an effort to set the record straight.

The film story/soundtrack album

First of all, the source of the problem: The Columbia LP is a condensed, storybook-style adaptation of the film, with excerpts of the dialogue heard above the score. For the most part, the LP employs the film's existing music cues, sometimes in the same places — sometimes not — and sometimes re-tracked behind newly recorded narrative "bridges" that describe primarily visual action. The LP also uses a few alternate takes not heard in the movie.

Each of the LP's two sides is a single long track. On the back of the LP sleeve, in the third column, an anonymous author attempted to divide each of these two tracks into distinct sections, by assigning sometimes arbitrary titles to each short "chapter." Each of these titles, in turn, is credited to one of five composers (or combined composers). And this is where the errors crept in, because McKuen is cited for all sorts of things that seem to be different songs ... but actually are reprises of the three songs he actually wrote for the film.

The misleading information, in part

To make matters even more confusing, these LP tracks employ the music in a way that has nothing to do with either the film's cue sheet, or a much more recent true score project which, alas, never saw the light of day (a lamentable situation I detailed in an earlier post).

I've therefore done what I obviously should have done years ago, and sussed out the actual contents of the Columbia LP, in terms of what you're hearing when, and who wrote it.

Starting with the latter, let's establish authorship.

As mentioned, McKuen contributed three songs: the title tune ("A Boy Named Charlie Brown"), "Failure Face" and "Champion Charlie Brown."

A fourth song, "I Before E," is by conductor/arranger John Scott Trotter (music) and Bill Melendez and Al Shean (lyrics).

Guaraldi used six of his own compositions throughout the film: "Charlie Brown's All-Stars," "Baseball Theme," "Blue Charlie Brown," "Linus and Lucy," "Skating" and "Lucifer's Lady."

Trotter delivered four of his own original compositions: "Cloud Dreams," "Catatonic Blues," "Bus Wheel Blues" and "Blue Puck." He also orchestrated "broader" instrumental versions of the songs by McKuen and Guaraldi.

Finally, one track must be credited to a certain Ludwig Van Beethoven.

The following lists give the LP's "chapter titles" first, followed by the actual compositions employed — which, in some cases, match the chapter titles — and who performs them.

So, let's begin with...

SIDE ONE:

0:00  "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" — vocal, sung by McKuen
2:45  "Cloud Dreams" — performed by the orchestra
3:49  "Charlie Brown and His All-Stars" — actually "Charlie Brown's All-Stars," performed first by Guaraldi's combo, which then is joined by the orchestra
6:30  "We Lost Again" — actually "Baseball Theme," performed first by Guaraldi's combo, and then orchestrated; at 8:00, this segues to an orchestral instrumental version of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown"
9:31  "Blue Charlie Brown" — performed by Guaraldi's combo
13:27  "Time to Go to School" — actually "Linus and Lucy," performed by Guaraldi's combo
14:17  "I Only Dread One Day at a Time" — actually an orchestral version of "Charlie Brown's All-Stars"
15:27  "Failure Face" — vocal, sung by the Peanuts gang
16:12  "By Golly, I'll Show 'Em" — actually "Catatonic Blues," by the orchestra
19:20  "Class Champion" — actually an orchestral instrumental version of "Champion Charlie Brown"
19:42  "I Before E" — vocal, sung by Charlie Brown and Linus
24:36  "School Spelling Bee" — a brief orchestral instrumental reprise, with mouth harp, of "I Before E"
25:14  "Champion Charlie Brown" — vocal, sung by the Peanuts gang

SIDE TWO

0:00  "Start Boning Up on Your Spelling, Charlie Brown" — dialogue only; no music
1:45  "You'll Either Be a Hero ... or a Goat" — actually an orchestral instrumental version of "Champion Charlie Brown"
2:50  "Bus Station" — also a piano/orchestral instrumental version of "Champion Charlie Brown"
4:27  "Bus Wheel Blues" — orchestral version
5:42  "Do Piano Players Make a Lot of Money?" — actually a snatch of the third movement of Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata in C minor, Op. 13
6:18  "I've Got to Get My Blanket Back" — actually a minor-key orchestral version of "Linus and Lucy," which segues (at 7:28) to an orchestral instrumental version of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," and then segues back (at 9:02) to a slow combo version of "Linus and Lucy"
10:44  "Big City" — actually a slow combo version of "Linus and Lucy"
11:48  "Snoopy on Ice" — actually a combo version of "Skating," which segues (at 13:24) to an orchestral presentation of "Blue Puck"
15:54  "Found Blanket" — actually a combo and orchestral version of "Linus and Lucy"
16:28  "National Spelling Bee" — actually an orchestral instrumental version of "Champion Charlie Brown"
17:03  "B-E-A-G-E-L" — dialogue only, no music, until it segues (at 21:01) to a string-heavy orchestral instrumental version of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown"
21:52  "Bus Wheel Blues" — orchestral reprise, with mouth harp
22:26  "Homecoming" — actually an orchestral instrumental version of "Champion Charlie Brown"
24:17  "I'm Never Going to School Again" — actually an orchestral instrumental version of "A Boy Named Charlie Brown"
24:49  "Welcome Home, Charlie Brown" — a combo rendition of "Lucifer's Lady"
25:45  "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" — vocal, sung by McKuen

And there you have it. If anybody ever untangles the legal rights and re-masters this LP for CD release, let's hope they get it right...

MAY 2016 UPDATE: Although no progress has been made with respect to such a CD, I'm happy to report that gentle nudging has resulted in the AFI database information being corrected, which can be verified via the AFI's online Catalog of Feature Films. We can't do anything about the incorrect information in the print edition cited above, but maybe this more accurate online entry will overtake the existing errors that have been migrating via the Web.

Childhood Fantasy

Researchers rely on the kindness of friends and strangers, who occasionally point us in the direction of something — a key piece of information, a fascinating anecdote — that we wouldn't otherwise have found.

In that way, I'm grateful to a good friend for calling my attention to a delightful online profile of Dogpaw Carillo, the sort of cheerful, colorful figure who typifies San Francisco's still-quite-lively counter-culture vibe. Dogpaw — and that's how he prefers to be called — is the star of this engaging and informative article by Viktorija Rinkevičiūtė, which she wrote during her post-graduate stint as a master's student in media, journalism and globalization, while at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. She subsequently returned to Lithuania, where she maintains an engaging blog and looks back fondly on the time she spent in Northern California.

As you'll discover, reading Viktorija's charming piece, Dogpaw spent part of his childhood living directly adjacent to the Treat Avenue headquarters of Fantasy Records. He grew up in a house at 841 Treat; Fantasy was next door, at 855 Treat.

(A quick sidebar: We have become conditioned to assume — thanks in part to a Vince Guaraldi composition — that Fantasy's most famous early home was on Treat Street. But Guaraldi's tune isn't the only source; this slight error has been promulgated by scores of musicians who refer to the good ol' days, when "Fantasy was on Treat Street." Many of them are quoted saying as much in my book. The lapse is understandable; "Treat Street" rolls more swiftly off the tongue, and the rhyme is hard to resist. But it's a mistake nonetheless: Although San Francisco does possess a tiny Treat Street, it's nowhere near the Mission District locale where Fantasy Records made its home ... on Treat Avenue.)

Aside from being absorbed by Dogpaw's childhood memories, I was drawn to the several times he mentioned Guaraldi. Viktorija had no reason to pursue these references to Dr. Funk, since her story focused more generally on Dogpaw, then and now. But I sensed that he'd have more to say about Guaraldi, and so I contacted Viktorija. She kindly shared Dogpaw's contact information, and she also sent along several additional photos that she hadn't used in her article.

I found Dogpaw just as amiable — just as eager to chat about his Treat Avenue days — as I would have expected. And he did, indeed, have a great deal more to share about Guaraldi and Fantasy.

(I've tried to avoid too much overlap with the information in Viktorija's article, although some basic details are necessary.)

Dogpaw examines the exterior of 855 Treat Avenue, the
once-upon-a-time home of Fantasy Records, and now
headquarters of the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
(Photo by Viktorija Rinkevičiūtė)

Dogpaw grew up in the house at 841 Treat, and remained there through his teens; his adolescence coincided perfectly with the 1960s, when Fantasy blossomed from a modest jazz label that went "13-1/2 years without a hit" — at which point Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" came along — to the more ambitious operation that expanded into rock 'n' roll and most famously signed the band that became Creedence Clearwater Revival.

"Fantasy was literally right over the fence," Dogpaw recalls. "They shared the property with a lumberyard; this guy would come in maybe once in a blue moon, and chop and saw some wood, and then take off. His buzz-saw was right next to the studio! But they must've worked it out, because he never made noise when Max [Weiss] wanted to record something.

"At first, I thought the place next door might be a radio station, because you'd see instruments being loaded off vehicles, and going in, and later coming back out again, and all these radio-looking people. That was the vibe, so we kids knew it had something to do with music. Initially, we all thought that every neighborhood had one of these places, like every neighborhood had a playground or a library. This was just normal to us, having a studio on the block.

"But of course it wasn't normal. Growing up on Treat was very, very special."