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!

An afternoon of Grace

“Mother never said there might be a day like this.”

First words out of my mouth. Couldn’t help it.

I had just been introduced — and quite warmly — by Grace Cathedral’s Rev. Canon Elizabeth Grundy, and all I could do was look out across the assembled multitude (officially 611 patrons!), and then up-up-up at the way-high ceiling, almost out of view.

Apparently everybody understood, though, because my awe-struck remark drew plenty of sympathetic chuckles.

But I’m getting ahead of things. Let’s start at the beginning.

Constant Companion and I arrived at Grace at about 10:30 Saturday morning; we had left home quite early, not wanting to take any chances with the San Francisco area’s notorious traffic (which, yes, can be ghastly even on weekends). As a result, we were first to arrive, and so killed some time by browsing through the cathedral’s gift shop. I couldn’t help noticing a counter-top rack of CDs that included several copies of Duke Ellington’s Concert of Sacred Music at Grace, recorded live September 16, 1965 ... but no sign of Fantasy’s recording of Guaraldi’s Mass, which had preceded Ellington by four months.

So I wanna know: What’s up with that?

(Ahem.)

We soon were joined by Marcia and Nancy Goodrich, two of the long-ago St. Paul’s Church choir members who, as children, had rehearsed with Guaraldi for roughly 18 months, while his Jazz Mass came together. They were excited, to say the least: positively bubbling with anticipation.

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.

Swingin' singles

Life brings constant surprises.

That's a good thing; it would be terrible to wake one morning, realizing that the world offered no more mysteries, no more unexpected answers.

Discovery is one of life's many spices.

Happily, I continue to discover new wonders about Guaraldi's life and recorded output. Some things come my way via helpful correspondents; other items wander across my path entirely by accident, usually while I'm seeking additional sources for some other piece of information.

Two recent finds, then: both concerning Guaraldi's recordings on 45 singles.

By now, we all know the story about how "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" was "discovered" by Tony Bigg, a DJ at KROY 1240 AM, in Sacramento, California. Having received a copy of Fantasy's single for Guaraldi's album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, Bigg played and enjoyed the A-side selection, "Samba de Orpheus." But he was totally knocked out by the B-side song, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," and played it as often as possible. He very likely sparked public awareness of the song, which quickly spread throughout the Golden State, and then the rest of the country, eventually earning Guaraldi a Grammy Award.

Okay, that's familiar history.

But here's my fresh question: Might Bigg have been playing a red vinyl 45?

It's also well-known that — during the label's early years — Fantasy Records got considerable mileage from its gimmick of issuing LPs on colored vinyl, generally red or blue. Old news.

Until a few weeks ago, however, I'd never heard of — let alone seen, or been lucky enough to own — a colored vinyl single.

And yet here it is, thanks to a recent eBay auction.

Fascinating, eh?

The question now is whether only promotional 45s were issued on red vinyl, and perhaps only the first printing of same. That seems logical, and they're certainly rare; standard singles of "Samba" and "Fate" are as common as blades of grass, and they pop up all over the place. This red one, though, is something truly special.

And it begs a question: Were any of Guaraldi's other Fantasy 45s released on colored vinyl?

I suspect not. Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus was the last Guaraldi LP originally released on colored vinyl — red (mono) and blue (stereo) — and Fantasy discontinued this practice shortly thereafter. In other words, all of Guaraldi's subsequent 45s were attached to LPs issued solely on standard black vinyl, so the singles would have been pressed the same way, also on black vinyl.

That was the first surprise.

Within a few days of my obtaining this little treasure, I learned about the existence of another hitherto-unknown Guaraldi 45, this one derived from the "storybook LP" released as a soundtrack, of sorts, for the 1969 big-screen film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Guaraldi's isolated score for this film remains a major unreleased item in the soundtrack world, a sad and frustrating story I detailed at great length in an earlier post.

To my knowledge, however, Columbia Records never released a single from this LP ... at least, not in the United States.

During a routine perusal of the Guaraldi titles referenced at the very handy Discogs site, I unexpectedly came across a listing for a French single (CBS 5399), released in 1970. The gatefold-style packaging is quite attractive, as you can see from the images here. The A-side contains Rod McKuen's title song, while the B-side is unusual for its presentation of two tracks: short versions of McKuen's "Champion Charlie Brown" and Guaraldi's "Snoopy on Ice" (actually "Skating").

Granted, Guaraldi's contribution runs a scant 95 seconds, but that's still enough for this disc to qualify for inclusion in Dr. Funk's library of 45s.

Assuming you can find one. As these words are typed, the aforementioned Discogs entry lists 10 people who'd like to find this little disc, while also showing the disheartening word "never" under "Last sold." I therefore suspect that finding a copy of this puppy might be even harder than landing "Fate" on red vinyl.

But — as I said above — what fun would life be, if we didn't have things to desire, and search for ... awaiting that golden moment of triumph, when...

Sigh. If only, right?

The soundtrack that almost was...

In Chapter 13 of my book, I briefly discuss the Columbia soundtrack album produced to accompany the 1969 big-screen film, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, 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 speak from experience, having been involved; I was hired to write a lengthy essay and track-by-track liner notes for the large booklet that would have been included. It was a wonderful assignment — at least, at the point we all thought the project would be brought to a successful conclusion — because I got to interview Rod McKuen, Lee Mendelson and several of the musicians who worked at Guaraldi's side. I wrote and submitted the essay and liner notes; then I sat back and waited. 

And waited. And waited.

Years passed. I got occasional updates, but the trend began to look grim. Cinema Center Films had ceased to exist as a production entity, and Columbia Records had been swallowed up by Sony. Ultimately, my associates had to surrender; they simply couldn't secure all the rights and permissions needed to make all the disparate musical entities and performers happy (or, to be more accurate, needed to reassure everybody that nobody else might be lurking in the woodpile, waiting to pounce with a lawsuit).

I never got paid for my work, which obviously was a major bummer ... but never unexpected, in the freelance writing business. Besides which, I felt much worse for those who would have written me a check; they had put far more effort into the project than I had.

[Update: The score finally was released by Kritzerland in March 2017. See this post for details.]

Happily, a good portion of my research and work didn't go to waste; major chunks of that essay were re-purposed and wound up in my book about Guaraldi. Not quite everything, though, which brings me to the point of this blog entry.

When it became obvious that Vince Guaraldi at the Piano was running long — eventually, a full 50,000 words longer than my original contract with McFarland had specified (and bless my editor for allowing that extra length!) — I went looking for things to trim. Bits and pieces flew by the wayside, although everything got saved; some of the specific LP information wound up in my online Vince Guaraldi discography, while other snippets landed in the Vince Guaraldi timeline. But I didn't really have a home for the deleted stray data from the A Boy Named Charlie Brown CD project.

Not wanting it to be wasted, I've decided to resurrect it here.