Search - Various :: Poppin' Guitars : A Tuneful Of Sherman

Great for children and adult dinner parties! Wide appeal!!

H. Hendler | Los Angeles, CA | 07/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Love, love, love this cd! I have always been a fan of the Sherman Brothers, inparticularly as a child and a new mother. Now that my own children have grown, (and I have grown) opportunities to listen to their music don't often present themselves... UNTIL NOW! This incredibly brilliant idea, superbly produced, gives me another chance to enjoy this timeless music!



I encourage you all to purchase as many cd's as possible and as soon as possible! I've already bought many for my friends and family and will continue to do so as often as I can... what a terrific gift. What a terrific idea!! Great job!



Thanks Sherman Brothers and Thanks Solid Air Records! Bravo!!



"

Supercalifragilisticly great CD ...Disney for adults!

Richardson | Sunny California USA | 07/20/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a big guitar fan and own the Grammy Winning Henry Mancini: Pink Guitar that is the previous issue to this and I think they've topped themselves with this one. The opener from Tommy Emmanuel, Winnie the Pooh, is ridiculous fun and A Spoonful of Sugar keeps the fun and virtuosity rolling. On a thoughtful beautiful note Hushabye Mountain could only be topped by Feed the Birds and Doug Smith (an international Guitar Champion) will give you goose bumps with his arrangement. Greg Hawkes and Elliot Easton of the CARS deliver unbelievably original versions on their contributions but seriously there isn't a dud in the lineup and what a lineup....these are the songs of my childhood and I love being able to enjoy them again in a new light!

"

"Stay Awake"? Gladly.

Joseph Grienenberger | San Diego, CA | 07/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I recently reconnected with one of the co-producers of this recording, after more than 20 years [we worked together in theatre back in the early 1980s]. While catching up with each other's lives, she mentioned that she was finishing the work on this recording. The only reason I immediately pre-ordered this CD at Amazon was because it was going to comprise the songs of the Sherman Brothers; had it been some other composers or genres, I might have possibly bought it at some point in the future just to be nice, but I probably wouldn't have been in that big a rush.



The Sherman Brothers' songs delighted me as a child -- let's face it, their songs were a very atmospheric element in their films. The up-tempo songs had an energetic buzz that added to the excitement and fun of whatever scene they were in, and the ballads added emotions that the scripts could not have conveyed alone. Hell, the music in "Mary Poppins" is decidedly American in its strength, clarity, and angular construction, but it FEELS British in the film. Anyway, as I forged my way in a music career, I've increasingly been impressed with how UNsimple the Sherman Brothers' music is -- there are many layers harmonically and a ton of subtlety in what the melodies and the chord structures do. It all adds up to songs that are simultaneously vivid and relaxed -- the song knows precisely where it is going, and would love to have you join it on its journey.



And now to this magnificent recording.



I am not a big fan of solo guitar music. What I mean is that the guitar is a lovely instrument, but my ear wearies of it after a short while. I think it may have something to do with most players not presenting a very wide pitch spectrum within an individual song -- a solo pianist can literally cover seven octaves in the course of a few seconds, but few guitarists make the extra effort needed to scale the heights and depths of the guitar's range. So, the only thing that will hold my attention when listening to a solo guitarist is interesting playing -- either the actual written composition has to be something so strongly constructed that it grabs my attention, or a new arrangement of familiar music has to be extraordinarily engaging. Without one of those factors, I start dozing off after three minutes.



Well, I'm happy to report that I stayed quite awake through this entire recording.



I have to admit that I just did not expect the outstanding variety of playing that is heard on this CD. It strikes me as kind of amazing that there is no "Arranged by" credit -- in other words, I assume that each guitarist devised his own arrangement. The liner notes give thanks to several people at the Disney organization, and I presume that part of that involved them loaning the original film arrangements [and/or recordings] for the guitarists to peruse, since several appealing instrumental lines from the film orchestrations were borrowed by some of these guitarists. Like the old saying goes, "if you're going to steal, steal from the best." Anyway, because each player brings his own tastes and artistry [and playing techniques] to his assigned song, no two songs have the same acoustic "feel" -- I suspect that if this recording featured only one guitarist doing these songs, dreariness might have threatened to encroach after awhile.



But perhaps the highest praise I can give, in light of my earlier note about not usually being terribly keen on solo guitar music, is that after playing this CD from start to finish, I had a bite to eat and then listened to it again twice -- all the way through. That was yesterday, and I'm listening to it again as I write this.



There is only one thing I can quibble with, and this is entirely about my personal preference -- some of the songs lack a strong lower "bass" presence. For me, the charm of the songs' original orchestrations in the films was their strong and vibrant bass lines that grounded their sound terrifically. It sounds like several of these guitarists overdubbed themselves, because their selections indeed have a wider range that just has a fuller sound. The players who did not do that still present the songs' rich harmonic structure very appealingly, but just don't have the range I would have preferred. I guess this is really more about my preferences, not these players' artistry.



If you're interested, below are a few impressions about each song. If you stop reading here, I hope you'll give this charming disc a spin.



#1 "Winnie the Pooh" [Tommy Emmanuel]: Lovely melancholy intro with block chords. Plays the first chorus with fast strumming for a mandolin effect. Does the intro verse's music ["Down in the Hundred Acre Wood"] as a slightly extended bridge, followed by a few reiterations of the chorus in varying styles. A far more engaging version than I thought possible.



#2 A Spoonful of Sugar" [Laurence Juber]: Nice variety in the arrangement, and Mr. Juber has an infectious enthusiasm for this song. Most impressive moment -- in the middle portion, he does the chorus melody WHILE playing [in the upper range] the delightful rapid Sousa-esque piccolo obbligato heard in the film's version. I mentioned possible overdubbing before, but he's just playing one time through -- and he's all up and down the guitar on this song.



#3 "Hushabye Mountain" [Al Petteway]: Gorgeous, simple, and with very appealing chord variations. This is one of my favorite Sherman Brothers songs -- it has both a wistful quality and an expansive passionate feel. Grab a glass of wine and enjoy this track at 2:00am with the lights low [tissues optional].



#4 "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" [Kenny Sultan]: I wish he had played the melody a bit stronger; the off-beats of the accompaniment bury it many times. I'm not sure if someone unfamiliar with the old Disneyland ride "Carousel of Progress" would actually know what the melody was. Some nice quick-fingered work in the variation sections, though.



#5 "You're Sixteen" [Greg Hawkes]: If you told me years ago that the Cars' keyboardist would one day be making fabulous music on ukuleles, I'd have thought you not a little unbalanced. Having recently gotten his wonderful Beatles tribute album a few months ago, I was delighted to see his name on this CD. This track is fun, laid-back, immensely inventive, and a joyous hoot.



#6 "Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag) " [Doug Smith]: Wonderfully full-bodied sound. This was reportedly Walt Disney's favorite Sherman Brothers song -- he often asked them to play it when they got together for meetings -- so it's nice that Mr. Smith evokes the film's arrangement, including the surging urgency of the bridge before the final verse. It's quite touching that when he starts that final verse, he pulls back to a slower tempo than before -- I've rarely seen a tempo change add such a feeling of poignancy to a song.



#7 "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" [Mark Hanson]: Highly inventive and crisply played. I must admit that it started out with a bit too much of a "plodding" feel [for lack of a better term], and I must admit I was tempted to jump to the next track. Then Mr. Hanson started with the chord and harmonic variations that proved to be quite appealing. Many albums have a song that has to grow on you, and this track is that way for me; I like it better each time I hear it, because I hear new things with each listening.



#8 "Let's Get Together" [Pat Donohue]: This selection strikes me as being the most far removed from the original version. Oh, it's the same song, but it doesn't have the same feel. The original was a driving soft rocker for the fabulous Hayley Mills in "The Parent Trap"; this arrangement still has a strong beat, but it's at a more relaxed tempo. It's neither better nor worse than the original -- it's just an equally enjoyable version. It's also a lot of fun -- I don't know what the technique is called when a guitarist bends from one pitch to another [oy vey, it's probably called "bending"!], but it sure is fun to hear, especially when someone does it this often and this clearly. Mr. Donohue's name is familiar to me; I think he's done "A Prairie Home Companion" numerous times. Whatever. In some ways, this track alone is worth the price of this CD.



#9 "The Slipper and the Rose Waltz" [Jim Tozier]: I didn't care much for this track. It's a lovely waltz that I didn't know before, and Mr. Tozier's playing is very good. But I just found this selection rather repetitive: The song is a very standard 32-bar composition, and no variations or notable embellishments are employed in this arrangement -- well, the accompaniment has texture and a nice flowing movement, but it didn't vary its path much. It would have been preferable to have something from the sublime "Charlotte's Web" score in this slot, such as the gorgeous and achingly sad ballad "Mother Earth and Father Time."



#10 "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" [Eltjo Haselhoff]: Very appealing intro that just barely hints at the song to follow -- always a nice touch in any arrangement. Surely this must be an overdub, because when the song gets going, the 2/4 "oom-pah oom-pah" polka accompaniment is amazingly clear, even when it gets faster. The several delightful emulations of Julie Andrews' high vocal "Woo" made me chortle.



#11 "The Age of Not Believing" [Elliot Easton]: This rendition is an improvement on the original film version, which had a kind of undefined mushy quality -- in other words, there wasn't a very clearly defined beat until the music got faster and more driving. So this arrangement is appealingly straightforward. Loved the disjointed jazz chords coming out of the fast section -- nice surprise.



#12 "I Wanna Be Like You" [Mike Dowling]: Yeah, at first I kept wanting Louis Prima's vocal to appear -- sue me. But Mr. Dowling still puts his own stamp on this song. Tons of variation, sudden dynamic changes, swoops & dives, unexpected jazz chords. Excellent track.



#13 "Chim Chim Cher-ee" [Nick Charles]: I really liked the 30-second introduction -- jeez, tons of magnificent variations before the song properly started! This arrangement is also markedly different from the original film "sound," and is very winning. It has a nice energy and urgency to it. It drives forward, then relaxes, then surges forward again. It keeps you on your toes -- which is a very good thing.



#14 "Stay Awake" [Tim Pacheco]: Another favorite Sherman Brothers song. In the film, I love the cleverness of the lyric imploring you to not fall asleep, coupled with an obvious lullaby intended to induce sleep. So don't listen to this track in the car, because it's very restrained and relaxing. I really liked the middle interlude, which to my ear has a lovely 1970s ballad feel in the chord variation.



#15 "It's a Small World" [Mark Hanson & Doug Smith]: Okay, I dreaded this one, of course. That song is just the epitome of cloying dreck in that waterlogged ride at Disneyland -- I like joy and happiness as much as anyone, but the version in that ride fairly chokes you with it. So while listening to this track, I found myself smiling in delight at how Messrs. Hanson and Smith did their best to wrench this lovely tune away from Disney excess and breathe some inventiveness and a refreshingly relaxed feel. That inventiveness is the key -- whereas we all cringe at the unrelenting repetition in the original version, these guitarists vary the style [and counterpoints] of the accompaniment on each verse and chorus. At the risk of engaging in hyperbole, this selection strikes me as a master class in how to make an arrangement anything but boring and repetitive. The next time I have to endure that Disneyland ride for the sake of out-of-town guests, I'm taking an iPod with THIS version to listen to!"