Music
The Banana Splits' bubblegum pop rock and roll was provided by studio professionals, including Joey Levine ("I Enjoy Being a Boy", "It's a Good Day for a Parade"); Al Kooper ("You're the Lovin' End"); Barry White ("Doin' the Banana Split"); Gene Pitney ("Two Ton Tessie") and Jimmy Radcliffe provided his songs ("I'm Gonna Find A Cave", "Soul", "Don't Go Away Go-Go Girl", "Adam Had 'Em" and "The Show Must Go On") but did not contribute vocals to Splits recordings. The music director was music publisher Aaron Schroeder while production duties were mainly handled by David Mook. When a heavier R&B vocal was needed, the music producers usually turned to singer Ricky Lancelotti (billed in the show credits under his stage name Rick Lancelot). Lancelotti went on to become one of Frank Zappa's many lead vocalists in late 1972.
In 1968, The Banana Splits released an album on Decca Records titled We're the Banana Splits. The show’s theme song, titled "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)", released as a single, peaked at number 97 on Billboard's Top 100 in February 1969. Written by Tony Powers. Powers, later wrote Oddissey, song featured in the 1981 MUSIC FROM THE ELDER, by shock rock outfit KISS. The version included on the We're The Banana Splits album is the same recording heard at the beginning of the show, while the single version is an entirely different arrangement and recording of the song, featuring an additional verse. The song was written by Nelson Brock Winkless, Jr., however, owing to contractual arrangements, on all record releases (as well as the TV show's closing credits), credit given to Ritchie Adams and Steve Kincannon ( Formerly of Cream and the Allman Brothers ). Winkless is credited as co-writer, along with Hoyt Curtin, of "The Beautiful Calliope" (also called "My Beautiful Calliopesaxaviatrumparimbaclaribassotrombaphone"), which was featured several times in the television series and also issued on record.
Read more about this topic: The Banana Splits
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“While the music is performed, the cameras linger savagely over the faces of the audience. What a bottomless chasm of vacuity they reveal! Those who flock round the Beatles, who scream themselves into hysteria, whose vacant faces flicker over the TV screen, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures . . .”
—Paul Johnson (b. 1928)
“Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you—like music to the musician or Marxism to the Communist—or else it is nothing, an empty formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)