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.
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
“For do but note a wild and wanton herd
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music.”
—William Shake{peare (1564–1616)
“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“A woman’s two cents worth is worth two cents in the music business.”
—Loretta Lynn (b. 1930)