Since much of my life and my success in the radio broadcasting industry has been centered — as you’ll quickly discover by reading my memoir, RADIO … My Love, My Passion — on music and my programming of it for radio … I felt it time to take a break and invite you to spend a few minutes listening to a few melodies and recordings which I find very special.
Leading off, here’s Caravelli’s orchestral arrangement of the Midnight Blue Theme, based on Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #8, the Pathetique. The melody received this name when words were added and English singer Louise Tucker’s 1983 recording became a mild pop hit in both North America and Europe.
Maestro Caravelli is one of what we call France’s Big Three when it came to producing orchestral recordings filled with superb arrangements of some of the world’s greatest popular melodies — the other two were, of course, Franck Pourcel and Paul Mauriat.
I must be honest, while he’s been a much-acclaimed and much-loved singer for many years, I just never paid a lot of attention to this gentleman. However, I recently came upon a PBS special featuring Josh Groban and found myself listening and enjoying, especially his performance of this very inspiration tune, “You Raise Me Up.”
Next, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” Some time in the early 1990’s I discovered this artist, Argentinian pianist Raul Di Blasio. Of course, this composition itself is unbeatable … yet, once I heard this performance, every other one just didn’t measure up. In 2002, when I began building the library of recordings for XM Satellite Radio’s Beautiful Music/Easy Listening channel, this was a priority for inclusion!
Here’s one you may not be familiar with, although I played it regularly within my musical programming for radio: “Tomorrow Is Another Day” by American composer John Sbarra. John wrote many beautiful melodies with a number being included in television and movie productions, with this tune being a special favorite of my wife Alicia.
Other than English conductor-composer John Fox, I am not familiar with how composers work, so I found it somewhat incredulous that John Sbarra would compose a complete melody in his head and could easily play it numerous times on the piano before any of it got transcribed onto paper.
David Foster’s “The Prayer” is just a beautiful melody, whether played as an instrumental arrangement or with the words added. Here it is presented vocally … again as sung by Josh Groban, who is joined by Charlotte Church.
Two Frenchmen, Paul de Senneville and Oliver Toussaint met in the 1960’s and became a very successful musical team, involved in the composing, production and promotional aspects of the business. One of their compositions which became very big with our Beautiful Music listeners was Ballad for Adeline … or the official French spelling, “Ballade Pour Adeline.” After writing the tune, they went in search of a pianist who could perform it with the right “touch” … the one chosen was French, but would be given the German-sounding name of Richard Clayderman, and this would become his trademark melody … as he went on to sell numerous best-selling albums!
Lastly, listen to this intriguing melody composed by Ennio Morricone, titled Chi Mai. It was the main theme for a 1981 BBC documentary, The Life and Times of David Lloyd George … who was a British statesman and served as Prime Minister of Great Britain during the latter part of World War One into the 1920’s.
Chapter 11 of my radio journey memoir is titled It’s All About the Melody, in which I do discuss a couple of these tunes along with several others.
That chapter title was chosen because it’s my sincere belief that, unless a person suffers from celebrity-itis … a music lover will not be truly attracted to a song unless it possesses a strong melody which hooks onto your emotional senses. Do you agree?
