Geoff Love's BIG BOND MOVIE THEMES

Simon Bermuda

Does anyone else remember this album of cut-price instrumental cover versions? As a schoolboy back in the '70s, I had to make do with this record, costing, if I recall, 50p from Woolworth's, as my pocket money wouldn't stretch to the official Bond soundtracks. I didn't sound too bad, provided you didn't have the originals to compare it with.

delon64

it was great my gran bought it for me as a child it had a fine cover and the casino royale version while sounding nothing like the original had a great funky appeal...a real 70s gem

Predator

Quoting JazzX:
Did it sound something like this (4 meg download but CD quality and full length):

http://www.paulstubbs.supanet.com/Ashes/Ashes2DustSongOnly.mp3

50p is certainly all I`d pay for this cheese.

)

Jazz you old fraudster!! You know it's worth at least 75p!!

Side note: I would recommend anyone to listen to this, Jazz is doing himself a disservice ...

Bondian

Hi,

Hey, this is a 'blast from the past'. I has this LP still, along with a lot of other Geoff Love LP's.

Does anyone remember the 'Roland Shaw Orchestra'?. I think he captured the spirit of the Bond Sound fairly well.


Cheers,


Ian

Simon Bermuda

Thanks for the extra info, Frosty. I always wondered why MFP decided to turn poor old Roger round the other way...

(Does anyone also remember Geoff Love's BIG WAR MOVIE THEMES and BIG SPACE MOVIE THEMES?)

Napoleon Plural

Yeah, I remember. It was pretty slim pickings for Bond fans in those days.

Luckily I got another Bond compilation of John Barry's stuff (original) from Dr No to DAF. It was a classy looking double album with gunbarrels on a dark blue cover, one for each film with a pic from the film eg Andress in DN, classic Connery pose for FRWL, the SPECTRE meeting in TB, the volcano in YOLT and Bond on his Las Vegas wire trip for DAF. Great packaging.

delon64

yes i agree with napoleon plural the blue double album was a great item with very good packaging and the greatest hits was also very good but when did it end its release? was there a pressing with all time high on it? with a bluish cover...was that the last?

Enoch

Yes, I remember this. Like a few other people here it was my first Bond soundtrack album. It's fashionable to sneer at it these days but back in the 70's I don't remember soundtracks having the same cult status as they do today. This was the only way I could listen to the theme from OHMSS in the comfort of my own home. The 'Casino Royale' track wasn't bad either.

Shady Tree

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Yeah, I remember. It was pretty slim pickings for Bond fans in those days.

Luckily I got another Bond compilation of John Barry's stuff (original) from Dr No to DAF. It was a classy looking double album with gunbarrels on a dark blue cover, one for each film with a pic from the film eg Andress in DN, classic Connery pose for FRWL, the SPECTRE meeting in TB, the volcano in YOLT and Bond on his Las Vegas wire trip for DAF. Great packaging.

As a kid, this was the first album of John Barry's Bond music I owned. It was a prize possession... especially since, at the time that I bought it, I hadn't yet seen all of the movies from Dr. No to DAF. (I was yet to see FRWL, YOLT and OHMSS... so the selection of tracks whetted my appetite for these wonderful movies.) The blue cover with the encircled movie stills added to the lustre.

Shady Tree

Simon Bermuda wrote:

Does anyone else remember this album of cut-price instrumental cover versions? As a schoolboy back in the '70s, I had to make do with this record, costing, if I recall, 50p from Woolworth's, as my pocket money wouldn't stretch to the official Bond soundtracks. I didn't sound too bad, provided you didn't have the originals to compare it with.

I loved this album... Geoff Love and His Orchestra were quite popular back in the 70s, and they made a fair fist of covering all the title tracks. (At least there were no tacky covers of the vocals... it was purely instrumental.)

As a kid I used to pore over the splendid album cover while listening to the record... I loved the way in which the cover painting merged the worlds of Moore's Bond with Connery's Bond and Lazenby's Bond as if they all belonged together in a single splendid movie poster! (Plus, Roger never looked better than in that painted pose which featured on the posters for both LLD and TMWTGG - and which was brilliantly re-hashed as the centrepiece for this Geoff Love album cover.)

It was also interesting how the line-up of tracks placed 'Casino Royale' alongside the other entries as if it was part of 'the canon'. Indeed, the 'Casino Royale' cover version was the highlight of the album.

Most interesting of all, the theme for TMWTGG seemed to have climactic importance... just because TMWTGG was the most recent Bond film!

chrisno1

Yeh i bought this on cassette! it hung up on a little hook on a stand by the counter in Woolworths...those were the days! I used to play it all the time as a adolescent (along with Geoff's Big War Movie Themes and Big Western Movie Themes). The orchestrations were really good; i liked that he used the Thunderball Romance Theme (my title - it appears in the movie when Bond romances Domino at the casino) as opposed to the bombastic credit theme. Geoff Love was king of the Budget Buys!

The Cat

chrisno1 wrote:

The orchestrations were really good; i liked that he used the Thunderball Romance Theme (my title - it appears in the movie when Bond romances Domino at the casino) as opposed to the bombastic credit theme.

The one you are thinking about is called "Cafe Martinique" and it's not the same - it's an instrumental of MKKBB, not TB. Geoff Love used a lungy version of TB which was recoreded only for the soundtrack as "Thunderball (Instrumental)" but an alternate take of it made it to the movie as well, when Bond arrives to the casino.

Tracy

There were so many jazzy/big band compilations of spy movie/TV themes during the 60's and 70's. Geoff Love's were some of the best (he was a big band leader who recorded the themes from many other movies), although I do like Sid Zetner's "From Russia With Love" LP. There's a truly awesome compilation conducted by Count Basie of actual cues from the film called Basie Meets Bond.

The Crime Lounge has more information on these spy music albums.

chrisno1

The Cat wrote:

chrisno1 wrote:

The orchestrations were really good; i liked that he used the Thunderball Romance Theme (my title - it appears in the movie when Bond romances Domino at the casino) as opposed to the bombastic credit theme.

The one you are thinking about is called "Cafe Martinique" and it's not the same - it's an instrumental of MKKBB, not TB. Geoff Love used a lungy version of TB which was recoreded only for the soundtrack as "Thunderball (Instrumental)" but an alternate take of it made it to the movie as well, when Bond arrives to the casino.

Rewatched this recently and you are right of course. Geoff's version was very nice I thought, whatever it was supposed to be. Pity my car cassette player chewed that one up.

Mark Hazard

Shady Tree wrote:

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Yeah, I remember. It was pretty slim pickings for Bond fans in those days.

Luckily I got another Bond compilation of John Barry's stuff (original) from Dr No to DAF. It was a classy looking double album with gunbarrels on a dark blue cover, one for each film with a pic from the film eg Andress in DN, classic Connery pose for FRWL, the SPECTRE meeting in TB, the volcano in YOLT and Bond on his Las Vegas wire trip for DAF. Great packaging.

As a kid, this was the first album of John Barry's Bond music I owned. It was a prize possession... especially since, at the time that I bought it, I hadn't yet seen all of the movies from Dr. No to DAF. (I was yet to see FRWL, YOLT and OHMSS... so the selection of tracks whetted my appetite for these wonderful movies.) The blue cover with the encircled movie stills added to the lustre.

And do you remember the discs had an unusaul arrangement of "sides". Disc 1 had sides 1 and 4 while disc 2 contained sides 2 and 3. I assume that this was so that they could be played on the multi-stack spindle, you just placed disc 2 on top of disc 1 and when they had both played (side 1 then side 2), flipped the 2 discs together to play sides 3 and 4, a great arrangement - although multi-stacking was supposed to be used for singles and not albums. I also have a french pressing of this album where they used the conventional method of using sides 1 & 2 on disc 1 with sides 3 & 4 on disc 2.

Barbel

Mark Hazard wrote:

And do you remember the discs had an unusaul arrangement of "sides". Disc 1 had sides 1 and 4 while disc 2 contained sides 2 and 3. I assume that this was so that they could be played on the multi-stack spindle, you just placed disc 2 on top of disc 1 and when they had both played (side 1 then side 2), flipped the 2 discs together to play sides 3 and 4, a great arrangement - although multi-stacking was supposed to be used for singles and not albums. I also have a french pressing of this album where they used the conventional method of using sides 1 & 2 on disc 1 with sides 3 & 4 on disc 2.

Ah, nostalgia time! I had that album too, and remember the sides situation you say. It was a great compilation in its day- some of the tracks were edited, though.

chrisno1

Barbel wrote:

Ah, nostalgia time! I had that album too, and remember the sides situation you say. It was a great compilation in its day- some of the tracks were edited, though.

Oh yeh definate nostalgia! I dont know about 007 music, but I ahve copies of Blonde on Blonde, Exile on Main Street, Electric Ladyland and The Beatles that all have this 1 & 4 and 2 & 3 stuff. Of course Elvis' From Memphis To Vegas/From Vegas To Memphis was two separate albums sold together so you didnt have to separate. Stacking was a wierd idea. It ruined your vinyl. I replaced all my originals years ago. And then got the blessed CDs.

Barbel

chrisno1 wrote:

Of course Elvis' From Memphis To Vegas/From Vegas To Memphis was two separate albums sold together so you didnt have to separate.

And now the live half of that set is a 2CD in its own right from the FTD label. (The studio half has been recompiled endlessly for years.)

Napoleon Plural

Barbel wrote:

Mark Hazard wrote:

And do you remember the discs had an unusaul arrangement of "sides". Disc 1 had sides 1 and 4 while disc 2 contained sides 2 and 3. I assume that this was so that they could be played on the multi-stack spindle, you just placed disc 2 on top of disc 1 and when they had both played (side 1 then side 2), flipped the 2 discs together to play sides 3 and 4, a great arrangement - although multi-stacking was supposed to be used for singles and not albums. I also have a french pressing of this album where they used the conventional method of using sides 1 & 2 on disc 1 with sides 3 & 4 on disc 2.

Ah, nostalgia time! I had that album too, and remember the sides situation you say. It was a great compilation in its day- some of the tracks were edited, though.

Yeah I remember that! I always thought that was a mistake! I took it back originally (and belatedly) because it dawned on me there was a pamplet insert missing with loads of b+w pics of films I'd hardly ever seen and only on b+w telly. No DVDs or videos back then! When I got the new one the sides were as you described, but I took it as an error at the factory myself.

Always wanted a follow up for the Moore years, with red packaging!