Continental American

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:37:47
Personnel: Peter Allen (vocals, keyboards); David Spinozza, Keith Loving, Sam Brown, John Tropea (guitar); Anthony Jackson, Bill Salter, Francisco Centeno (bass); Andrew Smith (drums); Ralph MacDonald (percussion). Personnel: Peter Allen (vocals, keyboards, percussion); David Spinozza, Keith Loving, Sam T. Brown, John Tropea (guitar); Harry Kohn, Joseph Malin, Charles Libove, David Nadien, Matthew Raimondi, Selwart Clarke, Gene Orloff, Harry Cykman, Paul Gershman, Emanuel Green, Harry Lookofsky (violin); Julien Barber, Amanuel Vardi, Alfred Brown (viola); Beverly Lauridsen, George Ricci, Kermit Moore (cello); Billy Slapin (flute, clarinet, saxophone); Frank Wess (flute, saxophone); Seldon Powell (clarinet, saxophone); Romeo Penque (clarinet); Harold Vick, Walter Kane, Sol Schlinger, Arthur "Babe" Clarke (saxophone); Ernie Royal, Joseph B. Wilder, Jon Faddis, Marvin Stamm, Daniel Moore (trumpet); Brooks Tillotson, Joseph DeAngelis, James Buffington, Peter Gordon (French horn); Seymour Berger, Garnett Brown, Bill Watrous, Jack Jeffers (trombone); Tony Studd (euphonium); Howard Johnson , Jonathan Dorn (tuba); Richard Tee, Arthur Jenkins (keyboards); Anthony Jackson , Bill Salter, Francisco Centeno (bass guitar); Andrew Smith , Steve Gadd (drums); Jack Jennings, Phil Kross, Ralph MacDonald, Sue Evans (percussion). After two singer/songwriter albums for tiny Metromedia Records (Peter Allen and Tenterfield Saddler), Peter Allen began to make inroads as a nightclub entertainer. Then, Olivia Newton-John scored a major hit with his co-composition "I Honestly Love You." A&M Records, which signed him, gave Allen a bigger production budget to make his label debut, and he and producer Joel Dorn used it to bring in horn and string sections and create much more elaborate arrangements than the first two albums had enjoyed. But the added instrumentation was in the service of a retrospective, world-weary concept. Allen opened the album with a revival of the 1930 German song "Just a Gigolo," setting a tone that evoked the decadence of Weimar Germany. "Everything Old Is New Again," the original that followed, sounded like a show tune from some forgotten musical of the 1930s, and frothy as it was, it furthered the mood of desperate nostalgia to which Allen then added with "The Natural Thing to Do" and "Pretty Pretty." The title song recalled all-night partying in Manhattan as something that happened in the past, and "Just Ask Me I've Been There," as its title suggested, was a rueful look back by someone who was older, wiser, and somewhat embittered. "I Honestly Love You," though not quite fitting into the album's overall theme, matched its regret in the story of two lovers with other commitments and forced to part. The seven-and-a-half-minute "This Side Show's Leaving Town," the album's most ambitious track, employed a favorite Allen image, the circus, to depict life experiences in terms of a tarnished theatricality. Allen closed the album with another version of "Just a Gigolo," this one accompanied by the fervent seconding of cabaret legend Frances Faye. Continental American was actually a dour singer/songwriter collection that used show business cliches in music and words to express a world view of regret and resignation. ~ William Ruhlmann
録音 : ステレオ (Studio)