Friday, September 4, 2020

The Obscure Genius Of Paul Giovanni

Nobody with hair this great should look this miserable.
"Genius" is pushing it a bit, as it generally is when used in the context of pop. But Paul Giovanni deserves a little more recognition. Look him up on wiki. Interesting guy - rock musician, singer, playwright, performer, soundtrack composer, he left a body of work so slender if it stands sideways it disappears. But the music is pretty damn extraordinary, starting with the sole album by Side Show from 1970.

Produced by the great Arif Mardin, who didn't squander his rep on just anybody, the album is lush, crafted, beautifully composed and produced, and emotionally affecting. The other guiding light on the album, Greg Kreutz, disappeared from the music business (he was also responsible for the crap painting on the cover). Three years later, Giovanni turns up in the U.K. scoring the cult original version (not the Nic Cage comedy remake) of The Wicker Man, and the music has only tenuous links with the pop-rock of Side Show. Featuring traditional songs alongside Giovanni originals played by a group called Magnet, it has also gained a cult rep. There's a weirdness to it entirely appropriate to the mood of the movie that takes a few spins to establish itself. Unlike many soundtracks, it's a standalone album that works without the visuals.

After that, playwriting, producing, and directing the U.K. tour of Amadeus, then teaching at U.S.C. He died from AIDS-related illness in 1990, aged 57.

New design from original poster
Both these albums make swell additions to any music fan's collection. Especially yours, and you're not just any music fan.

24 comments:

  1. In case anyone is interested, here is the artwork (including booklet and posters) from the 2002 Silva Screen Records release: https://we.tl/t-quLK0vYYxX

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    1. Thanks! I think the download is the Silva Screen version.

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    2. The notes are essential reading. Thanks again.

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    3. NOT the Silva Acreen version...shit version of Landlords Daughter without the pub crowd backing vocals. I should rename you the Nicholas Cage of blogging for this crime!

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    4. Or should i say It's not the Trunk version which is the best version,with afore mentioned Landlords Daughter track in place as heard on the film.

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    5. What you should have said, Jonny, after a moment of reflection before pounding the keyboard, is - "here's a link to the Trunk version".

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    6. Johnny would it be possible to get the other version? Please?

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  2. I liked The Wicker Man that I saw(Christopher Lee). It's pretty spooky to know there are isolated populations that are on auto-legislation since there are too many to keep track of. Especially on islands. But, I'm going to check out the Side Show album first! Thank you, farq!

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  3. Thanks! I've never heard the Paul Giovanni album, so I'm
    curious to give a listen.

    On the other hand, I do have quite a soft spot for The
    Wicker Man (1973) emphatically including the music. It's
    true that my tastes lean toward the idiosyncratic. On the
    OTHER other hand, everything connected with the original
    version of The Wicker Man leans toward the idiosyncratic,
    emphatically including the music. So there's that.

    I'm familiar with both the Trunk and Silva Screen versions
    of the soundtrack. I even have over here a supplementary
    [cash-in -- ED] collection called Willows Songs. It purports
    to be "The 12 Traditional Folk Songs That Inspired The
    Soundtrack To The Greatest British Horror Movie Of Our
    Generation" [i.e., The Wicker Man -- ED]. If push came to
    shove, I personally would describe that collection as
    idiosyncratic. Among the reasons for which it's interesting,
    if you're me, is that it contains an instrumental version,
    previously unavailable, of "Willows Song" as recorded by
    Lodestone, in other words, by what Magnet used to be.

    If there were ever an aesthetic plague, a culturovirus,
    such that all the artistic productions of the world fell at
    risk of flickering out, then I would hasten to quarantine,
    for safety's sake, that particular piece of The Wicker Man
    which, in the Silva Screen edition, is hidden away under the
    title "The Opening Music."

    It's an abbreviated variant -- just a couple of verses, the
    lyrics idiosyncratically tampered with by Paul Giovanni -- of
    Robert Burns' "The Highland Widow's Lament." The song
    commemorates one or maybe two among the various massacres
    of Scots Jacobites by British government troops. The recording,
    less than two minutes in duration, starts with seabird noises
    and then gives way to harmonizing female vocals and Northumbrian
    pipes layered over seaplane sounds.

    The main singer (who may or may not, through overdubbing, be the
    harmonizing vocalist, too) is one Leslie Mackie, who also appears
    as Daisy in the film's "beetle" scene. Sometime in the middle of
    the production process, she, along with other of the bit
    players, had happened by a pub. There it transpired, reportedly
    during her "guttural" rendition of a song from Edith Piaf,
    that Leslie Mackie was good for even more than acting. And so
    she was asked by the director, Robin Hardy, to sing the
    idiosyncratic variant of "The Highland Widow's Lament."
    (That, to me, is how absolutely precarious everything is.)
    She was paid £50 for her week's filming, £20 for singing
    "The Highland Widow's Lament," and £30 for tutoring Britt
    Ekland in what everyone decided ought to pass for the
    requisite Scots dialect.

    I very much like that recording -- the guttural vocals, the
    archaic lyrics, the archaic hornpipes, the guttural seaplane
    sounds. As a little package, it's a mechanical-biological
    kernel, and the rest of the film grows out from it. It seems
    to tell the whole story all in the one place, this being a
    tale of atavism's revenge upon modernity. Then again, though,
    that could just be me.

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    1. Erratum: It's "Lesley," not "Leslie."

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    2. Once again we get a comment that outshines the piece. Thank you, Mr. Devil.

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  4. so any chance of the Trunk version?

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    1. You'll have to ask Jonny. It's not on his blog, so I guess we'll just have to live without the pub singers. We can always watch the movie with our eyes shut.

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    2. The Trunk version is still available at this fantastic blog: http://hollandtunneldive.blogspot.com/.

      Just don't tell you-know-who!

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    3. no link on there unless it's very well hidden!

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    4. Here's a crash course in the protocol. Click on the green
      "Download" button near the top of the main page. Enter
      a search term such as "Magnet" or "Paul" or "Wicker," and
      then you'll be presented with the link.

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    5. Or, try this shortycutting:

      https://www94.zippyshare.com/v/j2ujlmnw/file.html

      (FOR):

      magnet & paul giovanni - the wicker man (trunk records edition) (320kb).zip

      Just don't tell jillem I said so...

      Oh, and...No PW.

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