🎵 AotW AOTW: Peter Allen - TAUGHT BY EXPERTS (SP-4584)

[LPJim]

Peter Allen
TAUGHT BY EXPERTS
A&M SP-4584

TRACKS:

Puttin' Out Roots/ She Loves to Hear the Music/ Back Doors Crying/ I Go to Rio/ Planes/

Quiet Please, There's a Lady on the Stage/ This Time Around/ The More I See You/ Harbour/ (I've Been) Taught by Experts.


CREDITS:

Vocals: Abigale Harness, Brenda Russell, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield
Violins: Alfred Lustagarten, Albert Steinberg, Bobby Bruce
Viola: Allen Harshman
Percussion: Alan Estes, Barry Lazarowtiz (Engineer).

For more information:


www.bluedesert.dk/peterallen.html


JB

 

[Dave]

Jim Keltner: Drums
Dan Neufeld: Viola
Alfred Lustgarten: Violin
Jacob Krachmalnick: Violin
Robert Sushel: Violin
Mari Tsumura: Violin
Gregory Connell: Vocals (Background)
Jerry Reish: Violin
Richard Littlefield: Guitar
Joy Lyle: Violin
Jim Gordon: Drums
Victor Sazer: Cello
Bill Nuttycombe: Violin
Frederick Seykora: Cello
Marilyn Baker: Violin
Henry Sigismonti: French Horn
George Kast: Violin
Jacqueline Lustgarten: Cello
Thomas Buffum: Violin
Catherine Gotthoffer: Harp
Jerome Richardson: Saxophone
Brenda Russell: Vocals (Background)
Barry Lazarowitz: Percussion
Peter Allen Keyboards, Main Performer, Vocals
Jules Chaiken: Trumpet
Herb Pedersen: Banjo
Charles Larkey: Bass
Buell Neidlinger: Vocals
Bob Merritt: Engineer
Virginia Majewski: Viola
Allan Harshman: Viola
Abigale Haness: Vocals (Background)
John Jarvis: Organ, Keyboards, Piano
Lesley Gore: Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Bobby Bruce: Violin
Shari Zippert: Violin
Brooks Arthur: Engineer, Producer
Albert Steinberg: Violin
John Thomas Johnson: Tuba
Christie Thompson: Vocals (Background)
Dusty Springfield: Vocals (Background)
Thom Rotella: Guitar
Gerald Vinci: Violin
Judy Elliott: Vocals (Background)
Stanley Plummer: Violin
Robert Ostrowsky: Viola
Chuck Domanico: Bass
Gloria Strassner: Cello
Alan Estes: Percussion
Marvin Limonick: Violin
Shirley Cornell: Violin

Herb Alpert: Guest Trumpet on "The More I See You"...!



Dave

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I remember hearing "The More I See You" a lot on a local EZ station - with the nice trumpet solo by Herb Alpert - and finally picked up this album in a used record store. There's a couple of good tunes here, including the classic "I Go To Rio" and "This Time Around". The title tune is a clever, bluesy piece. A pretty decent release.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[Dave]

This is really one of Brooks Arthur's productions... (Produced & Engineered by Brooks Arthur) The Primary Recording Location: The Record Plant (as a lot of Arthur's later boast on back covers/inner-sleeves) Additional Recording done at: (as a lot of Arthur's also later boast on back covers/inner-sleeves) Sunset Sound...

Brooks had been a producer/engineer for Janis Ian (since the beginning of her career) as well as working with Dusty Springfield on Longings her previously-unreleased 1974 LP...

And his later clients, working with this sort of production/engineering have been Keith Carradine, Carol Bayer-Sager, Bernadette Peters and Debbie Boone...



Dave

--A one-time prime collector of PRODUCED & ENGINEERED BY BROOKS ARTHUR, sort of stuff...

 

[Mr Bill]

Probably my favorite of Mr. Allen's A&M LPs. I only got into his music by virtue of discovering a promo 45 of "The More I See You" way back in '79. Ironic that Mr. Allen died in my new hometown of San Diego...

--Mr Bill

 

[Dave]

Puttin' Out Roots: A banjo-driven excursion that really makes "staying in one place so long" seem like such a bad thing... Easily a paen about Allen's "roots" in Tettenfeild, Austrailia to taking on the world...

She Loves To Hear The Music: A '45' single candidate and a simple ostinado about a secretary at a recording company who enjoys hearing others get recorded and never getting the chance at making a record deal, herself... A few "Moooaaaannns" by Leslie Gore emphasize how much this secretary needs her 15-minutes of fame--or why she's NOT getting it and of course, at least settling for what she does "get"...

Back Doors, Crying: "...'Cause I was looking in back doors, crying, while you were out front waitin' to make me smile..." Yeah, the kind'a Peter Allen song John Travolta would do... And not the "back doors" that are crying, either, but someone "at them" getting "let in"--just the usual aphoristic storyline bulit up from Peter's usual brand of cliches and metaphors...

I Go To Rio: Yeah, this one was also '45' single-worthy... Peter's experiences in Brasil, actually originally done by cabaret performer Carmen Miranda, giving us a bit of a "Sergio Mendes-side of Allen"... An adaptable enough number that Pablo Cruise covered it and Peter would later do this Live (though having had the Live version on a compilation, as opposed to the Studio version, it gets rather overindulgent; my ex- wanted to hear it up until the Percussion solos at the song's climax)...

Planes: Yeah, another "travel song" like "...Roots" was... And only 'cause "Charter Busses" wouldn't fit... Allen can somehow write his own in-flight experiences here with so far, avoiding any reference to Patsy Cline, Otis Redding, The Big Bopper, Richie Valens or Buddy Holly...

Quiet Please, There's a Lady on the Stage: Another number which also made it to a '45' single, too... And it's dedicated to Allen's wife, Liza Minnelli, who forged a singing career herself playing in noisy clubs and the drunk patrons refusing to ever acknowledge the performer trying to earn her dues, even if she wasn't "the latest Barbra Streisand singing sensation"...

This Time Around: Yow, usually it's "The Second Time Around, you hear your love songs sung..." but here it's learning a lesson the first time and not trying to "repeat a same mistake made before"...

The More I See You: Unusual for Peter to cover someone else's song and on a '45' single it delivered a very quality hit sung in Allen's quasi-showbizzy cabaret... And of course the Herb Alpert trumpet solo the song climaxes with becomes such a lively highpoint, doing more than making a return to Alpert's discovery of Chris Montez, whom he produced the very first version of back in 1963...

Harbor: Well, how often have we had to be "someone's harbor" or ever NEEDED "someone's harbor", not wanting to be drifting out at sea in love trying to catch on with someone and hoping to really set sail...??? Also available as a '45' single... Covered by the likes of Jack Jones, among others...

(I've Been) Taught by Experts: Yes, a very sombre closing set to an often traditional Brooks Arthur production approach of just an acoustic guitar, acoustic bass and drums and the entire song being done in one Live take... And Allen conveying a story line about as though being "mentored" in his approach of making love...

A good album I was lucky to find a good copy of and continues Allen's special brand of camp and cabaret with such tour de force in even the ballads... A continuation of Peter's humble earlier approach along with newfound ambition to branch out to much better recognition in Easy Listening/Rock circles...



Dave