Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66: Studio Session Photos

[5 Marsak Lane]

I'm too new a member to be able to post links to photos I've found, but perhaps members would like share those of sessions at Annex Recorders and Radio Recorders, 1966, 1967.

 

[Mike Smith]

There are some studio photos in the documentary, Sergio Mendes In the Key of Joy and a very few others around the web (do a Google search).

For a group of Brazil '66's, they had very few publicity photos and never did a live album in the USA. Very odd.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

There are some studio photos in the documentary, Sergio Mendes In the Key of Joy and a very few others around the web (do a Google search).

For a group of Brazil '66's, they had very few publicity photos and never did a live album in the USA. Very odd.

TJB didn’t do a live album either, and they were bigger. In fact, I don’t recall a live album on A&M before Joe Cocker’s MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN, and after that, FREE LIVE.

 

[Harry]

It seems that many of A&M's live albums from the classic days all came out in the UK or Japan.

Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 - LIVE AT EXPO '70 and IN CONCERT (Greek Theater).
Bossa Rio - LIVE AT EXPO '70
Burt Bacharach - LIVE IN JAPAN
Carpenters - LIVE IN JAPAN and LIVE AT THE PALLADIUM

None of those were released in the States.

 

[Harry]

An early photo of Brasil '66, I believe this was at Herb Alpert's house where they were performing:

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Just guessing here but it looks like they are at the climactic moment of "Night and Day." Specifically, on the "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaay"

 

[Rudy]

I want to know who that stranger is, lurking on the stairway.

 

[Harry]

He's the designated lurker of course! (Today it's called "face-bombing")

Here's another photo with a different designated lurker:

 

[JOv2]

I want to know who that stranger is, lurking on the stairway.

I think it is Gil Friesen (directly behind Herb in the photo below, which was probably taken 1965-1966).

 

[Michael Hagerty]

He's the designated lurker of course! (Today it's called "face-bombing")

Here's another photo with a different designated lurker:

This is the only picture I've ever seen of Andy Williams where there's someone not as tall as he was in the shot.

 

[JOv2]

This is the only picture I've ever seen of Andy Williams where there's someone not as tall as he was in the shot.

Yep. According to "the internet" he's short...only about 5' 8".

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Yep. According to "the internet" he's short...only about 5' 8".

They've been rounding up over time. Andy was 5' 6 1/2"---which he'd round up to 5' 7". Had a sense of humor about it though, as this duet with Paul Williams (5' 2") showed:

 

[JOv2]

They've been rounding up over time. Andy was 5' 6 1/2"---which he'd round up to 5' 7". Had a sense of humor about it though, as this duet with Paul Williams (5' 2") showed:

Andy would have had 3" on Paul Simon, listed at 5' 3", who was on his show back in '68.

 

[AM Matt]

I read in "Us" magazine in 1978 that the late Billy Barty hated Randy Newman's "Short People" song so he tried to smashed it with his shoes!!!

 

[JOv2]

I had the privilege of sitting about 10' from Newman's feet at a show he did at Bimbo's (in SF) about 25 years ago. While I can't comment on his height, I would surmise his shoe size was round about 12-13.

 

[AM Matt]

"Tall People" by Steve Lawrence & the late Tim Conway also from 1978.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I had the privilege of sitting about 10' from Newman's feet at a show he did at Bimbo's (in SF) about 25 years ago. While I can't comment on his height, I would surmise his shoe size was round about 12-13.

Randy's bio has him at six feet even.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

"Tall People" by Steve Lawrence & the late Tim Conway also from 1978.

This is what I disliked so strongly about that era---people who you knew had enormous talent who would blow it on stuff like this.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I had the privilege of sitting about 10' from Newman's feet at a show he did at Bimbo's (in SF) about 25 years ago. While I can't comment on his height, I would surmise his shoe size was round about 12-13.

...that might explain why Cynthia Plaster Caster gets a mention in the Warner/Reprise radio ad from February of 1970 promoting Randy's album "12 Songs".

 

[JOv2]

I wanted to tell him we probably had the same shoe size, but he quickly signed one autograph and split. In any event, my memory of the show was watching these Fred Flintstone feet pounding on the floor (and rarely engaging the piano pedals)!

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I've saved the radio ad---it's a gem---but it looks like the "attach files" function doesn't accommodate audio files. Send me a PM with an e-mail address, JOv2, and I'll send it to you or anyone else here who'd like to hear it.

 

[JOv2]

Offer accepted -- and thank you kindly, Michael. (RN is one of only two 1960s pop artists whose contemporary releases I continue to purchase.)

 

[5 Marsak Lane]

Were there photos of band members in-studio while making the "Look Around" album?​

​

What I love so much about Brasil '66 is how their music changed and how it didn't. That the first albums were this perfect fusion of samba/bossa nova/jazz while "Look Around" announced the beginning of a lush, orchestral sound. That continued with the next two albums, though the band never lost their unique Brazilian roots, all through on to the album title track "Ye Me Le". We are truly blessed to have the best of it all from these supremely gifted musicians, vocalists, writers, arrangers and engineers.​

 

[rockdoctor]

This is what I disliked so strongly about that era---people who you knew had enormous talent who would blow it on stuff like this.

Here is a funny note on the "Height Songs." In the late fifties, there was a song by Annette Funicello called Tall Paul. A short time later, Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote a spoof song called Short Mort. The latter is on a cd of demos and early singles by Carole King called it Might As Well Rain Until September.

 

[AM Matt]

Canadian duo Gary (Weeks) & Dave (Beckett) did the Carole King remake in 1974.