Blog Post: A Few Defining Moments in a Lifetime of Library

[Retronic]

When the ‘Sound Gallery’ came out it was another compilation in the vein I loved and this was really the start of my library music experience. Here was a stream of KPM tracks that I hadn’t yet linked to all this incidental stuff I was always listening to.


Here's some personal memories of library music & me!
What’s your story?


retroteque.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/a-few-defining-moments-in-a-lifetime-of-library/

[Greta]

Great story. Thank you for sharing.
I wish you to own a full run of De Wolfes at 60, or 55 why not, or even 70, better late than never. It will be a huge satisfaction..

[stackjackson]

That was a good read, Retro. "Sound Gallery" was one of the first comps that introduced me also to "library music" as a distinct category, something out there I needed to explore.

[Retronic]

Now with a Soundtrack
www101.zippyshare.com/v/XmrfBz73/file.html

1 Mini Link 11 – Johnny Pearson
  2 The Awakening – Johnny Pearson
  3 Cock Of The Roost – D. Jackson
  4 A Hippo Called Hubert – Joe Griffiths
  5 Mini Movement – Johnny Pearson
  6 Glad Gadabout – Johnny Scott
  7 Goofy – Cliff John
  8 The Free Life – Alan Parker
  9 Brass Monkey – John Cameron
  10 Chicken Man – Alan Hawkshaw
  11 Mini Link 10 – Johnny Pearson
  12 The Good Word – Johnny Scott
  13 Gala Performance – Laurie Johnson
  14 Approaching Menace – Neil Richardson
  15 Studio 69 – Alan Hawkshaw
  16 Motivation – Alan Parker
  17 Darkside – Brian Bennett
  18 Summer’s Coming – Keith Mansfield
  19 Time Zero – Hervι Roy
  20 Mask of Death – Jack Trombey
  21 Pop March – Johnny Pearson
  22 In Danger – Brian Bennett
  23 Unease – David Lindup
  24 Funky Sunrise – Duncan Lamont
  25 The Plot – Brian Bennett
  26 Funky Feeling – Miki Antony/Barry Blue/Tom Parker
  27 Riot – Johnny Pearson
  28 Industrial Sabotage – Johnny Pearson
  29 Fugitive – Johnny Pearson
  30 Breaking Out – Ray Russell
  31 Computer Crime – George Fenton/ Ken Freeman
  32 The Four Winds – Richard Harvey
  33 Life Of Leisure – Keith Mansfield
  34 Wild Elephants – James Clarke

[Flemming]

Thanks for the beautiful story and soundtrack 

[radioman]

It's good to read this back-story. I'm 7 years older and remember the same feelings I got from old tv themes, adverts & the test card. I didn't start picking up library music until I found a bunch of mainly KPMs, a few Peer Int etc -  in the attic of somewhere I worked. Then I got on a few mailing lists, Chappell, Atmos, and such like. And bought the Sound Gallery type compilations. And also listened regularly to a 'light music' programme on Radio 3 (which featured a lot of the 1950s newsreel type stuff. My cut-off point, then, for good library tunes was around 1977 - and I didn't watch Prisoner or horror/skinflicks. But, now, as my tastes get broader, I find it interesting to delve around the edges of the more modern tracks you've put together. I also find I've a deeper respect than I used to have for the Italian stuff. Glad to be part of the gang  , although sad to not be in a position to share very much 
I have put some of the music I like on my Youtube channel but haven't added any for a long while:

.

[Retronic]

It makes me feel nostalgic reading your post! I'm a big Peer International fan.  I met some guy who found a pile at the tip!  He sold them individually on eBay and made good money on them.

[keir]

Thank you, that was great.

I never had any of the comps, going straight to the library albums, but I've come to appreciate how well compiled albums like The Sound Gallery were as time and time again I pick a particularly tasty track and find out that they picked it too.

My first 'library double-take' came from watching The Sweeney, in the early 90s perhaps, and hearing a seductive track which I knew from a much later Boddington's advert. Can't remember what it was now, but I did later stumble across it later on a library album.

I've thought for ages that when we got to the point where we have all our info on a wiki or something we should include where the track has been heard in the wild.

[zach]

god i wish they would have kept the original ending for Dawn of the Dead, way better thought than what they ended up going with. still love the film though, favourite effects ever (maybe tied with The Thing).

anyway, great read. for me it all started with:



when i found out it was library music, i started searching around, somehow stumbled onto the original forum. glad i did.

[Lord Thames]

My first 'library double-take' came from watching The Sweeney, in the early 90s perhaps, and hearing a seductive track which I knew from a much later Boddington's advert. Can't remember what it was now, but I did later stumble across it later on a library album.

Ah, I think I know the one - was it Smoke Rings by Roger Webb?  I thought I recognised it from somewhere other than The Sweeney, must have been the Boddingtons ad.

[Timmer]

Retro! Totally enjoyed your chronicle of how library tunes invaded your life. Your other interests and circumstances are strikingly similar to mine. And many others among us, I reckon. You asked, "What's your story?". Here's a shortish version...

Barely a teenager in 1970, I heard the Capitol Hi-Q cuts in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. I knew I'd heard some of the music before, just didn't know where. The movie was so incredible that I listened to everything with a heightened awareness. It was my first real notion that a film's music wasn't necessarily original to it. I needed to find out why and how to get my hands on it. Thus, the hook was set.

To somewhat mirror your "Stop, Look, Listen" moment in Miss Blackwell's class, I was in high school--Mr. Crater's World History class--where I watched a 16mm short subject entitled "The Mythology of Greece and Rome" (which can be viewed here if desired: archive.org/details/mythologyofgreeceandrome_201505). Its lush main title stunned me. Absolutely taken by it. By then I knew enough that it had to be a library piece. As a kid in the 70s with such an esoteric interest, trying to research the music's source was near impossible.

Skip ahead a couple of decades when me and a friend were doing some trading. He pulled out a library LP--something he happened to have, but didn't collect--and offered it up. It was Boosey and Hawkes SEA, LAKE, ETC. (SBH 2998) and I gladly traded for it. Lo and behold! Trevor Duncan's BROAD REACH (Side A - Cut 1B) thrust me back into Mr. Crater's classroom, for there, playing on my turntable (!), was what I had only known as the main title for "The Mythology of Greece and Rome." I dang near cried.

Your 100 KPM records find (my Gawd!) reminded me of a book and record sale I went to in NYC during the 80s. For 75 cents each I bought roughly 80 CAM LPs that were unplayed. It was thanks to a friend's tip that I even bothered to go.

Also wanted to thank you for all of the sensational comps you've created. Clearly the work of a learned hand 

[Retronic]

Wow. I loved reading that and similar to my experience. Had loads of those moments when you find a track that has been special to you for some reason!   Cheers for sharing.