Sunset Strip

77 Sunset Strip

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• published: 19 Mar 2016
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From “TV Guide Top Television Themes,” Warner Bros. W 1290, arranged and conducted by Warren Barker and Frank Comstock. Released in 1959, the LP contains twelve of the most popular theme songs of the era. From the uncredited liner notes: Quite aside from selling soup, acting as a babysitter, and pushing the art of conversation back to the days of smoke signals and wigwagging, the fascinating medium of television has made a rather extraordinary contribution to contemporary American Music. Considering that most television shows are put together in something under four days, it must be marked down as remarkable that the medium has produced such songs as Davy Crockett and Let Me Go Lover, popularized such operas as “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” and made national passwords out of such four-note signatures as “Dragnet’s” now immortal dum-dee-dum-dum. Television’s unique contribution, however, has been in the field of the theme song, whether it be for a show or a cigarette or “see the U.S.A. in a C--v----t.” Intrigued by not only the growing popularity of TV’s theme songs but even more by some of the fresh, new sounds and extraordinary harmonies to be heard in these themes, Warner Bros. Records asked the editors of “TV Guide” to select a list of 12 outstanding TV shows whose themes are rapidly being written into our music folklore. For its part, Warner Bros. Records assigned arranger-conductors Warren Barker and Frank Comstock to give these themes new and sparkling treatments, hewing to the line of the modern school [of] arranging and composition while at the same time not allowing themselves to be lured too far out. We at “TV Guide” feel they have succeeded admirably, combining the freshness of a Henry Mancini with the zest of an Igor Stravinsky and finding, too, a swinging and unusual beat without resorting to what might be called a musical beatnik approach.