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Classical Beatles

J

johnbasalla

I was at a school early in the 8:00 am hour this morning, and the teacher in one of the classrooms had WCLV on. They played two instrumental versions of the Paul McCartney composed pieces "Eleanor Rigby", followed immediately by "Yesterday". Unfortunately, the radio was shut off before the announcer came on who, I would hope, would give the name of the performer(s). The versions played sounded more like what one used to hear on Beautiful Music stations. I guess that's ok because that's how my sister uses WCLV anyway. From the late 1960s on, there are many Beautiful Music versions of selected Beatles songs. There are also symphony orchestra albums of Beatles music, so it was kind of curious that they wouldn't have chosen one that has a classical, symphonic sound. This occurrence, most likely wouldn't have happened at the WCLV of the 1970s.

At Baldwin Wallace University, students from their world-famous Conservatory of Music perform a live Beatles music show annually (minus the lockdown time). Conservatory Professors have, occasionally, been involved. I can't quite place it, time-wise, but at some point, some Beatles music crossed over to becoming seriously respected art ... "serious music". "Dust In The Wind" by Kansas is another song that comes to mind as a potential usable piece.
 
skiwest said:
I checked the WCLV playlist from the time frame you mentioned and found this:

View attachment 7744
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OK. Thanks. I stand corrected. The pieces played were from a noted Classical performance group, but it didn't sound that way to me. This one reminded me more like a Mantovani-type.
One of the things I collect are remakes/covers of Beatles songs, and I have some by symphonies and philharmonic orchestras.
I have at least one remake/cover of every Beatles song that they recorded except for the last one, finally released in 2023, "Now and Then".
 
Listened to it on Youtube. I actually liked that version. It sent me down a rabbit hole....Boston Pops has a version. Then there's this:
 
I seem to recall a group, maybe Hampden String Quartet, that released CDs of various pop songs. The Beatles, Stairway to Heaven, California Girls and others performed in Classical form by a quartet. I believe the first time I heard one was on XHLNC when it was doing a classical format.
 
The easy listening stations back in the day played a lot of stuff by the Hollyridge Strings. There was also 101 Strings, Paul Mauriat, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Hugo Winterhalter, Mantovani and a bunch more that I can't remember.
 
Don’t forget the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has done a series of pop albums recently with artists such as Beach Boys, Carpenters and Elvis (or at least recordings featuring their vocals backed by the orchestra).
 
My dad also had an album of Dylan songs covered by a classical guitarist from the 60's that was really bizarre. I wish I could remember who the classical guitarist was.
 
skiwest said:
The easy listening stations back in the day played a lot of stuff by the Hollyridge Strings. There was also 101 Strings, Paul Mauriat, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Hugo Winterhalter, Mantovani and a bunch more that I can't remember. Oh, The Living Strings.
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And they all did a Beatles tune, or more. In fact, The Hollyridge Strings made a career out of making a number of albums with remakes of Beatles song. Percy Faith and His Orchestra put out a whole LP of Beatles tunes.
 
johnbasalla said:
And they all did a Beatles tune, or more. In fact, The Hollyridge Strings made a career out of making a number of albums with remakes of Beatles song. Percy Faith and His Orchestra put out a whole LP of Beatles tunes.
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Hollyridge Strings also had other artist covers, like Beach Boys. And remember that the better Beautiful Music format syndicators had their own custom recorded versions of many of those songs.
 
skiwest said:
The easy listening stations back in the day played a lot of stuff by the Hollyridge Strings. There was also 101 Strings, Paul Mauriat, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Hugo Winterhalter, Mantovani and a bunch more that I can't remember.
Click to expand...
Also, don't forget Frank Chacksfield's version of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun", which closed "The Morning Exchange" on channel 5 for many years.
 
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