| »New Legitimacy To Pop Music by Ken Schaffer |
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From Hit Parader May 1967 THE LEFT BANKE Four young men who have become trademarked by a big, well-produced sound, the Left Banke, see the growing size of pop music orchestrations and productions as leading pop music to new acceptance in circles that never before paid attention to teen-oriented sounds. "Teen, or pop, or rock music has always been something that people in other branches of the music world went out of their way to disown. It seemed like everyone over twenty-five or so, or anyone who considered himself 'cultured' would put down beat music before even giving the better records a chance," explained Left Banke lead vocalist, Steve Martin. "But the scene has started changing within the last year. A lot of the rock recordings today really are well put together from a musical standpoint. Where a few years ago almost anything with a driving dance beat could make it, no matter how contrived it was, today kids are more sophisticated, and only get turned on by records that can hold water lyrically, and musically. Bass player Tom Finn explained, "Pop music still has its own characteristics that set it apart from classical or folk ... or opera. But it's starting to take ideas from all of these. The Beatles are starting to write numbers that are almost like symphonies. I hear the Who is experimenting with a teenage opera. Our own numbers take a lot from the Baroque and classical musical periods." "When you begin to narrow the limits between different kinds of music, you begin to get new 'converts,'" explained Drummer George Cameron. "Four years ago there were folk fans. and rock n' roll fans. Then the Byrds came along and created folk-rock. Now folk-rock, too, has sort of disintegrated. It hasn't disappeared, but the good parts of it have merged with Baroque, with hardrock, even with psychedelic, and made a new 'conglomerate' kind of music -- and the folk fans, blues bugs, and rock addicts have all joined hands and are together as "pop" fans. New art forms don't grow up overnight, but always take things that have been successful in the past and change them. Today's "pop" music is just a step in evolution --- but for the first time since rock music has been around, classical progressions and orchestrations are being used. The artists that have been able to use these classical points in their pop music, and who have done it well, have gotten new admirers for our kind of music -- from the ranks of people who only used to like classical music! "One day, maybe, there'll only be one kind of music, because all of the different bags we have today will burst, and get collected up in a giant vat, and get stirred around, and come out as one great, big happy bag!" That's the thought of Rick Brand, the group's "wise old man and chief morale keeper." He continued, "If that happens, though, it'll be a catastrophe for the record companies." Leader Steve summed up: "I think that what's happening is good for music. Now all sorts of people are starting to listen to our pop sounds, and it's a good feeling to know, for example, that Leonard Bernstein digs what's happening. (Leonard Bernstein singled out the Left Banke as one of the most sophisticated pop music groups in the country on a TV Special earlier m 1967.) The fact that the recording studio lets a four-man group have such a big production has dividends for the live concert-goer, too, I think. A group can't be successful if its records are dynamite and concerts leave a lot missing. We learned this the hard way in the beginning, because that was the case. We still have a lot to learn, but I think-we're coming along, and we're learning how to make our stage act and our stage manner serve as a more than adequate substitute for the orchestra that's left behind in the studio. Other groups are doing this, too, and it's all adding a lot more polish, professionalism, and respect to the pop scene." This seems to be the ONE respect in which all the Left Bankers agree: pop music is changing, and along with that chance (for the better, they insist) are the minds of alot of people who never found anything worthwhile in pop before! |
