Friday, May 31, 2019

Les Baxter Tribute.



Here's my collected information, shares and snippets on the father of exotica Les Baxter.

Facts about Les Baxter:

  • He wrote the "Whistle" theme from the TV show Lassie.
  • In the 1960s, he formed the Balladeers, a besuited and conservative folk group that at one time featured a young David Crosby.
  • In his 1996 appreciation for Wired magazine, writer David Toop remembered Baxter thus: "Baxter offered package tours in sound, selling tickets to sedentary tourists who wanted to stroll around some taboo emotions before lunch, view a pagan ceremony, go wild in the sun or conjure a demon, all without leaving home hi-fi comforts in the white suburbs."
  • Les Baxter has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6314 Hollywood Blvd.
  • Baxter did not restrict his activities to recording. As he once told Soundtrack! magazine, "I never turn anything down".
  • Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as "What Is This Thing Called Love?".
STOP PRESS:

Jungle Jazz and Teen Drums added in sidebar thanks to Distant Earth blog.

New link to Festival of the Gnomes. I'd never even heard of this before I did the album list and now I've found it!

Voices in Rythym now posted thanks to Kelly's Lounge Sounds.

Links now re-organised slightly. Soundtracks and Compilations now have their own section. On that basis the Capitol and Reprise sections are now complete.

17 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Great! Fantastic! Keep going on with Les. The King of exotica. And what a pity that so few people left a comment. I don't understand for there are so many Les fans. I hope for more.

    Thanks, Ron

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  2. Les Baxter also wrote songs for Martin Denny to perform and record. Les was a musical genius.
    I love all the Les Baxter albums I Have!!!

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  3. hi, thanks for this wonderful blog... so much to get!!! i just found an excellent copy of lex baxter's "young pops" this morning and i see you are still in need of a linked copy. will be posting soon on my my blog and will come post link. thanks for the excellent effort in bringing together the music of an amazing man.

    david.
    subway-detour.blogspot.com

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  4. thanks detour looking forward to the post

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  5. I just kind of "found" The Lost Episode by accident while looking for something else:

    http://niceandeasy-waldomusic.blogspot.com/2009/06/les-baxter-lost-episode.html

    Jonathan

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  6. Thank you very much for this site. It's a great and excellent idea.

    There is a cd of the year 2004 that isn't on your list: 'The pop side'

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  7. According to the All Music Guide the Pop Side released in 2000 is a compilation of his non exotica sides already contained in other releases listed here.

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  8. Yes, like Baxter's Best

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  9. If it's not much to ask, but perhaps Scott had The Primitive and the Passionate from CD with better quality, if you don't upset.
    I'm a little perfectionist... :)
    Great many thanks to the two.

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  10. Les composed music for Seaworlds and theme parks. Does anyone know if these recirdings are still extant? Another question I have is whether there is still unreleased recordings of his music sitting in the Capitol vaults?

    You can't hve too much, you know!

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  11. For those interested, I've posted "Les Baxter Music Of The 60's", a promotional album from Capitol and Van de Kamps. In mono; you can find it here

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  12. Thanks Macs for the post

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  13. I have "The Cry of the Banshee" and (if im not wrong) "The House of Usher". I'll try to send you both links today, if you'd like it.

    thanks for the great blog and massive collection.

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  14. The 2 Distant Earth contributions (Jungle Jazz and Teen Drums) are no longer valid links. Does anyone have links for these two albums?

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  15. Baxter's Best link is also dead.

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  16. What about the yma Sumac album "miracles"???

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  17. Hi .. this is a great resource, thank you. I am trying to spread the word of Les Baxter.

    Your link to "(1956) Les Baxter's La Femme" is down if you're able to repost it please?

    Thanks.

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