Martin Denny - The Exotic Sounds Of Martin Denny (1957/2019) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Aloha, hep cats. A question: what do blockbusting novelist James Michener, Fifties America's most influential newspaper columnist Walter Winchell and John Sturges, director of The Magnificent Seven, have in common? Answer: They all wrote sleeve-notes for the albums of 'exotic sounds' released by Hawaiian-based band leader, composer and arranger Martin Denny. 'Martin Denny's music is becoming so famous', wrote Sturges on the cover of the 1958 classic Quiet Village, 'it's a little pointless for me to tell you how wonderful it is. If you've already heard it you know, and if you haven't, stop reading this right now….put on the record and play it' For, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the 'exotic sounds of Martin Denny' took Cold War America by storm. Denny released 37 albums for Liberty Records, which sold over 4 million copies. In 1957, his first LP, Exotica, hit number one in both the Variety and Billboard charts, and the single taken from it, 'Quiet Village' (which appeared again the following year on the eponymous album), made number two. A rash of releases followed.

There were often three or four LPs in the charts at one time, all with suitably evocative covers and suitably evocative titles: Exoticas 2 and 3, Forbidden Island, Primitiva, Hypnotique, Afro-Desia. Denny and his band toured all over the United States and the Pacific Basin, playing everything from huge concert halls to small college venues. (He even made it to Western Samoa, although never, sadly, to Europe). Then, as middle America's interest in purely 'exotic sounds' began to wane, so Martin Denny made records that reflected broader, more contemporary tastes: Exotic Sounds of the Silver Screen, Exotic Sounds Visit Broadway and finally Exotic Moog (his last LP for Liberty, released in 1969). In 1990, Denny was tempted back into the recording studio to make an album of old and new tunes for the Japanese market, entitled simply Exotica 90 ; however, he is not in a hurry to repeat the experience. 'When you try to rewrite something, you loose some of the essence,' he admits. 'You can't go home again, you know.' Now aged 84 and living in semi-retirement in Honolulu, Denny still occasionally plays live locally, but that's it. 'The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny' is therefore, a compilation of tracks taken from Martin Denny's early days in the land of the hula. Brimful of fresh ideas, Hawaiian balm and Oriental promise, this album shows how and ihy Martin Denny justly became the uncrowned King of Exotica.

TRACKLIST

1. Martin Denny - Quiet Village (Remastered)
2. Martin Denny - Isle of Love (Remastered)
3. Martin Denny - Manila (Remastered)
4. Martin Denny - Diga Diga Doo (Remastered)
5. Martin Denny - When First I Love (Remastered)
6. Martin Denny - Swamp Fire (Remastered)
7. Martin Denny - Bali Hai (Remastered)
8. Martin Denny - Time And Tide (Remastered)
9. Martin Denny - Flamingo (Remastered)
10. Martin Denny - Hypnotique (With Sitar Remastered)
11. Martin Denny - Stone God (Remastered)
12. Martin Denny - The Enchanted Isle (Remastered)
13. Martin Denny - Ringo Oiwake - Firecrackers (Remastered)
14. Martin Denny - Tune From Rangoon (Remastered)
15. Martin Denny - Oro (God of Vengeance) (Remastered)
16. Martin Denny - Malia (Remastered)
17. Martin Denny - August Bells (Remastered)
18. Martin Denny - Jungle Drums (Remastered)
19. Martin Denny - Llama Serenade (Peruvian Llama Song) (Remastered)
20. Martin Denny - Hava Nagila - Scimitar (Remastered)



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