Theme from A Summer Place
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The "Theme from A Summer Place" is a song with lyrics by Mack Discant and music by Max Steiner, written for the 1959 movie A Summer Place, which starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue. It is one of the most well known examples of beautiful music.
The song was a U.S. number-one hit instrumental for Percy Faith in 1960 and was the best-selling single of the year. It reached No. 2 in the UK. Faith re-recorded the song twice; first in 1969 as a female choral version, then in 1976 as a disco version titled "Summer Place 76". Percy Faith's version was not the one in the movie, which was recorded by Hugo Winterhalter. The song was the title cut of Billy Vaughn's 1960 No. 1 LP. The song was well-accepted by R&B audiences of the day, reaching No. 2 in the Billboard R&B singles chart.
"Theme from A Summer Place" was also covered by Dick Roman, The Tornados (both in 1962), The Lettermen in 1965 (placing at number sixteen in the Billboard charts) and The Ventures in 1969.
A very impressive jazz version of the song was also recorded by the legendary singer Julie London. It appeared on her LP called "Our Fair Lady" in 1965. "Theme from A Summer Place" with Julie London was also published on her album Best of Julie London in 2000.
American pop singer Eamon sampled "Theme from A Summer Place" for his 2006 song "Elevator". The melody serves to illustrate the song's exploration of "elevator music" as an aphrodisiac.
This was the first movie theme to win a Grammy Award for Record of the Year (1961). It still stands as the longest-running No. 1 instrumental hit in the U.S., running for 9 weeks. It was also the first instrumental recording to win Record of the Year.
The song ranked at #18 on Billboard's All Time Top 100.
