Dot 25276
Producer: None listed
Track listing: Theme from a Summer Place / Tammy / Tracy’s Theme / Climb Every Mountain / Que Sera, Sera / The Terry Theme from Limelight / True Love / The Sound of Music / The Three Penny Opera / Some Enchanted Evening / All the Way / Sayonara
May 2, 1960
2 weeks mono (non-consecutive)
Randy Wood, the president of Dot Records and producer of most of the label’s sides, can still remember when phone call he received from Bud Dentridge, a Dearborn, Michigan-based retailer. “He said, ‘Make us an album with “Theme from a Summer Place” on it. You can put some other songs with it, but be sure you call it Theme from a Summer Place,'” Wood recalls. Dentridge sent Wood a copy of Percy Faith’s version of the of the song, which went on to top the Hot 100 on February 22, 1960. “It sounded good and Bud’s enthusiasm caused me to believe in it,” says Wood.
Excited by the possibilities, Wood took the idea to Dot Records musical director, arranger and conductor Billy Vaughn, already a star in his own right. Prior to 1960, Vaughn had two top 10 Albums to his credit: Sail Along Moon and Blue Hawaii, which reached number five and number seven in 1958 and 1959, respectively.
Even if Vaughn was less than thrilled about recording the theme from the 1959 film starring Dorothy McGuire, and other TV and film tunes, he trusted Wood’s instincts. “Billy and I had a great relationship,” Wood says. “If he didn’t agree with me, he would cooperate, and vice versa. We believed in each other, so if one felt strongly, the other the other would go along.”
With the project on its way, Vaughn and Wood selected the other tracks to round out the album, including “Tammy,” “Que Sera Sera,” and “The Sound of Music.” Says Wood, “We got a big orchestra together with lots of strings and English horns. We had as many musicians as we could afford in the big studio at United Recorders.” The sessions began on a Saturday morning at 9 a.m. “We finished the full album, all 12 sides, at 4 p.m.,” Wood recalls.
In order to get the album to the stores as soon as possible, while Faith’s “Theme From a Summer Place” was still hot, Wood had a mastering engineer on standby at the sessions. “Over the weekend he made the masters and sent them out to my house to be approved,” Wood recalls, “and by Tuesday, we were shipping records.”
It wasn’t too big of a surprise that Theme from a Summer Place became a hit album. The title track was still lodged in the collective consciousness of record-buyers; Vaughn’s trademark “twin saxophones” were a known commodity; and Mantovani, with his Film Encores album, had already proven that there was a healthy appetite for instrumental versions of movie music.
When Theme from a Summer Place hit the top in its seventh week on the Mono Action Albums chart, a record retailer named Bud Dentridge, Wood, and Vaughn had to be proud.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of May 2, 1960
1. Theme from a Summer Place, Billy Vaughn
2. Sixty Years of Music America Loves Best, Various artists
3. The Sound of Music , Original Cast
4. Italian Francis, Connie Francis
5. Sold Out, The Kingston Trio