It’s my pleasure to present James Last ‘Classics Up To Date’ from 1966.

This is from Mirko’s private record collection and is in remarkably good condition considering its over 50 years old and used to be played on a Kreisler Stereogram using a low grade BSR automatic record changer with about 6gms tracking, ouch !

It’s not been played much and I remember hearing it the early 70’s on a few Sunday afternoons.

It’s typical James Last easy listening sound, everything has been sonically and melodically blended into a high calorie smooth cheesecake texture for mature adults into Hi Fi and maybe with a bottle of wine as accompaniment with an almost aural soporific feel to it to help you… zzzzzz

All selections are staple ‘classic’ classics melodies, canned into a 3.20 easy digestible format.

There’s a bit of a nod to the Kaempfert horn sound in some selections, you could surmise that a lot of the 60’s instrumental band leaders listened to the others recordings to see what sounds were doing the rounds and add bits that could be subtly referenced in their next instrumental album.

‘March Of The Toreadors’ could take off into the Thunderbirds theme as it has a very strong march cadence to it so James must have had respect for the work of Barry Gray who wrote all those Gerry Anderson TV themes.

I often wonder about the studio singers and chorus as to what direction they were given during recording sessions, ok at the count of 3, lots of la la la’s and can you whistle consistently in tune ?

The arrangements here make the music of Enya, sound almost hard core by comparison lol.

The surface noise has been de-clicked and levels evened out, that’s it.

Played on a Technics SL-1210M3D Turntable with a Hana SL MC Cartridge, plus Musical Fidelity M1 VINYL Phono Pre Amp.

HANA SL Cartridge : Review
https://fromvinyltoplastic.com/hana-sl-mc-phono-cartridge-review/

James Last : U Tube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcl2oWfsQ1vw1MxjLJrg-VQ

James Last RIP : born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 - 9 June 2015)
http://m.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33079806

In 2015, James Last retired at age 85 due to an undisclosed illness, which is fair enough, if he could oversee the re-release of his back catalogue mastered to digital with each individual album, that would be a project well worth pursing for posterity.
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32140268

Links :
http://easylistening.blogspot.com.au/2005/11/james-last-classics-up-to-date-1966.html

Wiki : James Last
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Last

Who Sampled :
https://www.whosampled.com/album/James-Last/Classics-Up-To-Date/