Just a quick comment - what a great CD! Congrats FSM on such a fine release. Now, if we can get "The Homecoming - A Christmas Story" (1971/Goldsmith) on CD.
This is a great release. Most of HAWKINS and WINTER KILL are avant guard, some really strange and wonderful stuff. They show some of the experimentation that Goldsmith was doing on TV during the 70's. Babe is a beautiful, simple score, almost like a ballad. Thanks FSM.
A KEY Goldsmith release..Some of us are old enough to remember recording this music off the television onto bad sounding cassette tapes, all the while quietly (trying to be, anyway!!) shooing family out of the room!! All of Goldsmith's early television work was an extraordinary, prolific period in his early career..My favorite period in his career..These 3 scores finally, and gratefully released by FSM prove it..We all owe Lukas a debt of thanks..
Again, Bravo Lukas and company. The Jon Burlingame line notes are very interesting - compelling me to read this before listening to the CD.
The sound quality is amazing, considering the time period and medium for which these scores were recorded. One would have thought that a stereo version would be impossible, given the cheap monophonic television sound back in the 70's.
Didn't MTS stereo for television come out in like 1983 or 1984? All of my second season AMAZING stories episodes from 1986 are in stereo from NBC (and the stereo sound from the cable was buzzing, compressed, limited, and auto-attenuated!)
Hey. I take evry release as it comes. Sure, we all have secret wishes. I have mine. But I won't harp on the fact that I appreciate what we have now, and what we don't have.
Certainly there was a time period 15 or 16 years ago in which we didn't even think that such things are possible.
Now, these are a reality.
I know that Goldsmith has often mentioned that he feels that there are too many cd's of his around. I disagree. When it comes to his body of work and it's diversity, it is not over-saturation.
Jerry, (If you're reading), Over saturation and too many cd releases are when you go to the Tower Records on a Saturday afternoon and are inundated with 500 different recordings of Ravel Bolero on CD, not knowing which one to get or is best.
These three scores have a distinct style and sound that can't be discounted from his body of work.
That's enough rambling from me. I have to get back to important things - like sleep!
I've been "rediscovering" this great release and Hawkins/Winter Kill/Babe is everything that Jerry had on the ball back in the early Seventies: the sensitive acoustic guitar (shades of Take a Hard Ride), synth sounds (Logan's Run) and string writing reminiscent of Papillon. Jerry's telling quote about TV music of the time really drove home how much TV music has lost in the ensuing years, but thankfully we have this release containing some of Goldsmith's best TV music. I'm particularly enjoying Winter Kill, a film I'd love to see. Seems like Andy Griffith wandered that "lost highway" during the 1970s before finally settling into Matlock in the 1980s.
I now have the pilot episode for Hawkins on a dvd copied from a decent source tape by Ed.
TBS used to show Hawkins and Winter Kill all the time. Alas, those days are over it seems. Hold onto and transfer those vhs tapes!
Good stuff.
Yeah, TBS was always good for that mid-day "Telefilm." Stuff like Deliver Us from Evil regularly made the rounds many a dull afternoon or on late at night if the Atlanta Braves were mercifully rain delayed on a west coast road jag.
When the FSM print issue ran out a year ago or so, I got to pick two CD's as compensation. I took a chance on this because I liked the sound clips of all the MAIN THEMES. However, when the CD arrived, I was VERY disappointed. The rest of the score was meandering, directionless plunking. I love experimental/dissonant/textural music in general, but this just left me completely cold and was in fact a bit annoying at times. I think I'll trade it away if I ever get the chance.
Yeah, TBS was always good for that mid-day "Telefilm." Stuff like Deliver Us from Evil regularly made the rounds many a dull afternoon or on late at night if the Atlanta Braves were mercifully rain delayed on a west coast road jag.
Hell, I miss the ABC Movie of the Week. I took all those made for tv movies totally for granted back then. What do you expect from a teenager?
There's a missing thread where we tearfully(?) reminisced about legendary ABC announcer Ernie Anderson, Alias Smith & Jones and The Mod Squad. I'm sure youtube has those old ABC promos...
I can't believe that I never posted to this thread! This is my favorite FSM release! For 3 decades, I hoped that someday I would be able to listen to this(Winter Kill) score whenever I wanted. And the bonus.. I finally was able to hear Hawkins and Babe!! I NOW know WHY Goldsmith won an Emmy for this score; I can't listen to the final track without sobbing uncontrollaby. Goldsmith kicked every composer's ass back then!
