Midnight String Quartet

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The Midnight String Quartet were an easy listening chamber music quartet, consisting of two violins, a viola, and a cello, made up of students (at the time) or graduates from the University of Southern California. They played covers and standards over several albums from 1966 to the early seventies, supplemented by a professional rhythm section, often including bass, drums and guitar and sometimes piano and harpsichord. [1]

Contents

History

The Midnight String Quartet made a series of instrumental recordings produced by "Tommy 'Snuff' Garrett", on Viva Records (U.S.), a subsidiary of Snuff Garrett Records.

Their First album, Rhapsodies for Young Lovers (1966) was arranged by Leon Russell and spent 59 weeks in the Billboard charts peaking at number 17 in November 1966. More chart success followed in the U.S. with Spanish Rhapsodies for Young Lovers, reaching number 76 in May 1967 and Rhapsodies for Young Lovers, Volume Two, reaching number 67 in July 1967.Christmas Rhapsodies for Young Lovers reached number 18 at Christmas 1967 while Love Rhapsodies only making number 129 in March 1968.The Look of Love and Other Rhapsodies for Young Lovers reached number 194 in August 1968. Midnight String Quartet continued releasing albums with a double album Best of the Midnight String Quartet being released in 1971. [2] [3]

Interest resurfaced during the Lounge Revival of the mid nineties and has seen among others, the re- release on cd of Rhapsodies for Young Lovers on the Varèse Sarabande [4] label with extra tracks and additional liner notes by ‘Elevator music’ [5] and‘The Cocktail’ [6] author Joseph Lanza. [7] [8]

Their version of Mason Williams' Classical Gas was co-charted in Canada with the Williams version. They reached #2. [9]

Personnel

Besides the string quartet itself (The Midnight String Quartet), other players in the rhythm section of their first album Rhapsodies For Young Lovers include:

Midnight Strings Quartet Members:

Discography

Original LPs

CD reissues

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Billboard - 25 May 1968 LOS ANGELES— Heavy album sales of the Midnight String Quartet may force Snuff Garrett Productions and Viva Records to form a group to tour college campuses and hit the concert trail. Garrett has used studio pickup musicians to make up ...
  2. ↑ Viva Album Discography
  3. ↑ allmusic ((( Midnight String Quartet > Charts & Awards > Billboard Albums )))
  4. ↑ Varese Sarabande Product Details
  5. ↑ Joseph Lanza: Elevator Music, University of Michigan Press
  6. ↑ BOOKS OF THE TIMES;Bottoms Up: The Cocktail, Shaken and Stirred - New York Times
  7. ↑ Joseph Lanza: Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong. Publisher: Quartet Books (1995) ISBN   0-7043-0226-8, ISBN   978-0-7043-0226-6
  8. ↑ Joseph Lanza: The Coctail. St. Martin's Press (1995) ISBN   0-312-13450-9
  9. ↑ "RPM Top 100 Singles - August 19, 1968" (PDF).
  10. ↑ allmusic ((( Rhapsodies for Young Lovers > Credits )))
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