Hank at an autograph session, 1960s.
* * *
From an issue
of TV Guide
published very shortly after Hank's passing in June 1994:
"Tribute: Henry Mancini: TV's Music Man
Call him Hank.
Everybody did.
He was the composer-performer-arranger-conductor whose
melodies
graced scores of TV series and specials, from Newhart,
The
Blue Knight, and Mr. Lucky to The Thorn
Birds and
the cartoon The Pink Panther. Henry Mancini won more
GRAMMYs
(20) than most rock stars; his first (for the Peter Gunn
TV-series score) came during the very first GRAMMY show in
1959. This
gentle giant of his field, who died at 70 on June 14, made
his last
TV appearance May 27 on 20/20, discussing his
cancer. He may
be best remembered for "Moon River," the lilting song he
wrote with
Johnny Mercer. As the lyric says, Mancini was "off to see
the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.'"--N.H.
Dan Miles Remembers .
.
.
A little
history: I became a
Mancini fan in 1965. One of my older brothers gave me a copy
of "The
Concert Sound of Henry Mancini" - I was hooked! After I
graduated
from the University of Colorado, I compiled a couple
reference books
on pop music and then managed a Peaches Records Store in
Denver--they
were located in most major cities during the 70's and 80's.
During
this time, I became friends with the folks at the Denver
Sales Office
of RCA. I was getting tired of retail work and they needed a
sales
person - so I took the job. If you think about it, it really
wasn't
much of a "sales job". If the distributor wanted an Elvis
Presley LP
or a Mancini LP they only had one place to go, RCA. I spent
two years
with RCA. I remember answering the phone one day when the
receptionist was at lunch and I asked the caller's name - he
replied
"Henry Mancini" - I didn't know what so say! The Denver
office
reported to the Los Angeles sales office and I became good
friends
with their manager, Bill Graham. He knew of my addiction to
Henry's
music and did me many favors. LPs were autographed and sent
to me,
the 45 rpm of the "Love Theme from Silver Streak" was sent
to me from
the Japan office. I couldn't believe they were actually
paying me for
doing this. Sometime in 1979 (after I left RCA) I wondered
what
project Henry was working on so I called Los Angeles
directory
assistance and asked for the phone number for Henry Mancini
Enterprises. It was that easy. I called, and Lisa, Henry's
administrative assistant, answered. We stayed in bi-monthly
contact
from 1979 until the day after Thanksgiving 1994 when Ginny
closed his
office. Lisa was so wonderful, thoughtful may be a better
word. She
sent me autographed LPs/CDs prior to their release. Whenever
Henry
was performing with the Denver Symphony she would call me at
home and
ask how many tickets I wanted. I received a few audio tapes
of music
that weren't commercially available. Over the years,
probably 40
LPs/CDs were autographed. The last autographed CD I received
was the
score for "Tom & Jerry". I was fortunate enough to meet
with
Henry on five occasions - twice in his Beverly Hills office.
He was
just as wonderful in person as his music portrays.
Onaje Allan Gumbs
Remembers
. . .
As a young, black music student growing up in the 50's and 60's in Queens, NY, Henry Mancini, through watching "Peter Gunn" and "Mr Lucky" introduced me to the world of jazz. I followed his music and career mainly thru his incredible film scores, "Breakfast At Tiffany's", "Charade", "Arabesque", "Gunn", "Soldier In The Rain", "The Pink Panther", "Hatari", "Experiment In Terror","The Great Race" (which I saw at Radio City Music Hall), "Wait Until Dark", "Days Of Wine And Roses" and others. To me, RCA Records WAS Henry Mancini. He left a profound effect on me as a composer and arranger. I always try to imagine what a certain film would be like with the Henry Mancini stamp. Although I met him twice, I never got the chance to really know him and I really am saddened when I think about it. There can be many John Williams clones but there will never be anybody like Henry Mancini. He pioneered the use of jazz on film with melodies and orchestrations that were awesome and subtle at the same time. I miss him, I really do.
--Onaje
Allan Gumbs
(pianist, arranger, composer)
* * *
A Memoir
from Allan Waterhouse . . .
Dear B.J.
This is Allan Waterhouse.
What follows is a copy of a memoir which I sent to Henry
Mancini in
1991. When I sent it, I certainly did not
imagine that he
would be dead within three years. Driving home from
the school
where I was teaching on June 14, 1994, I heard a
newsman on the
radio say 'Henry Mancini died today at his home in
Hollywood. He
was seventy.' And another chapter of my life
closed.
A very important chapter.
Since I wrote this, I have obtained copies on cd of
most of the
record albums I mentioned here which were unavailable at
the
time.
Mr. Mancini was gracious enough to respond, and his letter
to me hangs
in the den of our home, one of my prized possessions, and
is reprinted
below my letter to him.
======================
October 21, 1991
Mr. Henry Mancini
Dear Mr. Mancini,
Way back on September 22, 1958, I was sitting in the
living room of my
parents' row house in Philadelphia watching our
black-and-white Philco
TV in anticipation of a new show premeiring on NBC.
I had read
earlier in TV Guide that this was a new detective series
written,
directed, and produced by someone named Blake Edwards,
which I thought
had to be a typo since I had never heard of Blake used as
a first name
before. Perhaps they meant Edward Blake?
Anyway, this
TV Guide article had stated that Blake Edwards had tried
to use the
title This Gun for Hire but couldn't since some Hollywood
studio owned
the rights to it, so one night he sat up in bed and
decided,
'What the hell! We'll call it PETER GUNN.'
I was sixteen. It sounded like my kind of
show. I settled
down to watch. I didn't know that I was making a
memory, or
beginning a lifetime interest in one man's music.
Opening
scene...It is night. A limousine travels the curves
of a dark
country road accompanied by the sound of a walking bass
and brushed
cymbals and then an ominous flute starts playing.
Suddenly, from
out of nowhere, a police car pulls over the limo. As
two cops
emerge from their vehicle and approach the limo, the limo
driver rolls
down his window. The cops look in, pull out their
guns, and shoot
the limo driver and the passenger in the back seat.
The driver
slumps against the steering wheel, making the limo horn
blare.
The two cops holster their guns, walk back to their police
car, and
drive away. All the while, the sound of the blaring
limo horn
continues for what seems like a full minute as the camera
stays on the
limo and then slowly zooms in on the driver's body slumped
against the
steering wheel. Then...
Cut to: a modern art background with the letters PETER GUNN and a pulsing 'spider's web'-like design accompanied by the sound of wailing brass instruments playing over a driving beat.
This was
1958. It was startling to see cops, symbols of law
and order,
behave like this. Visually and stylistically, this
new show was
different from anything else on TV. Creative
directing. Odd
camera angles: scenes of a car's headlights at night
driving right up
to the camera; characters filmed in the reflection
of a
mirror. Things like that. And the music!
Combining
jazz riffs with a detective show was a new and innovative
thing to
do. The look and the sound of PETER GUNN created a
lasting
impression on me. It was radically different from
anything else
on TV at that time. And I had discovered it.
Peter Gunn (played by Craig Stevens) was a private
eye -
obviously modeled after Cary Grant's screen persona - who
spent his
nights at Mother's, a nightclub near the wharf, listening
to his
girlfriend Edie (played by Lola Albright) sing
sultry songs
backed by a small combo.
Clients came to Mother's to hire Pete to investigate some
personal
problem. Pete also had a very droll relationship with a
police
lieutenant named Jacoby (who was played to perfection by
Hershel
Bernardi.) Pete went on to solve the case by
discovering that the
cops were phonies sent by one mob boss to assassinate
another mob
boss. But not without some great jazz riffs in the
process.
Within a
few
days, I stopped by our local record store, Gettlin's, on
Fifth Street
in Philadelphia and asked for the soundtrack music to
PETER GUNN.
Soundtrack albums weren't as popular an item then, but I
had already
begun a record collection with the soundtracks from April
Love,
The Pride and the Passion, and Around the World in
Eighty
Days. The Peter Gunn album wasn't there, so I
ordered it. A
week or so later, I received a phone call that the
album had come
in. It was the best two dollars and fifty-some cents
I've ever
spent.
I played it over and over. Especially, side one, cut
four,
Dreamsville, described by Blake Edwards on the back of the
album as a
'love refrain for hipsters.' I sat at our
piano in the
living room and picked out the melody by playing along
with the
record. Unfortunately, the speed on our Zenith
turntable was a
little fast, so I learned it in D flat instead of
the key of C.
I didn't
realize until years later that I had one of the 8000
original album
covers that RCA had printed with the blue-black
'blood-shot-eye' modern
art design by Fritz Miller. RCA had not anticipated
the
popularity of the album and had to use a 'generic' cover
for the second
pressing of this million seller.
Who was this Henry Mancini? This man with the impish
grin shown
on the back of the album? This man with the name
that I wasn't
quite sure how to pronounce? This composer of cool jazz
that perfectly
matched the action of the TV show?
When I
played
the record for my mother, who had studied piano at the
Columbia College
of Music in Philadelphia, she said something about the
music being
mostly in seventh chords, whatever that meant, and that
many of the
songs ended with a flatted fifth, whatever that was.
I didn't
understand the mechanics of what I was hearing. I
only knew that
I liked it.
When I
got
home from school afternoons, I usually turned on the
TV to watch
Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Preceeding
that was a show
in which a young couple went around Hollywood interviewing
celebreties
in their homes. TV Guide used to list whom they
would be
visiting, and one day I saw Henry Mancini's name. I
had to stay
after school that particular day for some reason, so I
asked my mother
to watch the show for me. When I got home, I
asked her if
Mancini spoke with an Italian accent, or if he spoke
English at
all. She said he spoke like everyone else. I
was
disappointed.
Soon, RCA released More Music from PETER GUNN. I especially liked Walkin' Bass, Joanna, A Quiet Gass, and Blues for Mother's. There was also a jazzy march called Timothy which had been used on the show in a scene involving a seal - the aquatic mammal. The album cover came from the logo that they used just before they went to a commercial half-way through the show.
It may be that, at sixteen, I really was at an impressionable age. At sixteen, sounds seemed louder and more distinct, colors were more intense, the sky brighter, and I was more passionate and more easily impressed. The visual images of the PETER GUNN show along with its distinctive music had impacted me and left an indelible impression upon me. It became the standard against which I measured other shows, other soundtracks. Today, I have too many filters working, and I wonder if, watching the first PETER GUNN episode today, would I be as impressed with it? All I know for sure is that it made me a life-long fan of Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini.
When my
favorite magazine - Mad - finally got around to spoofing
the PETER GUNN
show, they showed musical notes in the margin of each
cartoon panel
following Pete around, with him getting more and more
disturbed and
upset. ('Wet streets. All the time, wet
streets.') In
the last panel, we learn that the regular band has gone on
vacation and
we see that it is Lawrence Welk now conducting the music,
and we can
understand why Pete has a headache.
One snowy winter day, my friend Frank Kalisiak and I
walked about a
mile and a half to our local Sears store to visit their
record
department. That's where I saw a new Mancini album
called The
Mancini Touch. This album featured a few new Mancini
tunes but
was mostly arrangements by Mancini of others' songs.
When I got
home and listened to it, I was surprised because it
was the first
time Mancini had used violins. I remember sitting in
my bedroom
looking out of the window at the snow gently falling when
Snowfall
started playing. It was peaceful, serene, and dreamy
- creating
for me an indelible blending of image and sound.
Other favorites
were Andre Previn's Like Young and Mancini's own A
Cool Shade of
Blue and Mostly for Lovers. The album cover showing
Mancini as a
puppeteer manipulating two dancers on strings seemed
juvenile.
The next year, in addition to PETER GUNN, Blake Edwards directed the TV show Mr. Lucky. Each show opened with a scene similar to PETER GUNN, but instead of a small combo, Mancini used a jazz organ with violins. The music still perfectly matched the action in the shows. John Vivyan portrayed Mr. Lucky, another imitation of Cary Grant (who incidentally had played the title role in the 1940's film). Lucky and his sidekick Andamo (played by Ross Martin) ran a gambling ship (The Fortuna) off the coast, and the plots for the show developed from the array of characters who frequented his floating casino.
Mr. Lucky didn't quite have the newness and inventiveness of PETER GUNN, yet it had some interesting stories. One of my favorite openings occured in a prison as the warden and some guards go to a prisoner's cell and tell him, 'It's time!' The prisoner objects, shouting things like, 'No! You can't do this to me! It's not fair!' Then we see a door open, and the warden and guards toss the prisoner to the ground and slam the door behind him. The camera pulls back, and we see people walking by as we realize that he is now sitting on the pavement outside the prison.
The Mr.
Lucky
album cover had an interesting design: shades of black
with a black
one-eyed cat, a pair of dice showing 'seven,' and the
words Mr Lucky in
red letters.
Soon,
RCA
released more music from Mr. Lucky called Mr. Lucky Goes
Latin.
The jazz organ was still there but this time with a Latin
beat.
When my friend Frank and I took another walk over to the
Sears record
department, we found another new Mancini
release. This was
one of RCA's concept albums. It was called The Blues
and the
Beat. Side One was all bluesy songs and
arrangements, while Side
Two contained all up-tempo numbers. The album was
reminiscent of
the big band sound of the 40's, what I considered at
the time to
be 'old people's music.' Mancini was recording
others'
compositions, but the arrangements were uniquely his.
In 1960
when
I became an announcer and disk jockey on WQAL-FM in
Philadelphia, I
often featured these Mancini albums. I guess I felt
as though I
had discovered him. In some small way, I'd like to
think that I
influenced public opinion. At least, I exposed my
listeners to
his songs and arrangements.
In 1961, I was a sophomore at Temple University
and taking
a course in Music History. Mancini had just
released Combo!
which featured Johnny Williams - the pianist on the PETER
GUNN albums -
on a harpsichord with jazz arrangements for a small combo
similar to
the PETER GUNN sound (and yes, I found this one at
Sears,
too.). The last song on side one was called A
Powdered Wig, which
sounded like it could have been a Bach tune until it
suddenly broke
into swinging jazz. I took the album to class and
asked our
professor to play it as an example of what a jazz artist
could do with
the instrument in contrast to the harpsichord music from
the Baroque
period that we had been studying. He played it
fairly loudly on
an impressive sound system. His comment afterwards
was, 'I hope
the Dean didn't hear that!' But the class enjoyed
it.
Soon,
another
Mancini album was released, but this one was on RCA
Camden, a 'cheap'
record manufacturer right across the Delaware River from
Philadelphia
in Camden, NJ. This was the soundtrack from High
Time starring
Bing Crosby. I never saw the film, but I borrowed
the album from
a friend. It had an instrumental called Moon Talk
which I assume
was used in a love scene. Soon after that, another
friend told me
that he had heard a song by 'that guy that you like'
called Moon
River. I corrected him - that the song was called
Moon
Talk. Soon, I too heard Moon River on the radio and
felt
humbled. I bought the soundtrack from Breakfast At
Tiffany's at
Gettlin's the day before Christmas, and I still associate
Christmas
time when I listen to the album. I got to see the
movie that
January at a theater in Cherry Hill, NJ. Moon River
put Henry
Mancini's name in most of my friends' vocabularies.
Soon after that, I saw EXPERIMENT IN TERROR at our
local
theater. This soundtrack is one of the best examples
of music
that is perfectly matched to the action in the film.
The
autoharp, violins, and brass choir in the opening sequence
as actress
Lee Remick drives her convertible across the Golden Gate
Bridge still
make the hairs on the back of my neck rise. In the
opening
minutes, Ross Martin - one of Edwards' favorite actors in
one of his
finest roles - confronts Remick in her garage to begin his
extortion
plan. The terror of this scene is heightened by
Martin's
asthmatic breathing and Mancini's score. Later, as a
character
named Nancy turns out a light switch in her
apartment and the
room darkens, a piano plays an F sharp and G natural
simultaneously. Eerie. Then there is a scene shot
from above as
moaning violins underscore Lee Remick's breakdown after
Martin, this
time disguised as an old woman, confronts her in a ladies'
room.
In a restaurant scene, a solo piano played White on
White. The
film's finale, a shoot-out at Candlestick Park, had
culminating music
to end the film.
In 1962, I did something that I had never done before: I bought some piano music. I purchased Moon River, The Days of Wine and Roses, and a collection of some of the PETER GUNN numbers arranged by Lou Singer. I'm sure this perplexed my mother who had tried but failed to get me interested in the piano. My parents had a Gabler upright in the living room that had been in the family since 1910. Since I couldn't read music, it took me weeks to figure out the notes, and I added my own fingering instead of playing what was written. Since most of the sheet music was in a different key than the records, I started to learn how to transpose so that I could play along with them. And I was still playing most songs a half-step sharp because of that Zenith turntable being off-speed.
I met
Susan
Elizabeth Read in March, 1963. After our first
date, we
returned to my parents' house and sat in the living room
listening to
albums and playing the piano. Dreamsville
became 'our
song.' Mancini had recorded it a second time on the
1963 Our Man
in Hollywood album, this time with lyrics written by Jay
Livingston and
Ray Evans. I inked in the words over the music for
Sue to sing.
For our second date, I took Sue to see The Days of Wine and Roses at a theater in downtown Philadelphia. I noticed how Mancini had used the song with lush strings to underline a romantic scene (like the haystack scene) and later scored it to underline the sadness in the film. The movie ends with a French horn playing the melody interrupted in mid-phrase. Harrowing!
I guess
I
felt as though I had discovered Henry Mancini. His
sound was
identifiable and unique. Whenever I visited a
record store,
I always looked for one of his albums. Gradually over the
years, one by
one, record stores began having a bin marked
'Mancini.'
Whenever a new film was released, I checked to see if
Mancini had done
the soundtrack, and if so, I went out of my way to see the
film.
Examples: Mr. Hobb's Vacation with Jimmy Stewart,
Bachelor in
Paradise with Bob Hope, and Man's Favorite Sport with Rock
Hudson.
Charade or Hatari! I'm not sure which came next. African instruments appeared on The Sounds of Hatari! Baby Elephant Walk is cute. Charade was nominated for best song in 1963 but lost. Moon River had won in '61 and Days of Wine and Roses in '62. I thought perhaps Charade lost simply because it would have been three-in-a-row for Mancini and Hollywood was simply reacting to that fact.
1963 was also the year Mancini released another of my favorite albums, Uniquely Mancini. Once again, he had arranged some standards by the likes of Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and George Gershwin for big band with some of his own original tunes sprinkled in between.
After I graduated from Temple in June, 1964, Sue and I married that summer. When we talked of starting a family, we began to pick out names we both liked for our children yet unborn. We both liked Timothy, but because of its association with Timothy from More Music from PETER GUNN, we decided it might be best not to name our first-born after a seal.
In 1965, I read that Mancini was coming to Philadelphia to perform at the Academy of Music conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. Of course, Sue and I attended. The memory I have of the concert is the beautiful lush arrangement of Charade with Mancini at the piano. It was as if I were hearing this song for the first time. On the RCA soundtrack album, it is performed three times; first a jazzy version over the opening credits, then as a ballad sung by a chorus in a romantic scene, and finally on a calliope. But this piano/orchestra arrangement left me with a hushed silence. It is a beautiful song.
I never
bought the soundtrack for Two For the Road although I did
see the film.
It is one of my favorite Mancini songs. The chords
seem to flow
together. Again, I was fascinated how Mancini used this
song as a
romantic theme and also later scored it as tight and tense
and ominous
to underline the tension in the film.
Around
1965
RCA released another Mancini album, this time with a
chorus, called
Dear Heart and Other Songs About Love. My favorite
was the theme
from Soldier In the Rain. It is a haunting theme,
and Mancini
recorded it a second time with Doc Sevrinsen on a later
album called
Brass on Ivory. I remember seeing Henry Mancini
appear on the
Merv Griffin Show where he performed Soldier in the Rain
on
piano. I was interested to read in Mancini's
autobiography Did
They Mention the Music? that he considers Two For the Road
and Soldier
In the Rain as his favorites among all of his themes.
In 1966, Mark was born, our first. He doesn't know
how close he came to being Timothy.
In
1968, I was working for WBCB-AM out of Levittown,
PA. Most
d.j.'s used a theme song to open their shows. I
chose Mancini's
arrangement of Alright, Okay, You Win from his The
Blues and the
Beat album. I put it on tape cartridge and opened
and closed each
show with it.
The format at WBCB was to play instrumentals going into and coming out of the newscasts, which were every half-hour. I often used my own Mancini albums from home for this purpose along with other instrumentals from the studio library. One evening at WBCB, I played the Swing March from the film What Did You Do In the War, Daddy? I received a phone call from someone who identified himself as the director of the Philadelphia Drum and Bugle Corps wanting to know the name of that march I had just played. He was all excited and said he wanted to find out the name of the publisher so that he could get the music for the Corps to play.
1969 was
a
big year for Henry Mancini' s popularity. His
recording of Nino
Rota's Theme from Romeo and Juliet became number one
around the
country. After that, everyone knew who Henry Mancini
was.
In
1969, I went to WWDB-FM in Philadelphia -
'jazz at
ninety-six point five.' The only Mancini album in the
studio library
was Mancini '67 in which Mancini had arranged some
standards for big
band like Satin Doll, Cherokee, and Autumn
Nocturne.
Blake Edwards had recently done a re-make of the PETER GUNN TV show for theaters that he called simply Gunn. Craig Stevens was still Peter Gunn, and except for the PETER GUNN theme and Dreamsville, Mancini had written all new music. I loaned my personal copy of the sountrack from Gunn to program director Sid Mark to preview for air-play. He never returned it.
In 1969,
our
daughter Laura was born. We named her because both
Sue and I
liked the song composed by David Raksin for the Gene
Tierney film Laura.
In 1971, Brian was born, our third. We simply liked
that
name. There was a popular song at the time called
Brian's Song,
but that did not influence our choosing his name.
Then I lost track and interest in Henry Mancini and his music for a while during the 1970's. There was a series of Pink Panther movies with Inspector Clouseau played by Peter Sellers. Blake Edwards had apparently decided that it was easier to make fun of someone trying to be like Cary Grant and failing than it was to try seriously to portray someone like him.
But Blake Edwards also began making movies about the passages of life. The movie '10' in 1979 is about the mid-life crisis of a forty-two year old man. I was thirty-seven. The song It's Easy To Say, became a favorite. I learned to play it on piano just like Dudley Moore did in the movie. The character he portrays finally decides to return to the security of marriage after a disastrous affair with a young emancipated girl played by Bo Derek. I found the film timely, funny, and uplifting.
That's Life! is '10' twenty years later - the crisis of turning sixty. Mancini wrote a lovely ballad called Life In a Looking Glass that was sung by Tony Bennett over the closing credits.
I'd seen Mancini's name on many TV show themes over the years: Newhart, Remington Steel, What's Happening?, The Moneychangers. But the next music that really excited me was from the mini-series The Thorn-Birds. Meggie's Theme is especially beautiful. It drove me to the piano to learn it. I picked it up by listening to a recording of it and playing along. I finally have a turntable with a variable speed control.
More Blake Edwards movies in the 1980's: S.O.B., Victor/Victoria, The Man Who Loved Women, Sunset, and Mancini was still doing his soundtracks. Some songs were getting hard to pick up, complex, close chords like Cheryl's Theme from Sunset. I learned Crazy World from Victor/Victoria by playing along with the James Galway / Henry Mancini recording from the album In the Pink. That, by the way, is the last record album I ever bought.
Now CD's. Of course, I searched for and found Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky re-issued on CD, but I have been unable to find other favorite albums like Combo!, The Mancini Touch, The Blues and the Beat, More Music from Peter Gunn, Uniquely Mancini, and Mancini '67. Whenever I visit a record store, I still go right to the Easy Listening section and look for a bin marked 'Mancini,' and then check out the 'soundtracks' section.
I have memorized about fifty songs by Mancini that I play privately for my own entertainment and amusement. Since I still cannot read music, most of these I have learned, not from written notes, but by listening to recordings and experimenting.
Mancini wrote his autobiography in 1989 called Did They Mention the Music? It wasn't until I read it that I realized that the Johnny T. Williams, identified as the pianist on the Peter Gunn albums and several other early Mancini albums, is the same John Williams who is now the conductor of the Boston Pops and a composer himself of such film music as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, etc. It was he who played the tinkling piano on Dreamsville that I have imitated so often.
I was
forty-eight before I finally mustered the courage to play
the piano in
public. In December 1990 at the 'Christmas in the
Valley'
community celebration in Wyalusing, PA, I
accompanied our
daughter Laura on Mancini's song Sometimes. It isn't a
Christmas carol,
but I thought the words were appropriate at Christmas
time. The
lyrics are by Mancini's daughter, Felice:
Sometimes
Sometimes
not often enough
We reflect upon the good things
And those thought always center around those we love
And I think about those people
Who mean so very much to me
And for so many years have made me
So very happy
And I count the times I have forgotten to say
Thank you
And just how much I love them
I played, not from written notes, but by memorizing the arrangement that Richard Carpenter had used with his sister Karen on vocal on the album Carpenters. I learned after reading Did They Mention the Music? that when the Carpenters recorded "Sometimes" they had simply used Mancini's arrangement - just piano and voice, which was unusual for the Carpenters who did lots of overdubbing and harmonizing. Laura sang beautifully, and it went well.
We performed "Sometimes"again on May 5, 1991 at the Dushore, PA Music Club's Spring Musicale where Laura also received the local Federation of Music Clubs' scholarship. She is attending Mansfield University as a music major - in vocal music.
So - I wrote this memoir in the spring of '91. I'm not sure why. Maybe like the words in "Sometimes" suggest, it's simply time to say thank you for all of your music. And perhaps because I'm going to be fifty my next birthday, I'm at some awkward stage in life.
Laura
suggested that I send a copy of this to you - that you
might enjoy
reading it. Just for kicks, I did. But the
only address I
had was Holmby Hills, Hollywood, CA which I got from
reading Did They
Mention the Music? The post office returned it to me
stamped
'address unknown.' During the summer, I showed this
to a friend
who gave me the name of Nunzio DiIanni in Pittsburgh as a
lead.
He sent me an address on Sunset Boulevard, but the post
office returned
that one stamped 'moved, not forwardable.'
Then I
wrote
to Composer's Guild, to ASCAP, and to Gene Lees who
co-authored your
autobiography. In October, I finally heard
from Toni
Winter, president of ASCAP, offering as a
one-time courtesy
to forward a letter to you. So here goes.
I know
that
you appreciate your privacy and wish to be inaccessible to
the public,
but this is frustrating. All I wanted to do was to
thank you for
all of your music which has been such a big part of my
life.
Sorry, Hank. Perhaps you'll never know.
Sincerely,
Allan
Waterhouse
======================
Mancini wrote in reply...
Dean Allan,
Your persistence has finally paid off. I have
received your
memoir and have read it. Sorry it took so long to
get to
me. I know it is a little late to tell you this, but
I am listed
in the Los Angeles phone book.
I read with great interest of how my music has affected
your life,
especially your mention of 'Sometimes.' Also,
the program
with the Philadelphia Orchestra took me right back to the
early days of
conducting in public.
Thank you for taking the time to put all of this down on
paper.
It took a lot of listening and a lot of writing. I
wish you well.
Warmest Regards,
(signed) Henry Mancini
Sean
Baker's
Mancini Jingle Page
Domenic
Ciccone's "Martinis with Mancini" Page (and radio
show)