The Atrocious Music Collection: #20 in a series
Artists: Ken Nordine (b. 1920), words; Dick Campbell (1944-2002), music
Album Title: Colors
Category: Spoken "Word-Jazz"Year: 1966
Cover art style: Freaky Face-Rainbow
Audio: Entire album, with timings
Acquisition: Cassette recording from my brother
Click on picture for full-sized image
Colors is one of the rare works in the Atrocious Music Collection which is Just Plain Fun. Ken Nordine’s word-jazz pieces on colors like Olive and Magenta and Gold are clever short stories that don’t so much go in unexpected directions as start from unexpected beginnings. The essential problem of depicting a color in words and music (composed by Dick Campbell, and played by the Fred Katz Group) is tackled with creativity and a late 1950s hipster vibe. The record is billed as a “sensuous listening experience” right on the cover, and I won’t argue with that.
The oddity of the whole thing, however, places it firmly within the confines of the Collection. Nordine’s body of work is mostly in commercial voice-overs with a fair number of albums exploring what he called on his 1957 disc "Word-Jazz." He pops up in unusual places, such as the Disney cover album Stay Awake (where his dark takes on two Pinocchio numbers bookend the CD) and early 80s Dungeons & Dragons board game ads. His low, smooth baritone was the voice of Levi’s for much of the 1970s. He was Linda Blair’s vocal coach for the film The Exorcist (and, to his credit, not for her 1994 Broadway appearance in Grease).
Fittingly, given Nordine’s unconventional career, the origins of Colors are strictly commercial. The project began as a Nordine-scripted ad campaign for the Fuller Paint Company, a series of ads on different colors. He then added to the 10 Fuller Paint tracks and tossed in some less-than-commercial messages. The track Flesh is particularly noteworthy for its progressive racial message.
I’m also partial to Yellow, which begins In the beginning/Oh, long before that, and concerns the story of how Yellow got into the spectrum when envious Green wanted to keep it out. Blue convinced Green to relent by pointing out that
Not that they would but if they did,
They could make their own green…
Green saw the light and Yellow got in
It worked out fine
Yellow got lemons
And green got limes.
Even when the words aren’t telling stories, the music and arrangements are lively and varied. There’s almost nothing to Russet, but it’s one of my favorite tracks because of the groove and the reoccurring cry of “Russet!” What else is there is say about the color russet? Or, for that matter, Puce or Ecru?.
So open up your crayon box, dive in, and find out. These pieces may be dated, but at least they come out of a groovy time!