Percy Faith - Laurel's Dance ( The Dance Of Life ) video free download

AND THE GRAMMY AWARD FOR BEST SONG GOES TO - 1973

Winner : Ewan MacColl (UK) for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" performed by Roberta Flack

Other Nominees that year were :

Gilbert O'Sullivan for "Alone Again" performed by Gilbert O'Sullivan

Don McLean for "American Pie" performed by Don McLean

Neil Diamond for "Song Sung Blue" performed by Neil Diamond

Marilyn Bergman, Alan Bergman and Michel Legrand for "The Summer Knows" performed by Michel Legrand

PERCY FAITH

Faith was a child prodigy on the piano, but his hopes for a career as a concert pianist ended when he injured his hands in a fire when he was 18. He switched to arranging and conducting, working in hotel and theater orchestras in Toronto and eventually landing his own radio show on CBC in 1938.

In 1940, Faith moved to Chicago and became a naturalized citizen a few years later. He moved to New York City and worked in radio for a while until he joined the A&R staff of Decca. By 1950, he was working for Mitch Miller at Columbia, who found Faith's rich but not overbearing string work perfect for the sound he was trying to cultivate. Faith began recording instrumentals under his own name in 1951 and soon had a nbr1 hit with his adaptation of a popular Brazilian song, "Delicado." Faith had two other hits: ""Theme from 'Moulin Rouge'" in 1953, and "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" in 1960.

Between 1951 and 1976, Faith recorded something like 85 albums for Columbia. Faith's strings and Ray Conniff's choral band gave Columbia a one-two punch that dominated easy listening sales for nearly three decades and now fills the shelves of thrift stores around the US . Conniff and Faith also served as the foundation for the Columbia Record Club, the mail-order outlet that was middle America's primary source of albums. Like Conniff, Faith's worst sin may have been that of being too good a craftsman. He worked strings, woodwinds, and brass together so seamlessly that the result often achieves a surface of schmaltz that belies the fine work underneath.

When Faith appreciated his material, though, he put out his best effort--his albums of Mexican and Cuban music ("Viva!," "Malaguena") are good examples. There is nothing demure about these recordings: Faith puts splashy trumpets and powerful trombones right up front, and fills every corner of the room with sounds. Whether you like exotica or easy listening or not, these are excellent records.

Faith also wrote several film scores, including the Oscar-nominated "Love Me or Leave Me," "Tammy Tell Me True," and "The Oscar." He was a popular arranger with Columbia's stable of singers, and backed most of them more than once: Tony Bennett, Doris Day, and Johnny Mathis all considered him among their favorite accompanists.

THE OSCAR (1966)

The Oscar is a 1966 American drama film written by Harlan Ellison, Clarence Greene, Russell Rouse and Richard Sale, directed by Rouse and starring Stephen Boyd, singer Tony Bennett (in his film debut), comedian Milton Berle (in a dramatic role), Elke Sommer, Ernest Borgnine, Jill St. John, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Cotten, Edie Adams, Peter Lawford, Broderick Crawford, Ed Begley, Walter Brennan and Jack Soo. Also appearing are Bob Hope, Hedda Hopper, Merle Oberon, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra as themselves.

The soundtrack for the movie was written entirely by Percy Faith.

MHO

Percy Faith demonstrates his unbelievable arranging skills in this short but explosive piece from the movie soundtrack "The Oscar". The instrumentation has been chosen with utmost care and Faith adds musical layer upon layer, which results into a piece so smooth and "ear friendly" that the unattentive listener might not notice the wonderful musical details included in the recording.

Chances are, you will be hearing new elements each time you listen to this superb piece of orchestral easy listening.

As an arranger, Percy Faith definitely 'plays in a league of his own'. And if the listening here is "easy", it's because..... Faith made it that way ...... Enjoy.