You Only Listen Twice
Further Sounds from the J*MES B*ND Hi-Fi
I’m continuing a jaunty motoring tour through some of the best and strangest albums of James Bond-inspired music. If you missed part one, you 1) should subscribe to Suburban Pagans, and 2) read it here.
Harry Roche Constellation
Casino Royale & Other Hip Sounds (1967)
First of all, the fact that they refer to their songs as “hip,” even when it was hip to call things hip, means that you’re guaranteed something decidedly unhip. That said, this album opens with a decently danceable arrangement of “Strangers in the Night” that would play well if you’re looking to take a slightly tipsy dame in a “just a little bit too short” black cocktail dress onto the dance floor at a decent hotel bar. That song sets the mood for the rest of the album: hardly hip, but perfectly serviceable for a boozy night of cocktails in the lounge. Despite invoking the name of Casino Royale, there’s little in the way of Bond or other spy themes. You get a decent instrumental version of “The Look of Love.” The Constellation also turns in a fair enough rendition of the Tijuana Brass’ Casino Royale theme, this time with female vocals. The rest of the album is cocktail lounge standards. If you’re looking for spy anthems, you won’t really find them here, but if you’re in the mood for an undemanding collection of easy-listening tunes that are, true to the genre, easy to listen to as background music, then you’re in pretty safe territory here.
The “Sleepwalk” Guitars Of Dan & Dale
Theme From Thunderball And Other Themes (1965)
Other than the Roland Shaw albums mentioned above, if you were to seek out one James Bond cash-in album, it should be this one, because not only is the music pretty oddball, it has by far the most interesting backstory. Dan and Dale was a studio-only group made up of guitarists Danny Kalb and Steve Katz of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Backing them up on organ, sax, and other instruments were ultra-outre avant-garde jazz musicians Sun Ra, Al Kooper, and other players from Sun Ra’s bizarre Solar Arkestra. Sun Ra and the Arkestra are best known for discordant free jazz heavily influenced by Sun Ra’s personal mythology about space aliens, alternate dimensions, ancient Egypt, and Black empowerment. However, they were adept at a wide range of styles, so it’s not quite as crazy as it sounds to hear them earning a paycheck playing on an album of James Bond covers and original spy-inspired compositions.
Everything here is a winner, leaning very heavily into the surf guitar sound that would become increasingly identified with espionage movies. There’s also more than a bit of exotica and Polynesian pop in the mix. Never has the “Spectre Theme” made the amoral organization seem so languid and ready for a luau. But then it gets stranger, because in 2021, the record was released as an mp3 album, but with a near-totally different line-up of songs. Except they’re not different songs; they’ve just been retitled by…who exactly is even responsible for the mp3 version (which is available through Amazon)? No idea, but by any name the songs are supremely weird and amazing.
The Chaquito Big Band
Spies And Dolls (1972)
Coming out in 1972, this Bond cash-in from Chaquito Big Band takes full advantage of the musical styles that had become popular by then. Lots of wah-wah guitar, Hammond organs, rapid-fire percussion, and the sort of big brass and strings you were getting in everything from Isaac Hayes to the music from Enter the Dragon to big hit cop TV shows. The Chaquito of the group’s name was British composer Johnny Gregory, who among other accomplishments, led the storied BBC Radio Orchestra for nearly two decades. He came from a musical family, with a father who led a dance band at London’s legendary Italian restaurant, Quaglino’s. Apart from being a hot spot for British aristocracy (including Queen Elizabeth herself, who became the first reigning British monarch to dine at a public restaurant when she dropped by in 1953), Quaglino’s has a few important stamps on its James Bond and espionage history passport. Ian Fleming dined at Quaglino’s with Maud Russell, an American anti-fascist activist and, for a time, Ian’s lover. The two spent dinner arguing over politics, most likely having to do with Ian being at the time, like many upper-class Brits, in favor of appeasement rather than war with up-and-coming dictator Adolf Hitler.
Quaglino’s was also the restaurant that MI5 operative Major Thomas Robertson, who specialized in double agents, chose to influence a potentially important asset: Agent Tricycle, aka Dusan “Dusko” Popov.* Popov would eventually be chaperoned at a Lisbon casino by young Naval Intelligence officer Ian Fleming, who watched with awe as playboy spy Popov used the money given to him by the British government to bankrupt Nazi after Nazi at the gambling tables. Popov’s brash actions made such an impact on Fleming that he eventually used the night as the basis for the plot of his first novel, Casino Royale. Later in life, when asked what it felt like to be one of the primary models upon which Fleming based James Bond, Popov, in a move as cool as 007, brushed it off, claiming (perhaps rightly) that his own life was far more exciting than Bond’s.
Johnny Gregory’s father, Frank Gregori, would likely have been the band leader at Quaglino’s while all of this was going on, and since young Johnny worked in the band for a time as a violinist, it’s even possible he performed for some point for Ian Fleming or Dusko Popov. True to his background in pop, dance bands, and scoring, the Chaquito Big Band’s contribution to the world of Bond cash-ins, is big and bold and very early 1970s. It starts out with a truly blistering rendition of the theme from the Sidney Poitier film They Call Me Mr. Tibbs, followed by a number of other ace arrangements of movie themes, including The Anderson Tapes, The French Connection, Our Man Flint, Bullit, and Shaft. There are also some good original compositions. What there aren’t weirdly, are any James Bond themes. However, don’t let that sour you on this album. Chaquito Big Band delivers a high-energy album that bridges some gaps between the purer John Barry sound of the 1960s and the more groove-oriented sound of the 1970s.
* Want to know more about the wild story of Ian Fleming and Dusko Popov? Well, I just happen to have written a book, Cocktails and Capers, that has a chapter dedicated to the story, with special guest appearances by Mussolini, Lucky Luciano, and a bunch of cocktail recipes.
James Bond will return…in Goldsinger: Now Sounds from the J*MES B*ND Hi-Fi!
Read Part One: The Sound of Spying: The World of James Bond Cash-In Albums