The 'Oh, Van Dyke Parks is on this?!' Thread

[dogear]

So at the risk of sounding unhip, what did VDP actually contribute to "Follow That Bird".  From recollection there is a song on there that sounds like a complete take off of "Busy Doing Nothing".  I believe the song is called "Easy Goin' Day"  Is that a Parks tune?

According to AllMusic.com, VDP is co-crdited with composing all the songs:  http://www.allmusic.com/album/follow-that-bird-mw0000607531

No songwriting credits on the CD reissue, which only says arrangements by VDP and Lennie Niehaus. By the way VDP gets a thank you on the "Club Paradise" Soundtrack album. What for? Jimmy Cliff and The Mighty Sparrow are on it, maybe that's why. Anyone any info?

[bgas]

So at the risk of sounding unhip, what did VDP actually contribute to "Follow That Bird".  From recollection there is a song on there that sounds like a complete take off of "Busy Doing Nothing".  I believe the song is called "Easy Goin' Day"  Is that a Parks tune?

According to AllMusic.com, VDP is co-crdited with composing all the songs:  http://www.allmusic.com/album/follow-that-bird-mw0000607531

No songwriting credits on the CD reissue, which only says arrangements by VDP and Lennie Niehaus. By the way VDP gets a thank you on the "Club Paradise" Soundtrack album. What for? Jimmy Cliff and The Mighty Sparrow are on it, maybe that's why. Anyone any info?

according to the Library Of Congress, VDP co-wrote "Club Paradise" : http://www.loc.gov/item/jots.200159302
also Wikipedia has music for the film by the same two:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_Paradise, as does: http://www.answers.com/topic/club-paradise-1

Here's his IMDb file, which pretty well covers his filmography career:  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0663026

[rn57]

So at the risk of sounding unhip, what did VDP actually contribute to "Follow That Bird".  From recollection there is a song on there that sounds like a complete take off of "Busy Doing Nothing".  I believe the song is called "Easy Goin' Day"  Is that a Parks tune?

According to AllMusic.com, VDP is co-crdited with composing all the songs:  http://www.allmusic.com/album/follow-that-bird-mw0000607531

No songwriting credits on the CD reissue, which only says arrangements by VDP and Lennie Niehaus. By the way VDP gets a thank you on the "Club Paradise" Soundtrack album. What for? Jimmy Cliff and The Mighty Sparrow are on it, maybe that's why. Anyone any info?

according to the Library Of Congress, VDP co-wrote "Club Paradise" : http://www.loc.gov/item/jots.200159302
also Wikipedia has music for the film by the same two:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_Paradise, as does: http://www.answers.com/topic/club-paradise-1

Here's his IMDb file, which pretty well covers his filmography career:  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0663026

IMDb is quite thorough when it comes to Van Dyke's movie/TV work....though for some reason the site's compilers still won't list his appearance on one of The Honeymooners's "lost episodes."

There are a couple of things from VDP's child-actor days I wouldn't mind seeing. One was a show where he played the young friend of a broken-down circus clown; the clown was played by none other than Henry Hull, who made his indelible mark in "Werewolves Of London" back in the '30s.   In another show, Van Dyke appeared alongside Robert Preston, soon to star in "The Music Man," and.... baseball's Leo Durocher. I'd really like to see at least a photo of them together.

Then, too, I wouldn't mind seeing what IMDb says is Van Dyke's first role after his child-actor days - a film that went by two titles, "Coming Attractions" and its earlier name, "Loose Shoes." It was made in 1977, but didn't get released until 1980, primarily because Bill Murray was in the cast and had become a star by then.  Van Dyke plays "Indian #2" in it - apparently, as in Native American.

 Others in that film include Kinky Friedman, Buddy Hackett, onetime Munchkin Billy Curtis, Warhol star/Jim Morrison buddy Tom Baker, Sid Haig, Karen Lamm, the Turtles's Mark Volman (playing a biker), Betty Thomas from Hill St Blues, Misty Rowe from Hee-Haw....and Susan Tyrrell.  A sure bet that no other movie has all these people in it.

One thing that IMDb notably omits is from 1968. Early that year, Les Crane briefly had a second nationally broadcast talk show, some years after ABC cancelled his first one. It was syndicated. One of the programs was a discussion of "the future of popular music," and the guests were Lalo Schifrin who wrote the Mission: Impossible theme....Jack Good of Shindig fame....Andy Wickham....and Van Dyke. 

Alas, it is very doubtful that show was preserved in video or audio form. It would have been done on videotape, but in those days such shows were routinely taped over for economy purposes, and anyway Crane was never known as one who took much interest in keeping his work on the permanent record.  For example, the very first US TV appearance by the Stones was on his show in '64 when it was locally broadcast in New York....but apparently no one bothered to preserve it. Not long after that, he interviewed Dylan, who also performed three songs....and that exists only in audio form because a fan taped it off the air.

One thing I'd like to know more about is Van Dyke's very extensive work for the stage.  There are a few odds and ends I know about, such as his providing incidental music for an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play Mann ist Mann which was staged in upstate New York with Bill Murray in 1986....and a production of Jump! in North Carolina in the 1980s, which I seem to recall reading did involve a fully staged presentation rather than the concert-style approach used when he performed it in NYC and LA in '84....but I'll write about that in another post sometime.

[Peter Reum]

Van Dyke did a gorgeous soundtrack for a PBS Special on Norman Rockwell. I had it on cassette somewhere....

[rn57]

Van Dyke did a gorgeous soundtrack for a PBS Special on Norman Rockwell. I had it on cassette somewhere....

The special, Norman Rockwell: An American Portrait, is also currently available on DVD thru Amazon and other places.

One VDP-related TV show somewhat harder to find is a 1990 production, originally aired as Mother Goose's Rock 'n Rhyme, and later marketed as Shelley Duvall's Rock 'n Rhymeland.  In its original form it was 95 minutes long; the later version that carried Ms Duvall's name was 77 minutes and can be seen entire at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs-MqMELk40

The show is obviously aimed at people who were fans of Pee Wee's Playhouse in the 1980s - the almost immediate appearance of the Del Rubio Triplets being one such indication, not to mention the sets and costumes - and has a pretty wild cast, as its Wikipedia and IMDB entries show. 

Students of Classic Hair Metal will have a fun time spotting some less-remembered musicians of the period, who appear uncredited.  But for SS'ers the show's big selling point is that Van Dyke plays the Minister of Merriment, right-hand man to Old King Cole, who is played by none other than Little Richard.

In the shorter version seen at Youtube Van Dyke, in yellow garb and wearing a tricorn hat, shows up at the 30 minute mark for about three minutes, standing behind the Rev. Mr. Penniman, but doesn't speak.  In the 95 minute cut, he does have dialogue.

 If you do some hunting in your local Goodwill or Salvation Army store, you might be able to find a VHS of the longer version - it's out of print and goes for pretty high dollar on Amazon.  Both versions are on one DVD sold at eBay for $16 - I don't know the degree of its legitimacy.

Anyway, the rest of the movie is worth watching, if only for taking a trip back into the last year of the BC (Before Cobain) era.  Pia Zadora plays Little Miss Muffett - it's pretty remarkable to think that this film is probably the main reason that anybody in America under the age of thirty has ever heard of her.  (That is, prior to her arrest in Vegas last weekend.)

 ZZ Top have a fun running gag.  In the best Marx Brothers/Story Of Mankind tradition, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel show up - but not together.  There are also amusing references to the "Stargate" sequence of 2001, and the title of Robin Williams' first comedy LP.

Plus, the late, great Jean Stapleton in the title role - kinda dressed like SCTV's Edith Prickley for some reason. 

[Wah Wah Wah Ooooo]

For years, "All I Want Is You" by U2 has been my wife's and my song. It was only about two years ago, while reading the liner notes for "Rattle and Hum" that I learned that the haunting, gorgeous string arrangement was done by Van Dyke Parks.