It’s over 50 years since Kenyon Hopkins was plying his trade, delivering distinctive jazz noir soundtracks to TV series in the States, boxing clever with sound effects, producing mood pieces that summed up your holiday, scoring an Elvis movie and providing the soundtrack scores for such legendary films as Baby Doll and 12 Angry Men. He toyed with the macabre on the truly way out ‘Nightmare’ album and summed up beat jazz on ‘Lonelyville’ a set he recorded with the Creed Taylor Orchestra. He also took the concept of easy listening to extremes with the truly oddball ‘’Swinging Ball’ album from 1960 and you could easily say he invented theme music with the oddball ‘Rooms’.
Sporadically people rave about the man’s blues and jazz influences and his penchant for crowd hub-bub lurking behind a melody but, unlike say Arthur Lyman or Martin Denny whose exotica has struck a chord and been roundly celebrated in bachelor pad circles and at space age pop parties, Kenyon Hopkins remains outside of most people’s boxes. He dips into the arrangement palette of the greats like Aaron Copeland, he pre-dates Zappa at the drop of a sound effect, and he not pre-dated Eno and introduced music for elevators long before he became follicle challenged.
The soundtracks alone – The Hustler, the early Strange One, The Fugitive Kind and Baby Doll are all staggering pieces, while the concept albums are fully set to scare your neighbours – Shock and Panic (Son Of Shock) are filled with the kind of tension that latter day exponents of the B movie have doted on for years and ‘Nightmare’ does exactly what it says on the tin. Later, Hopkins moved into scoring a healthy string of TV series soundtracks as well as continuing to provide unique scores for the movies but those early works remain his best and somewhat strangely the most obscure and hard to locate of his work.
Fidelity Masters brings together eleven albums plus a couple of bonus cuts running the full gamut of his career, from his debut score for Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll through the wonderful scary gems ‘Shock’, ‘Panic’ and ‘Nightmare’ plus the opening sounds of 12 Angry Men and the title theme from the long lost Wild River movie plus the early conceptual pieces ‘Rooms’ and ‘Sounds Of New York’ with all its street poetry and cocktail party ambience. Seek it out, your ears will never be the same again.
Tracks include:
Kenyon Hopkins: The Strange One
Main Title
Ace of Spades
Georgie Runs For Major Avery
Military Band
The Fight
Jocko’s Theme
The Book
Country Juice
I Call You Nightboy
Jocko’s Theme.m4a
You’re Under Arrest
Boogie On The Strange One
Roger Knocks
Strange One
End Title
Kenyon Hopkins: Rooms
Overture
Alone
Dreams
Escape
Going
Desire
Panic
Daydream
The End
Alone (Reprise)
The Creed Taylor Orchestra ftrg Kenyon Hopkins: The Sound Of New York
The Sound Of New York (Arrival)
Manhattan
Taxi Rid
Take The ‘A’ Train
Waterfront
Penthouse Serenade (Cocktail Party)
East Side, West Side (5th Ave. Parade)
Construction
Chinatown, My Chinatown (Chinese New Year)
Coney Island Visit
Lullaby Of Broadway
The Sound Of New York (Departure)
Kenyon Hopkins: The Fugitive Kind
Alone Prologue
Bird Song Main Title
Get Crazy
The Reformer
Put Me Off At The Station
Love To Sunday
Let Me Out
Return To The Store
High Pocket Blues
Pay Day
Calliope
Triumphant Fugitive End Title
Kenyon Hopkins: The Hustler
Main Title (Stop And Go)
Minnesota Fats
The Loser
Sarah’s Theme
4 Flights Up
Fast Buck
Small-Time Charlie
Bert’s Theme
Contract With Depravity
All Thumbs
Dining Out
Derby Time
Lipstick On A Mirror
The Winner
End Title
Kenyon Hopkins: Nightmare
The Tell Tale Heart
Invasion Of The Locusts
The Loft
Ghost Ship
The Watery Grave
Chamber Of Horrors
The Red Eyed Rats
The Shaft
Werewolf
Living Tomb
The Chase
Tara s Theme
Monster Meet
The Creed Taylor Orchestra ftrg Kenyon Hopkins: Shock
Heartbeat
The Crank
Gloomy Sunday
The Secret
Jungle Fever
The Long Walk
Haunted House
Spellbound
In Bedlam
Time Runs Out
High On A Windy Hill
So Peaceful In The Country
The Creed Taylor Orchestra ftrg Kenyon Hopkins: Lonelyville
| It’s A Lonesome Old Town | |
| Dream Beat | |
| The Lonesome Road | |
| Lonesome River | |
| Lonely Train | |
| All Alone | |
| The Nervous Beat | |
| Lonesome And Blue | |
| Lonely Girl | |
| Dark Street | |
| Lonelyville | |
| St. James Infirmary |
The Creed Taylor Orchestra ftrg Kenyon Hopkins: Panic (The Son Of Shock)
You’re Driving Me Crazy
The Prison Break
The Operation
Wreck Of Old ’97
Out Of This World
Lion Act
Heartaches
Rain
Alpine Honeymoon
A Shot In The Dark
The Fastest Gun
No Smoking
The Creed Taylor Orchestra ftrg Kenyon Hopkins: Ping Pang Pong – The Swinging Ball
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.
Daddy
Willow Weep for Me
Makin’ Whoopee
Argument
Lullaby In Rhythm
Whistle While You Work
Love Is Here To Stay
Lovers
Cheek To Cheek
Goodbye
I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
Kenyon Hopkins: Baby Doll
Baby Doll And Empty House
The Doctor And Archie
The Fire And Baby Doll
Biblical Justice
Ghosts
Baby Doll’s Fright
Lemonade
Shame Shame Shame
The Confession
The Cradle
Archie’s Break Up
Baby Doll’s Birthday
Kenyon Hopkins
Wild River Main title
Kenyon Hopkins
12 Angry Men Main Title
