[Publius]

THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK

COLE PORTER

PARIS

HARPERS BIZARRE: “TWO LITTLE BABES IN THE WOODS”

By 1967 there was a thread in American culture that compared the current era to the Roaring Twenties due to outlandish clothing, wild behavior, sexual freedom and drugs. “Parallel ‘23” by the Association from their “Insight Out” album laid it out perfectly.

Harpers Bizarre was a band recording for Warner Brothers that took songs from the era and worked them up in soft pop arrangements. They specialized in Cole Porter tunes, and this gives you an idea of how a song can be adapted to new approaches.

It starts with Cole Porter singing the introduction from his own 1934 recording, and then the band comes in with a typical mid-Sixties middle-of-the-road treatment.

Harpers Bizarre: “Two Little Babes in the Woods”

[left that other site]

Eyew...don’t like that arrangement at all.

But then, the 60’s had their bursts of genius, surrounded by lots of banality.

Like every era of music, I guess.