The ultimate form, if not the progenitor, of Easy Listening music was Muzak. The company began transmitting music over electric lines in the 1920s when radios were complicated technology. [1]
As the mass media improved, Muzak changed its focus to piping music into offices, stores, and elevators. It sold its 15-minute segments of instrumental music in the 1950s as tools that improved productivity. [2] While its repertoire was varied, the company regulated the tempos and the bands of high and low, loud and soft tones to create a soothing sound. [3]
When Muzak stripped popular songs of their lyrics, it was dependent on the melodies. [4] To create interest the arrangers often used unusual combinations of instruments that fit within the company’s guidelines. [5]
By the early 1960s, Muzak began having problems. Popular music no longer relied on melody, but had begun emphasizing rhythm. In addition, other companies began offering competing products for individuals, radio stations, and commercial buyers who wanted something like Muzak, but wanted to choose the songs themselves.
RCA created the Living Strings in 1959. [6] It led to Living Voices, who recorded Tommy Leonetti’s version of "Kumbaya" in 1969. Muzak had eliminated voices. The arranger, Bob Armstrong, only replaced the recitation with an electric guitar solo.
Like Muzak, Armstrong used variations in harmony and instrumentation to create a subtle arrangement that would not bore the listener, while not calling attention to themselves. He began, like Leonetti, with a drum. However his had an irregular beat pattern, while Leonetti’s was even.
With the "crying" verse, Armstrong added a piano or harpsichord that sounded a bit like a xylophone, and added trumpets in a higher key for the "praying" verse. After the guitar solo, the group used the same instrumentation for "hears You." On "singing," the harmony became more complex with a female descant. The final "kumbaya" was in a still higher key, while the last iteration used the drum, "piano," and humming.
The lyrics were not intended to be religious, as they were with Leonetti, but inspirational. It was described as a "song of brotherhood" on an album that featured "The Impossible Dream" and "You Gave Me a Mountain." It claimed listeners "no longer" were "satisfied to hear pretty melodies with meaningless words." [7]
It was the very opposite of Muzak. That company did not sell its recordings, and few of its play lists have been described. [8] I don’t know if it did its own version of "Kumbaya."
Vocal Group: men and women
Vocal Director: Bob Armstrong
Instrumental Accompaniment: "piano," trumpets, guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum
Credits
Traditional. P. D.
Arranged and conducted by Bob Armstrong
© 1969, RCA Records, New York
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: emphasis on second syllable of "kumbaya"
Verses: kumbaya, crying, praying, hears You, singing
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 4-verse song, framed by kumbaya
Verse Repetition Pattern: "kumbaya" the first and last verse"
Ending: repeats "Oh, Lord, kumbaya" once
Unique Features: none
Influences: Tommy Leonetti
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: harmony, instrumentation and key combinations different on each iteration
Singing Style: one syllable to one note
Harmony: primarily parallel chords
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: instruments are subservient to the melody, whether sung or the guitar
Ending: hummed last iteration
Notes on Performance
Occasion: recording session
Location: RCA’s Studio B, New York City
Notes on Performers
The Living Voices were organized by Anita Kerr. [9] Her vocal quartet sang on many country music recordings that featured the Nashville Sound. She added four people to the Anita Kerr Singers for the Living Voices. She left Nashville in 1965, [10] and Bob Armstrong took over.
Armstrong was from Buffalo, where he met Jack Paar before World War II. Paar was working for a local radio station. [11] When Paar was hired to host The Tonight Show in 1957, he tapped Armstrong as his arranger and assistant music director. [12]
Paar left NBC in 1962, [13] and Armstrong was hired as an arranger by RCA, [14] which then was owned by NBC. [15] He was living in the Buffalo area when he died in 1994. [16]
Availability
Album: Living Voices. "Kumbaya." Impossible Dream. RCA Camden CAS-2322. 1969.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Muzak."
2. Wikipedia, Muzak.
3. Joseph Lanza. Elevator Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004 edition. 240. Much of the enforcement of the sound was done by the engineers after recordings were made.
4. Lanza. 236.
5. Lanza. 230–231.
6. Wikipedia. "Living Strings." It was conceived as "an answer to Stereo Fidelity’s ‘101 Strings’." [17]
7. Liner notes.
8. Ownership of Muzak has changed several times. Lanza interviewed arrangers who had worked for the company. A list of songs recorded by Muzak was beyond his scope.
9. "Camden Is Hallmark of Growing Low-Price Strength of Majors." Billboard. 24 August 1963. 16.
10. Wikipedia. "Anita Kerr." The last recording it listed was The Living Voices Sing the Music from the Motion Picture The Singing Nun. RCA Camden CAS-974. 1966.
11. Bob Armstrong. Obituary. The [New Philadelphia, Ohio] Times-Reporter. 29 April 1994. 5. Armstrong was the WBEN music director. [18] Paar was host of the morning show. [19]
12. Bob Armstrong. Obituary. Billboard. 14 May 1994. 92. José Melis was the music director.
13. Wikipedia. "Tonight Starring Jack Paar."
14. Bob Armstrong. Obituary. The Baltimore Sun. 28 April 1994.
15. Wikipedia. "NBC."
16. "Armstrong Autopsy Results Awaited." The Buffalo [New York] News. 29 April 1994. Armstrong died from injuries sustained when he was attacked by another patient in the Buffalo Veterans Hospital.
17. Billboard, Camden.
18. Billboard, Armstrong.
19. Wikipedia. "Jack Paar"
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