Review: The Ventures - The Colorful Ventures (1961)
Tracks: 1) Blue Moon; 2) Yellow Jacket; 3) Bluer Than Blue; 4) Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White; 5) Green Leaves Of Summer; 6) Blue Skies; 7) Greenfields; 8) Red Top; 9) White Silver Sands; 10) Yellow Bird; 11) Orange Fire; 12) Silver City.
REVIEW
In 1961, Hank Levine (what a brilliant, 100%-American name-surname combination!) was a little-known composer and arranger, whose principal achievements to date was his work on records by such acts as Dorsey Burnette and The Fleetwoods (he is responsible for the soft-as-silk production on their famous ‘Tragedy’, even if I still prefer the Brenda Lee cover). The Fleetwoods became his clients because he’d signed up to work for their label, Dolton Records, and so it was only a matter of time before he’d also cross paths with The Ventures — and from that crossing came ‘(Theme From) Silver City’, a minor hit for the band in August 1961 and easily the best song on this subsequent LP.
You could probably guess that there never had been a movie or show like ‘Silver City’... and you’d be wrong! There was a Western movie called Silver City back in 1951, and it even had an opening theme (credited to Paul Sawtell) that had a few phrases vaguely reminiscent of Levine’s composition — so it’s hardly a total coincidence, though it would be hard to accuse Mr. Levine of copyright infringement; ‘(Theme From) Silver City’ clearly finds more inspiration in the general Western style than specifically rips anybody off. Not that this is really so important; what is important is that the lead guitar melody is catchy, juicy, and uplifting in a way that only The Ventures, with their perfect understanding of the importance of guitar tone, could provide back in 1961. And Levine actually does a great job embellishing the band’s tight performance with strings (note how they begin to stealthily creep in around the second verse, propping up the already established «are-you-ready-to-take-on-this-world?» mood) and horns — there’s a genuinely epic moment here at 0:52 when the horns take over the main theme, and then the guitar and strings respond to the horns as if they were all members of the same bunch of merry cowboys, scattered around the hilltops but in tight coordination with each other. (The tune, by the way, is meant to be played in stereo — one of those cases where a monaural version pretty much loses the purpose). I think Lee Hazlewood and Duane Eddy might have been biting their nails over this one!
The B-side to the single, perhaps accidentally, perhaps not, also happened to share a color term — ‘Bluer Than Blue’ was credited to Dolton Records’ general manager Dick Glasser and to Tommy Allsup, lead guitar player for The Crickets; indeed, the lead guitar melody has some very typically Buddy Hollyesque pop inflections that you will easily recognize, even if, on the whole, the tune is quite retiring next to the smashing cowboy pomp of ‘Silver City’. But more importantly, this funny combination of «silver» and «blue» on the same single probably led to the idea of recording an entire LP of songs featuring names for colors in their titles — and thus, to the birth of the famous «Ventures Concept Album» franchise, where, instead of randomly writing and covering songs on different topics, they would group them together on a thematic basis (or, at least, on a pseudo-thematic one, as song titles — particularly if the songs are instrumentals — certainly do not always have a one-to-one correlation with song moods and meanings).
This quasi-conceptual approach had its ups and downs, like most creative ideas do. On one hand, it somehow elevated the status of The Ventures — instead of pure rambling around, they could now arrange their albums as connected «suites», artistically exploring one topic or another, and raising the overall level of intrigue for their listeners. On the other hand, though, it downplayed their status of «silent trend guardians»; when you restrict yourself to certain themes, it naturally becomes harder to combine this with the idea of putting your own stamp on contemporary hits. No better example of this than The Colorful Ventures: where every preceding album had relied on covers of recent big successes, this LP puts together a bunch of freshly written originals with a bunch of oldies’ covers — because, apparently, it was not that easy to find a lot of recent chart hits with color words in their titles. (Not that there weren’t any — Roy Orbison’s ‘Blue Angel’ from 1960 comes to mind immediately, as do a few others — but I guess not every pop hit lent itself all that well to a Ventures interpretation, and not every dashing lead guitarist has the guts to mimic a Roy Orbison vocal part, either).
Instead, the lead-in track to the album — and also the A-side for the second single off it — would be a rocking, typically Ventures-style reinvention of ‘Blue Moon’, possibly the fastest and the most drum-heavy version of the song you’ll ever find unless there’s an unreleased version by Napalm Death hanging around somewhere. Granted, by this time you are fairly sure of what to expect from a Ventures cover — speed, tightness, note-for-note perfection, clean and colorful guitar tone, skilful use of «bends and wobbles» — but that’s no reason not to have fun tapping along with their little concoction once, after the deceptive slow introduction, it launches all the way into fifth gear.
The track selection is fairly diverse, though; The Ventures wouldn’t want you to think that the only thing they are really good at is the speedy Ventures pop-rocker (though it is indeed the one thing at which they are better than at anything else), and so the «color trip» takes them into Latin territory (‘Cherry Pink And Apple Blossoms’, the most famous version of which came from Pérez Prado’s orchestra in 1953); «genuine» epic Western (‘Green Leaves Of Summer’, one out of two recent covers on the album — from Dmitry Tiomkin’s score to The Alamo); melancholy folk (‘Greenfields’, a hit for The Brothers Four in 1960); ballroom jazz (Woody Herman’s ‘Red Top’, remade into more of a Chuck Berry-style number); pure country (‘White Silver Sands’, a hit for Don Rondo in 1957); and calypso (‘Yellow Bird’, originally ‘Choucounne’ as recorded by Katherine Dunham in 1947). Of all these, only ‘Greenfields’ strikes me as somewhat exquisite: for all their cheerfulness, here The Ventures try not just to convey the deeply depressing spirit of the original, but emphasize it as best they can by turning the lead guitar melody into a series of expressive sighs and moans. Everything else is, well... okay.
The two original Ventures compositions included on the LP are fairly generic pop-rockers — both ‘Yellow Jacket’ and ‘Orange Fire’ start out with the exact same chuggin’ rhythm guitar melody, follow it up with a catchy-but-hollow lead figure, follow it up with a rocking solo, and then end the song in a slightly different key for the purpose of spiritual build-up. I suspect they wrote both of these in about half an hour while looking for two more numbers to pad out the album, but they’re certainly harmless enough.
I do recommend listening to the album in its entirety at least once, though, with the songs in exactly the original order, and then deciding for yourself if ‘Silver City’, coming right at the very end, actually grips your attention tighter than everything else combined — or if I am deluding myself and there is really nothing outstanding about the song other than its little French horn gimmick in the middle. Whatever be the answer, it’s still pretty clear that The Colorful Ventures on the whole is a nice little LP of courtier ditties built around one particular kingly song... a definition that is probably applicable to about 90% of the Ventures’ albums, all except the ones that do not even have one kingly song to their names.
Only Solitaire reviews: The Ventures