Rod McKuen – ‘A Boy Named Charlie Brown’

This month sees the re-issue of a collection of music by the long heralded ‘King of Kitsch’ Rod McKuen, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

With a vast career spanning several decades and having worked in a variety of areas, Rod McKuen was an interesting character.  While being an actor, poet, lyricist and composer during his career, he started as a poet, being a contemporary of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in the 1950s, before later adding music into his many activities and finding worldwide recognition.

This re-issue, titled ‘A Boy Named Charlie Brown’, contains the songs and instrumentals produced for the film of the same name, as well as some selections from ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ (The film starring Oscar Winner Dame Maggie Smith), ‘Me, Natalie’, and ‘Joanna’.

Originally released on vinyl in 1970, this album has been updated with additional liner notes from Rod McKuen himself (penned in late 2014), and with newly mastered audio.

These new liner notes are a good addition to the package and they show McKuen in a light hearted, self-effacing mood, displaying some not insignificant modesty about his own work, while still being informative and not shying away from highlighting who he’s worked with.

Musically, McKuen’s material comes across as a somewhat melancholic, yet whimsical cross between Scott Walker and Randy Newman, (both of whom would have been contemporaries with similar influences) and in general this style fits in with the aesthetic of the downtrodden, pessimistic Charlie Brown.  I have always thought of Charlie Brown being very much grounded in a more 1950s sense of ‘America’, rather than the more liberal 1960s/70s, so McKuens musical underpinnings, with their innocent playfulness and more traditional composition, fit well.

There is a definite stylistic change between the Charlie Brown material and the live action feature tracks, which is as you would expect, with this material being orchestrated in a different way, but it is still clearly McKuen, as his voice is so distinctive on the vocal tracks.  Henry Mancini makes his mark on the ‘Me, Natalie’ music, but I would not be surprised if McKuen’s friendship with Mancini influenced his own work musically too.

Personally, I would have liked the album to have concentrated on either the Charlie Brown material or the film work, as the combination seems a little jarring.  While making an album entirely Charlie Brown related would probably have needed to include some Vince Guaraldi penned tracks, it probably would have been more cohesive.  It is acknowledged though that this a re-issue and therefore is restricted to the original presentation.

The album, with its extra liner notes (pdf booklet in the digital version) is well presented and gives a snapshot of some of McKuens work between 1968 and 1969, but the transfer from the original masters isn’t perfect however, and there are a couple of moments where some audio restoration would have been beneficial.

Generally though, the album is an interesting re-issue, especially as Rod McKuen isn’t as well known as he once was.  Yes, his lyrics are considered schmaltzy and saccharin, yes, it is a slight odd choice to combine Charlie Brown with the material from 3 films, rather than do a specific Charlie Brown album, and yes, there are audio flaws, but overall it is worth a listen.

Label:  Varèse Sarabande Records
Release Date: June 23rd, 2015 (Original release: 1970)

 

Related posts: