Your classic instrumental song of the day comes from a time where elevator music stood side-by-side on the charts alongside raucous rock ‘n’ roll tunes, doo-wop vocal harmonies, Brill Building pop masterpieces, and silly novelty songs. We’re talking about that crazy world of 1960 and Percy Faith’s big hit, “Theme from A Summer Place.” Believe it or not, this shmaltzy little number went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for a record-setting nine consecutive weeks. (That record would be broken in 1977 by the similarly shmaltzy “You Light Up My Life,” by Pat Boone’s little daughter, Debby.)
A Summer Place, the movie, was released in November of 1959. It didn’t win any Academy Awards but it did entertain the teenagers of the day with its story of former teenage lovers who get back together 20 years later and have to deal with the passionate love affair of their own teenage children (from different marriages, of course). The film was directed by Delmar Daves and starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue as the teenaged lovers and Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire as their former teenaged-lover parents.
“Theme from A Summer Place” wasn’t really the main theme from A Summer Place. It’s actually an extended cue for the two young lovers, originally known as the “Molly and Johnny Theme.” It’s pretty catchy, though, which is why it caught on so big.
The song, along with the rest of the movie soundtrack, was composed by the legendary Max Steiner. Mr. Steiner composed the music for more movies than I can list in a single blog post, including such memorable films as Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, King Kong, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Battle of Britain, Arsenic and Old Lace, Mildred Pierce, The Caine Mutiny, and The Searchers. He had an incredible and incredibly long career; his first film was 1929’s Rio Rita and his last was 1968’s Those Calloways. In between, he was nominated for 24 Academy Awards and won three, for The Informer, Since You Went Away, and Now, Voyager.
“Theme from A Summer Place,” the single, was recorded by Percy Faith and His Orchestra at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City on September 11, 1959, and released prior to the November premiere of the movie. It wasn’t an immediate hit, not entering the Hot 100 until January of 1960, but then it shot up the charts and stayed there for longer than any single before or almost two decades after. In addition to its contemporary chart success, it was ranked the number-one song for all of 1960 and remains the longest-running number-one instrumental in the history of the Billboard charts.
By the way, the Lettermen released a vocal version of “Theme from A Summer Place” in 1965. (The tune actually had lyrics, by Mack Discant.) It went to #16 on the Billboard Hot 100, during the height of Beatlemania and the British Invasion. Really.
Percy Faith was a Canadian-American bandleader, composer, and conductor. He was known for his lush (re: shmaltzy) arrangements of instrumental ballads and Christmas standards. He was pretty much the father of what we now call “easy listening” music. Before “Theme from A Summer Place,” he was known for his recordings of “All My Love” (#7 in 1950), “Christmas in Killarney” (#28 in 1950), “On Top of Old Smokey” (with Burl Ives, #10 in 1951), “When the Saints Go Marching In” (#29 in 1951), “Delicado” (#1 in 1952), “Moulin Rouge Theme” (#1 in 1953), and a surprisingly large number of other top forty hits. It was, indeed, a different time.
Mr. Faith kept recording his easy listening music through the mid-70s; his last recordings were the themes from Chinatown and Summer of ’42, both of which placed high on the adult contemporary charts. He passed away in 1976, aged 67.
Max Steiner, the composer of “Theme from A Summer Place,” lived to age 83. He passed away in 1971.
