Various Folk, Funk & Beyond - Arrangements Of John Cameron (CD)

(Ace Records) 24 tracks

John Cameron is truly one of the greatest and best known British arrangers of the 60s and 70s. He came from the British jazz scene and as a teenager played live with greats like Dick Heckstall-Smith. When he moved to London, his first arranging assignment was Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" - Cameron created a unique jazz-folk single with proto-psychedelic overtones that hit #1 in America and made him a sought-after arranger overnight. The Donovan connection (Cameron arranged virtually all of his '60s recordings) led to work with woodwinds for Fran oise Hardy and Julie Felix, but he preferred to work with a full, funky horn section - in the '70s, this led to classic hits with CCS, Hot Chocolate and Heatwave, as well as some of the most influential and sampled recordings in the CPM library. At the movies, you may have heard Cameron's bucolic, dreamy score to Kes; on TV, there was the brass-heavy 'Avenues And Alleyways,' the theme to The Protectors. If you turned on the radio, you couldn't miss the soulful hits of Flirtations and CCS, Hot Chocolate by Errol Brown (we opted for the atmospheric title track of their album "Cicero Park") or the Heatwave classic "Always And Forever". More recently, Hopscotch's 'Look At The Lights Go Up' has become a £300 sought-after mod dancer, while 50 Cent, Common and Cee-Lo Green have sampled the hazy groove of 'Half Forgotten Daydreams'. It was put together by Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, following his highly successful CDs with arrangements by Thom Bell ('Ready Or Not') and Norman Whitfield ('Psychedelic Soul'). The CD includes extensive cover notes, unpublished photos and an interview with Cameron himself.
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