Post #287783 by quickiki on Fri, Feb 23, 2007 7:02 PM

For those of you out there with a warm place in your heart for Martin Denny, I've stumbled across a rather obscure, yet still available compilation of Denny's stuff on CD. It's actually a Japanese import on EMI entitled "Martin Denny / The Very Best of Martin Denny The Exotic Sounds". Sounds like broken English and probably is, but this disc has several songs I've never heard before as well as some alternate recordings of all the familiar stuff. It has "Happy Talk" from South Pacific, a Dennyfied version of "Over the Rainbow", a real 60's hipster version of "Sukiyaki" (one of my favorite songs ever), a way-gone track called "Sake Rock" with trashy, garage-band drums, and a completely hilarious version of "Quiet Village" with a full-on, synthesizer treatment that'll make you bust a gut when you hear it. There's also a lot of other really cool material I haven't seen elsewhere (on CD at least) and has an intro track of an MC announcing Martin Denny, presumably from his stint as the headliner at Henry Kaiser's Hawaiian Village resort on Waikiki. The liner notes are mostly in Japanese, but it does have a listing of Denny's discography which is absolutely staggering and a list of recommended exotica recordings of other artists I never knew existed (worth further investigation). Who knows how much more obscure Denny stuff is out there waiting to be mined.

[ Edited by: quickiki 2007-02-24 08:41 ]