Lena thinks it may have been Zuma Beach, which she and her
family visited many times in her youth, although circumstances make it more
likely to have been Santa Monica Beach. In any case, one evening in 1968, her
father – and therefore my father-in-law – was indulging in his habit of taking
photographs of the sunset. Since this was an age before selfies, he was approached by another gentleman on the same beach who asked whether he wouldn’t mind taking some pictures of him and his young child. Not only did my father-in-law oblige,
but he also offered to get the film developed and send both film and
photographs back to this gentleman. Names and addresses were exchanged, and Lena's father was as good as his word.
Lena’s father thought no more about the matter at the time;
although he watched The Smothers Brothers
Comedy Hour on TV, he was not particularly concerned about “keeping up”
with trends or people. But having told his work colleagues the gentleman’s
name, they were astonished: “You spoke to Mason
Williams?”
Yes, Mason Williams was that gentleman, and like “MacArthur Park,” his signature record was more or less a product of Lena’s backyard, the
Los Angeles that she would have known in her infancy. Williams was actually
from Abilene, Texas, and was raised in Oregon and Oklahoma before eventually
coming to California. His early career was spent on the folk circuit and he
released many records, blending folk music with his comedic poetry, before
taking the job as head writer for the then revolutionary Smothers Brothers
show. He was so struck by one aspiring young writer that not only did he take
him on, but he also sometimes paid the man out of his own pocket. That young protégé
of his was named Steve Martin.
I have no idea why The
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour never aired on British television but it
sounds as though it was a lot of fun to make as well as to watch. Williams was
put in charge of both comedy and music for the programme – one of his early
songs for the show, “Cinderella Rockefella,” became an international hit in
1968 for Esther and Abi Ofarim. Later in 1967 he set about putting together
another album of music, entitled The
Mason Williams Phonograph Record. He named one of its most striking tracks “Classical
Gasoline” – the intention being that the work should add new “fuel” to the
classical guitar repertoire. But a music copyist mistakenly abbreviated the “Gasoline”
to “Gas” – hence in 1968 the piece became accidentally fashionable.
The third instrumental to appear in the story this week, “Classical
Gas” acts as a sort of dialogue between Williams’ guitar and orchestra with
rhythm section – a different division of the Wrecking Crew from “MacArthur Park”
was in attendance. Bearing influences of folk and flamenco as well as classical
and pop, “Classical Gas” comes across as though it were an unused or lost
backing track from the Forever Changes
sessions – one constantly expects Arthur Lee to appear and free-associate over its
surface.
Much of the dramatic impact of “Classical Gas” is owed to
the brilliant arrangement by a young musician named Mike Post; when you come to
the middle-eight, you already hear a prophecy of Post’s subsequent, and
phenomenally successful, career as a television theme composer. The clip you
see at the head of this piece – taken directly from the Smothers Brothers show –
was one I remember seeing as a child, in black and white, on Top Of The Pops (for the record also
went top ten in Britain; in America, it won three Grammys, and was kept off
number one only by a different manifestation of late sixties Los Angeles – The
Doors).
But the record’s melancholy symmetry now makes me think of
the Los Angeles of 1968, of how this was where my wife grew up, and how sunsets
– however long and sorrowful – are always succeeded by a new sunrise.
Date Record Made
Number Two: 3 August 1968
Number Of Weeks At
Number Two: 2
Record At Number One:
“Hello, I Love You” by The Doors
UK Chart Position: 8
Other Information:
Although the success of “Classical Gas” was never replicated, Williams
continued a successful dual career in music and comedy writing; a dozen years
later, he was, for a time, head writer for Saturday Night Live.
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