The Creed Taylor Orchestra/ Kenyon Hopkins "Shock" (1958), "Panic" (1959), "Nightmare!!" (1962)
From well known film composer Kenyon Hopkins came these 3 cool albums of stories-in-sound, released in 1958, 1959 & 1962 respectively. Well described by Tony Maygarden as “lots of spooky sound effects over tone poems with a jazz beat”, the first two were recorded for ABC (while Hopkins was semi-moonlighting from Capitol under the “Creed Taylor Orchestra” moniker), and the third was released by MGM under his own name. Over the course of the three albums Hopkins mostly depicts the short tales utilizing his compositional skills, throwing in extra layers of library effects and the occasional voice-over to fully paint the picture. The end result, somewhat in the “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” tradition of the day, is both creepy & classy. Hey! Just like you!
“If you were expecting a little dinner music, perhaps you’ve come to the wrong place. Then, again, when was the last time you had us over?
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…and just to round things out, here’s a pair of Famous Monsters ads:
I’ve been curious about these albums for years after hearing about them. So excited to finally get the chance! Thanks again for spoiling us.
I actually bought these albums many years ago. Glad to see the posts so others can enjoy them. The Kenyon Hopkins version of “Home On The Range” is…well..just listen.
Boo Hoo Hoo!
I tried to download the brilliant genius’ meisterwerk of Creed/Kenyon, ie scary stuff, and all I got was some variation of the following line:
Not Found
The requested URL /cto-shock.zip was not found on this server.
Apache/2.0.54 Server at scarstuff.strangereaction.com Port 80
Any chance of getting a re-up of these three cool LP’s? Many thnaks!