Bowmar/ Lucille Wood, Marni Nixon & William Schallert "Halloween: A Book-Recording Set" (Bowmar, B587, 1960’s)
Bowmar educational records stretch at least from the 1950’s into the 1970’s, and covered a variety of subjects. They seem to have released a few Halloween albums over their lifespan, and this particular one is from a series dedicated to each month of the year that was clearly geared towards fairly young kids. Behind the scenes composer & Bowmar alumni (perhaps you enjoyed her work on “Rhythm Time #2”?) Lucille Wood wrote the music & lyrics, and well-accomplished singer Marni Nixon provides the narration (supposedly William Schallert is in there too).
So that you can get a sense of the original intent for the album, I’ve included scans of some of the interior booklet in with the zip file. Here are some excerpts:
“The narration and the easy-to-sing melodies on the recording make immediate and independent participation possible. Create a warm friendly atmosphere of acceptance where each child knows that his ideas and interpretations will be respected. Encourage children to ‘feel like’ rather than ‘look like’ whatever they may be imitating or interpreting. Before the recording begins invite the children to sit in a ‘Halloween circle’.
TIPTOE: How would you tiptoe into a scary, haunted house? Suggest that the children tiptoe out of the circle to any place in room.
GOBLINS SONG: Will you be a funny goblin or a scary goblin? If the children dance in a circle, indicate the direction of movement to avoid collisions.
HALLOWEEN GHOSTS SONG: Dance as lightly as ghosts float through the air.”
…as you can see the whole thing is mainly geared towards fostering a sense of interaction and activity (rather than spooks and scares), but for obsessives like myself it still oughtta do a good job of “setting the mood”. Okay, see you all in the “Halloween circle”!
Bowmar/ Lucille Wood, Marni Nixon & William Schallert “Halloween: A Book-Recording Set” (192 kbps)
Thanks for another new one on me. I guess a lot of these albums came along after my time because I’m finding new and exciting Halloween albums all the time these days that I’ve never heard of. My cut off year for buying these kinds of albums was 1970. Seems like the 70’s saw a flurry of such LPs that I totally missed out on. I had never heard of any of these artists except Marni Nixon who was on some of the older Disney things I have. Thanks again Jason.
You don’t see this one pop up often, I’m very interested in giving it a listen.
If it’s half as good as the Wade Denning album I’m sure I’m gonna love it.
Dr. Terror
It’s a lot more “little kid” than the Denning one (which to me is such a knockout), but it’s still pretty interesting if you like the esoterica of Halloween & the lure of hearing something meant for children but with adult ears.
I’ve got a quite few more educational Halloween type records I’ll get to posting as well, stuff more focused on poems & songs.
Jason, thanks for another cool share. I have another fun Bowmar Halloween record on vinyl called “The Best in Children’s Literature: Halloween Tales” that also has Marni Nixon, plus Jose Ferrer. It has some different readings of the Georgie stories & a few others – but I hadn’t heard this one.
I’d like to hear that one too Steve!
wow!!! not because i remember this record but because I remember the RECORD LABEL “BOWMAR” i remember being 4 in 1978 and the vinyl was colored.
Thank you so much for this article. I used this series for years when I taught music. I thought it was really wonderful for young children becuase they were not only able to quickly learn the songs but it also provided wonderful opportunities for creative movement and listening. I moved back into the music classroom last fall but was very sad to discover that I had lost the recording I made from the original recordings. Does anyone know if there is a was to still get these recordings. I think it is a real shame that they are not still published.