180g Deluxe Gatefold Edition! The Sensational Guitars Of Dan & Dale! Also Featuring Sun Ra's Arkestra & Al Kooper's Blues Project! According to WFMU's Beware Of The Blog, in 1966 a toy company in Newark, New Jersey released a children's record called Batman and Robin to cash in on the popular Adam West TV series of the same name. The music on the LP was credited to "The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale", but in fact the band was one of the greatest uncredited session combos of all time, including the core of Sun Ra's Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project. To keep the music licensing fees to a minimum, all the tracks were based on public domain items like Chopin's Polonaise Op. 53, the horn theme from Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and the love theme from Romeo and Juliet, and generic rock riffs. It's all instrumental, with the exception of "Robin's Theme", which features an uncredited vocalist. "Apart from the remake of the TV show?s theme, the album was mostly instrumental, and had nothing in particular to do with Batman, but it remains an item of interest because of who played on it. While it was credited to 'The Sensational Guitars of DAN & DALE,' the actual studio band was made up of members of Al Kooper?s Blues Project and Sun Ra's Arkestra! Organs on the Batman and Robin album are played by Ra, saxes are performed by Arkestra stalwarts Marshall Allen and John Gilmore, and guitars are played by the Blues Project's legendary Steve Katz and Danny Kalb. The album?and again, this was marketed to children to cash in on a goofy TV show?is accordingly badass, full of satisfying soul riffs and fiery surf-guitar leads. It also nods to classical music and the Beatles." - Ron Kretsch, dangerousminds.net |