Bert Kaempfert & His Orchestra - Good Life Music - Free and Easy Vol. 9

1. Love Theme from “You Can't Win 'Em All”
2. I'm in Love
3. Hit the Open Road
4. Over the Rainbow
5. Sweet Caroline
6. Flight to Mecca
7. Free and Easy
8. Magic Moments
9. Gone with the Wind
10. Wait for Me
11. Laura
12. Susan
13. Bell Bottoms
14. At the End of Our Love
15. Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)
16. Me and My Shadow

Free and Easy

Available for the first time on CD, this album, recoded in the spring of 1970, was Bert Kaempfert’s last production in "classical" two-track stereo before he began using the eight-track system for his recordings. Once again he and his orchestra made music which was truly "free and easy" in every way, and indeed nothing can be compared with Kaempfert's music: in arranging the carefully chosen pieces for his orchestra, he always ensured that the melody remained in the foreground.

In addition to the highly popular Sweet Caroline, a top-ten hit written by Neil Diamond, Bert Kaempfert also looked back to that old jazz favorite Gone With The Wind from 1937, and to two world-famous film melodies: Over The Rainbow was sung by Judy Garland in the 1939 film musical "The Wizard Of Oz" and became her signature tune for the rest of her life, while Laura, from the 1944 crime film of the same name, brought the film composer David Raksin lasting fame.

Two of the eight original compositions by the Bert Kaempfert-Herbert Rehbein team also originate from a film: "You Can't Win 'Em All," starring Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson, was an adventure film made in 1969 whose action took place in the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. With the music to this film - the majestic love theme and the action-packed Flight To Mecca are heard here - Bert Kaempfert once again broke his resolution never to write a soundtrack again, something he had sworn after the strenuous work on the film "A Man Could Get Killed" with a melody which later became a hit all over the world, Strangers In The Night.

Three of the bonus tracks are taken from the album BERT KAEMPFERT NOW! from 1971. At The End Of Our Love, written by Bert Kaempfert and Herbert Rehbein, is on the other hand absolutely brand new the world over, being a previously unreleased recording from 1969!

(Bert Kaempfert Music, Hamburg)