FRANK HUNTER White Goddess RARE Outer Space Exotica LP

$

27

USA Kapp LP "White Goddess" by Frank Hunter from the year 1959 is a perfect example of Exotica crossing over to the Space Age by using new electronic instruments of that time. Chromatic bongos and log drums, the "Buzzimba" and Chinese bells sit with wordless female swoons and Ondioline in a small orchestra and do the job. 8 of the 12 titles are original compositions, and standards like "Poinciana" and "Jungle Drums" add up to a nearly perfect record. That should give you a hint of the quality of this work, which made this record one of the holy grails of Exotica music. This is the harder to find stereo version, the only copy I could compare this two ended the ebay completed listings & went for over $70 (but was in near mint which this one is not near really but still plays quite nice).

AN ONLINE BIO ON HIM: Frank Hunter's White Goddess is one of the incredibly great and incredibly hard-to-find Holy Grail albums that die-hard exotica fans spend years looking for. Marty Manning's Twilight Zone is another. Like Manning, Hunter was an unsung hero of the great days of corporate popular music production, overlooked by musical histories that focus only on the many stars they made sound good. And like Manning, he might have been completely forgotten were it not for the band of exotica fans who discovered one remarkable album that stood out from the rest of his professional works.

Like Manning's Twilight Zone, Hunter's White Goddess combines original compositions and standards, orchestrated and arranged for an unusual combination of instruments. Like Twilight Zone, it incorporates space age pop's favorite odd couple, the Ondioline and wordless vocals, as well as other space age pop regulars like chromatic bongos, Chinese bells, and the buzzimba. It's something of a cross-over between jungle exotica and space music and right up there with the very best in both categories.

Hunter was another big band veteran who switched to the studio, getting his first big break arranging for Elliot Lawrence's Orchestra when it formed in the late 1940s (he was later joined by the young Gerry Mulligan). In the mid-1950s, he worked for Bethlehem Records, where he worked with Frances Faye and others, then moved on to work with a variety of labels and artists, including Mercury, Medallion, and Top Rank and Johnny Hartman, Ketty Lester, Carmen McCrae, Eddie Fisher, and Eddie Heywood. He worked for Kapp for several years, arranging for Roger Williams, Anita Darian, and Joe Harnell. It was during this time that he recorded White Goddess.

He left Kapp and continued to work with diverse mix of acts, from Pat Boone to Chad and Jeremy to the Quinto Sisters. He arranged two of Leo Diamond's later albums on Reprise, and did plenty of work composing music for commercials, some of which is captured on his Sesac album. When CBS started putting out its annual boxed set of orchestral settings of current hits attributed to the "Terry Baxter Orchestra," Hunter was a regular contributor. Unfortunately, after that, his life and works become harder to trace. Perhaps before too many more years, someone will reissue White Goddess and help knit together the loose threads of Frank Hunter's career.

SONGS: A1 Ritual of the Torch A2 Poinciana A3 Strange Echoes A4 Jungle Drums A5 Pulse A6 Lost Plateau B1 White Goddess B2 Temple Bells B3 Lost in the Stars B4 Zimbah B5 Mist of Gorongoza B6 Jungle Fantasy

CONDITION: The record was very noisy when I spot checked played it on the B side mainly (I think it's not the best pressing quality to begin with...not much choice though since this record wasn't ever reissued to my knowledge)...i'd say is VG+ on the A side after cleaning it with my nitty gritty cleaner (much nicer after a deep cleansing) the vinyl is still quite shinny & just has minor pretty light needlewear visible on that side. The B side is VG with two minor & reasonably light scratches on the first two tracks (played horribly noisy until I cleaned it & sounds a LOT better now) more cleaning might bring it up to VG+, this records looks like those grades or better but not sure how much wear vs pressing quality may affect it, to be safe overall I'd grade it a VG to be safe though. Cover is VG with "T + Wood" written on the front cover image (darn it) in black marker years ago, light ringwear on that side & a water stain on the bottom right corner (more obvious on the back), 1" of top right corner seam splitting & back has ringwear but mainly overall dirtyness & aging to it (average for a 50 year old record).

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