Montage
If there's a spiritual heir to both "Johann Sebastian Bach" and "Brian Wilson", surely it's Michael Brown, master of the rock and roll harpsichord and a perfectionist beyond all reasonable understanding, the combination of which brings him adulation and reverence from fans of Baroque late-Sixties pop and blank looks from almost everyone else — though the 1966 "Left Banke" single "Walk Away Renee", a staple of present-day oldies radio, will almost always draw understanding nods.
But no, that wasn't the voice of "Michael Brown": it's his piano, and his arrangement, and his fixation on the ever-unreachable "Walk Away Renee" (who also motivated the follow-up "Pretty Ballerina"), but the "Left Banke", with three excellent vocalists fronted by "Steve Martin", was clearly more than merely "Michael Brown"'s band, a fact which led to friction, breakup and reunion, and breakup once more.
Cover art and so it was that in 1968, with the rest of the "Left Banke" going on without him, "Michael Brown" disappeared into New Jersey and eventually resurfaced with, but not actually in, Montage; he co-wrote all but one song — his writing partners were "Bert Sommer", with whom he had cut some tracks during the "Left Banke" days, and "Tom Feher", who was actually part of the post-Brown-Banke — played all the keyboards, and arranged all the voices, but somehow he was not a member of the band.
If this seems like an East Coast version of "Brian Wilson", well, certainly "Michael Brown"'s aspirations were no less lofty. Montage was signed to Laurie Records in New York, and two singles, credited to Montage, were issued during 1968: "I Shall Call Her Mary", a charming paean to erstwhile Shangri-La Mary Weiss, and "Wake Up Jimmy", an unexpectedly-bouncy tune about the end of the world.
Neither charted, "Laurie Records" perhaps being preoccupied at the time with squeezing more Snoopy songs out of "The Royal Guardsmen", but "Michael Brown" had an Lp's worth of toons to deliver, and he did, in the process recycling two "Left Banke"-era songs: "Desiree", the fifth "Left Banke" single and the last one to scrape into the Top 100, and "Men Are Building Sand", which he had recorded previously with Sommer but which had been left in the vault.
If this seems like an East Coast version of "Brian Wilson", well, certainly "Michael Brown"'s aspirations were no less lofty. Montage was signed to Laurie Records in New York, and two singles, credited to Montage, were issued during 1968: "I Shall Call Her Mary", a charming paean to erstwhile Shangri-La Mary Weiss, and "Wake Up Jimmy", an unexpectedly-bouncy tune about the end of the world.
Neither charted, "Laurie Records" perhaps being preoccupied at the time with squeezing more Snoopy songs out of "The Royal Guardsmen", but "Michael Brown" had an Lp's worth of toons to deliver, and he did, in the process recycling two "Left Banke"-era songs: "Desiree", the fifth "Left Banke" single and the last one to scrape into the Top 100, and "Men Are Building Sand", which he had recorded previously with Sommer but which had been left in the vault.
in _ http://psychedelic-rocknroll.blogspot.com/2009/01/montage-montage-us-lefte-banke-baroque.html
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