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Percy
Faith was one of the most popular film composers and easy listening
recording artists of the '50s and '60s. Not only did he have a number of hit
albums and singles under his own name, but Faith was
responsible for arranging hits by Tony
Bennett, Doris
Day, Johnny
Mathis and Burl
Ives, among others as the musical director for Columbia Records in the '50s.
Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Faith was a
child piano prodigy, giving his first recital at Massey Hall at the age of 15
and playing various movie theaters, providing the soundtrack to silent films.
His career as a concert pianist was cut short when he injured his hands in a
fire when he was 18. |
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Faith moved
into arranging, beginning with local, hotel orchestras but quickly moving to
radio. It was here where he developed his lush pop-instrumental style. For most
of the '30s, he worked on Canadian Broadcast Company. At the end of the decade
his radio show, Music by Faith, was also being aired within the
United States.
Upset with CBC slashing the budget of his program, Faith moved
to Chicago in 1940. Shortly afterward, he relocated to New York; by 1945, he had
become an official U.S. citizen. Working for NBC in New York, he arranged and
conducted for a number of shows and singers, including Coca-Cola's radio show
and Buddy
Clark.
During the late '40s, he recorded for both Decca and RCA Victor.
Faith
joined Columbia Records as musical director and a recording artist in 1950.
While he arranged traditional pop songs, as well as show tunes, folk songs, and
traditional pop songs for the label's vocalists, Faith became
a pioneer of easy listening "mood music" with his own albums. In addition to
popularizing the light, orchestrated pop, he was the first to record albums
solely consisting of songs from Broadway shows; he also was one of the first
mainstream composers/arrangers to experiment with Latin rhythms.
Percy
Faith had his first number one single, "Song from the Moulin Rouge (Where Is
Your Heart)," in 1953. In the mid-'50s, he began composing film scores,
beginning with the Oscar-nominated collaboration with Georgie Stoll, Love Me Or Leave Me. His most successful score
was for the 1960 film A Summer Place. The "Theme to A Summer Place"
became a number one hit and earned him his first Grammy.
As rock & roll took over popular music in the early '60s and his work
became more schlocky in format (easy-listening arrangements of Beatles
and pop/rock songs, etc.), the musical quotient remained high, thanks in large
part to Faith's
arranging skills and penchant for picking good material. Faith slowly
withdrew from a professional career in the late '60s, but continued recording
until just before his death in 1976. Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Cub
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