Ray Conniff - ‘S Wonderful!
As the undisputed king of disposability, Ray Conniff relentlessly and endlessly ground out LPs showcasing his gimmick of marrying white bread, (initially) wordless choral vocals to any familiar melody handy. The vast amount of unwanted Conniff vinyl cluttering thrift stores has become his unfortunate legacy. But as rote as much of his catalogue may seem, his fifties records - within the confines of their overarching commercialism - displayed a freshness and, dare I say it, a flair for experimentation for which he receives little credit today.
’S Wonderful! was Conniff’s first album, and it set the precedent just by dint of its runaway success. He never had much use for deviation after that; in fact, a bop-oriented follow-up tanked, and he thereafter stuck to the formula. His usual MO called for a big-band setup with women’s voices filling in for trumpets and male voices taking the place of saxophones; the simple novelty of this approach to programs of familiar standards all but ensured prodigious sales to the aging World War II generation.
I tend to pick up Ray Conniff albums in thrift stores (at fifty cents or less) for more than just kitsch value: his records are a forgotten part of US pop-culture history. For decades they blared from every supermarket PA system in the country, and they sold by the millions. Who cares if he was on the wrong side of Chuck Berry and his recorded output was ephemeral by nature?
