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Stratpicker wrote:Dunno why but this tune always reminds me of going to the “Pictures” in the 60's.

Quite right.

The record (which sounded absolutely TREMENDOUS on the big sound system of a cinema) was used as the background music to the in-house advertising film promoting ABC's "Showtime" magazine, available in the foyer of ABC cinemas.

JN

PS: I was just doing a Google search for "Spanish Armada" and came across this little gem from Chapter One Records (http://www.chapteronerecords.com/album.asp?album=201):

Also included on this album are pieces such as "Imogene", the signature tune for 11 years of the John Dunn Show, BBC Radio 2 and "Spanish Armada" which, in the early 70's was the opening music to the Pearl and Dean adverts in cinemas throughout the Country.

<cough>

Hi Ian,
Another super soundfile from you.
Just playing it through my new enclosed headphones which father christmas bought and it sounds great!

Very well played... Phil

Stratpicker wrote:...I kept thinking of my local Cinema in Eccles Manchester. It was indeed the ABC BROADWAY!! Many famous groups played there in the 60's . Not only did it have a superb two tier Cinema but also a magnificent Ballroom. It closed and became a Kwiksave supermarket before being demolished to make way for a "New Look" Eccles centre.
Been there - seen it - its a Disgrace!!
Ian

Ian, was that cinema on the main A57 Warrington-Salford road (on the south side)?

If so, I'm sure I remember passing it a few times in the late sixties or early seventies on the way to Manchester.

JN

This is exactly my sort of thing...

The point about the reference above to Chapter One Records (who do a great job in reissuing British "easy listening" material) is that their claim that Spanish Armada was used for the Pearl And Dean advertising segments at cinemas isn't correct. The tune was used in cinemas (no question about that), but not by Pearl & Dean.

P&D, very helpfully, have a website, with all of their theme music since the 1950s (extracted from soundtrack) playable on the front page. Here it is: http://www.pearlanddean.com/?node_id=1.9.3

There have been exactly three pieces of music used since the 1950s, none of them being Spanish Armada (which was used by the ABC cinema chain for an in-house "collage" film advertising their film magazine (which was called "Showtime"). The one I most fondly remember from Pearl And Dean was what they call (on their site) the "pillar" music. You can see why they called it that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INIENB4M5AU&feature=related. They then list 60s groovy dancer music (which I don't remember) before they adopted the first version of the Asteroid tune (pa-pa-pa-pah pa-pah-pa-pah pa-pa-pa): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxU6LT6DonE&feature=related, which I suspect was firmly based on the instrumental section of McArthur Park.

Ian: you might like the adverts attached to that first Youtube URL above...

JN