The Midnight Strings Orchestra - Reminiscing

Reminiscing (Excelsior, 1980) by the Midnight Strings Orchestra is typical of instrumental mood music albums of the 1970s and early '80s -- muted brass and strings accented by a prominent beat provided by an electric bass. The bass sound on many of the easy listening recordings, including this one, was very similar to that heard on numerous disco records of the era.

The Midnight Strings Orchestra was conducted by Syd Dale (1924-1994), a British composer and arranger of easy listening, funk and library music, which consists of tunes designed for use in commercials, films and TV. In fact Reminiscing sounds very much like an album designed to be played as background music in a commercial enterprise of some kind. To put it in less complimentary terms it's elevator music or Muzak, the much maligned and now defunct commercial background music service.

Still I rather like Dale's approach to the familiar pop hits on Reminiscing. It's definitely not foreground listening but is enjoyable nonetheless. You can listen to Too Much, Too Little, Too Late, which was a duet hit for Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams.

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late



None of the half dozen or so LPs by the Midnight Strings Orchestra on Excelsior have been released on CDs or as downloads. But vinyl copies of these albums abound. They didn't sell well and most were dumped into discount bins. These albums are still turning up in thrift stores and the dollar section of record stores.

Plenty of Syd Dale's other recordings, mainly of the library music variety, are available on iTunes and elsewhere.

Here's a track from another Midnight Strings Orchestra LP, On the Radio (1981). Although it might be grammatically correct the title on the video is wrong. The correct title of the song is You Never Done It Like That, a hit by the Captain & Tenille.