June 10, 2020
La-La Land Announces 4-CD Set of Music from Irvin Allen ‘60s TV series VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
Set for a June 23rd release, La-La Land Records has announced a four-CD set with music from the 1964-68 science fiction TV series created by Irwin Allen, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. Based on the 1961 movie of the same name, which Allen also created, the ABC series ran for four seasons, and featured musical scores from more than a dozen composers, both veterans from studio music department of the 1950s and up-and-coming composers getting their start in TV. Paul Sawtell had composed the theme for the 1961 film, as well as the rest of its score long with frequent co-composer Bert Shefter (that score was first released on CD by Film Score Monthly in 2001, with La-La Land issuing a slightly different edition in 2011). Sawtell adapted his movie theme into a new title theme for the TV series.
As for the TV series music, GNP Crescendo Records released a 12-track CD of music from two episodes of the TV series (Sawtell’s “Eleven Days to Zero” along with his main theme, and Jerry Goldsmith’s “Jonah and the Whale”) in 1997 (Simply Vinyl reissued that CD on vinyl in 2001), but the new La-La land collection will be the first extensive release of the series soundtrack music.
The new release announced by La-La Land will include 4-CDs worth of music for the series by Alexander Courage, Robert Drasnin, Jerry Goldsmith, Lennie Hayton, Joseph Mullendore, Nelson Riddle, Paul Sawtell, Herman Stein, and Leith Stevens. Due to what little remained available of the 56-year old season 1 music tracks, the new release focuses on music from seasons 2-4.
In a posting at the Film Score Monthly Message Board, Jeff Bond described the content of La-La Land’s 4-CD set in more detail: Apart from the previously released Sawtell pilot score there’s nothing from season one, although we do have all the versions of Sawtell’s theme and two bumpers… Sadly Fox was unable to dig up any other materials from the first season.
From season two we included “Jonah and the Whale” (complete for the first time), “The Cyborg,” “Escape from Venice,” “Time Bomb,” ‘The Left-Handed Man,” …And Five Of Us Are Left,” “The Monster from Outer Space” and “The X-Factor.”
From season three we have what remains of “Monster from the Inferno”—only about six minutes including the opening music, but it’s very representative of the score (for some reason a lot of third season music was MIA). Same for “The Lost Bomb”—only five or six minutes but it’s from the most exciting action material in that score. We also have “The Wax Men,” one of the strangest and most effective scores.
For season four we have Leith Stevens’ “A Time To Die” which has some of the most exciting and oft-tracked action music from the season, “Blow-Up” which Stevens recorded with a larger orchestra while recording the new fourth season arrangement of the Sawtell theme—and we also have “The Return of Blackbeard” and Stevens’ highly unusual “Man-Beast” score.
Also announced by La-La Land for June 23 release is an expanded edition of Howard Shore’s music from the 1993 drama thriller SLIVER, which should have some of Christopher Young’s unused music included in its playlist.
Further details will be announced by the label—see https://lalalandrecords.com/
