Wow, I think today set a personal record for the number of albums I received in the mail – a total of five different parcels! Aside from the two I already mentioned, ‘The wild eye’ soundtrack by Gianni Marchetti, bought very cheaply on ebay, ‘The soul of’ Paul Mauriat and Francis Lai ‘plays great composers’ arrived.

I bought the Francis Lai LP in spite of it looking rather snoozy, just because Francis seems to have agreed with me and my pal Scott Walker about who exactly the ‘great composers’ are… With a song selection reminiscent of Scott’s excellent ‘The Moviegoer’ album, Francis plays Henry Mancini, Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Michel Legrand, Nino Rota, a couple of his own, and some others. Nice one! It seems that my new Walter Wanderley album includes a cover of Francis Lai‘s own ‘The Bobo’ as well. I hope some or all of these are as good as the best cuts on ‘I’ll never forget Whatisname’, although it would be too much to expect them to have the same frenetic, gogo sound. Francis was also behind some of Brigitte Bardot‘s work, including the excellent tracks ‘St Tropez’ and ‘Tu veut, tu veut pas’, compiled on ‘Inflight Entertainment’.