(and other Ray Harryhausen animation classics)

MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (and other Ray Harryhausen animation classics) contains world-premiere music from three legendary monster movies brought to life by the extraordinary stop-motion animation talent of special effects genius Ray Harryhausen.

The suite from Mighty Joe Young features over 35 minutes of music from the wonderful 1949 fantasy about a giant African gorilla who arrives in the U. S. to become a box-office sensation.  Roy Webb’s rousing King Kong-inspired score is filled with stunning action cues, exotic African underscore, exhilarating nightclub jazz music, fanfares galore, and outrageous orchestration. And there’s even some room for the occasional love theme and creative uses of Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer.”  There’s never been a monster movie score quite like this one, and the amazing music will have you thumping your chest like a gigantic irate ape!  As a bonus, this suite contains a “special guest musical appearance” by Ray Harryhausen himself!

Next on the musical docket is a 21-minute suite from one of the greatest invader-from-space films, 20 Million Miles to Earth.  This tale of a Venusian dinosaur running amok in Italy is bolstered by an incredibly-varied score, courtesy of Columbia’s music library.  Legendary composers like Max Steiner, George Duning, David Raksin, Werner Heymann, Daniele Amfitheatrof, and others contribute cues from a wide variety of previous films -- crime dramas, westerns, comedies, romances, and more -- resulting in a wealth of musical material.  Adding to the score are Columbia music director Mischa Bakaleinikoff’s superb original compositions, which conjure the alien nature of the Harryhausen-animated Ymir, the beautiful Italian scenery, and the anger of an interplanetary beast who just wants to be left alone!

Finally, there’s a four-minute suite from what was long considered to be the Holy Grail of Harryhausen films:  The Animal World.  This 1956 documentary by Irwin Allen starred vivaciously-animated dinosaurs by Ray, and Paul Sawtell’s pulse-pounding music recreates the prehistoric thrills as Ceratosauri attack everything in sight! Sawtell’s monstrously-potent dramatic music is is sure to get your blood boiling, even if you’re a cold-blooded dinosaur!

Like the previous Monstrous Movie Music CDs, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG has been vividly recorded through close-miking techniques to recapture the dynamic full-orchestral sound heard at the original Hollywood scoring sessions.

The state-of-the-art 40-page liner book features striking cover art by Robert Aragon, comes with never-before-released photos, copies of music manuscripts, and 21,000 words of text about the films, their scores, and the composers who wrote them.  Not to mention enough humor to get you from here to Venus, which is usually much farther from the Earth than 20 million miles.

The liner book text includes timings that match the digital read-out on your CD player -- so you can follow along with the music while you read.  You’ll become an expert on monster music faster than you can ask, “So then why’d they name the film 20 Million Miles to Earth?”

Track Listing