Another in my series of posts about tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.
20. Diana Trask - Long Ago Last Summer
(Hal David - Burt Bacharach)
USA 1960
Columbia B-side (USA) # 4-41711
CBS Coronet B-side (Australia) #KS-400
Australian charts: #10 Melbourne, #39 Sydney | #26 Australia
See also Only in Oz (14): Diana Trask - Oh Boy (1974)
I have also written more about her career at my website under Diana Trask - Going Steady (1958)
Long Ago Last Summer is an overlooked rarity amongst early Burt Bacharach and Hal David compositions.
It is not easy to find on collections of Bacharach songs, but not impossible. A 2013 CD from Cherry Red subsidiary Él even gives it top billing: Burt Bacharach - Long Ago Last Summer 1959-61. (Raven's 52-track The Rare Bacharach omits it.)
Australian singer Diana Trask (b. 1940) moved to the US from Melbourne in 1959. She soon became known as a regular on Mitch Miller's TV show Sing Along with Mitch and in 1961 she released two albums, Diana Trask (later known as Vocal Jazz Classics) and Diana Trask On TV.
Her singles made the US Country chart eighteen times 1968-1981, peaking with Say When (1973, #15), It's A Man's World (If You Had A Man Like Mine) (1973, #20), When I Get My Hands On You (1973, #16) and Lean On Me (1974, #13).
On the pop charts, Trask's appearances were limited to two singles that under-bubbled just outside Billboard's Hot 100, but back home Long Ago Last Summer was one of six singles that charted Top 40 for her in Melbourne 1959-1975.
The orchestra on Long Ago Last Summer is conducted by classically trained Glenn Osser (1914-2014) who would produce Trask's self-titled album (1961). Osser's experience went back to the Swing era when he arranged for many big names in music and played in Les Brown's Band of Renown. After the War he worked with Paul Whiteman's orchestra and as music director for the ABC network, and later became a house arranger for Mercury then Columbia Records. His array of credits is impressive.
Long Ago Last Summer (1960) came after Bacharach and David's earliest successes with Marty Robbins's The Story of My Life (1957 #15 USA) and Perry Como's Magic Moments (1958, #4), but a couple of years before their hits for Gene Pitney, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, #4) and Only Love Can Break a Heart (1962, #2), as well as the hugely successful collaboration with Dionne Warwick, beginning with her first Top 40 chart entry, Don't Make Me Over (1962, #21).
Along the way, Bacharach often wrote with others, notably Bob Hilliard, his co-writer on The Drifters' Please Stay (1961, #14) and Gene McDaniels' Tower Of Strength (1961, #5). On The Shirelles' Baby It's You (1962, #8) his co-writers were Hal's brother Mack David and Barney Williams, an alias of Luther Dixon.
Similarly, lyricist Hal David had other collaborators, including Sherman Edwards on Sarah Vaughan's Broken Hearted Melody (1959, #7 USA) and Paul Hampton on Don Gibson's Sea Of Heartbreak (1961, #21). (Hampton also wrote with Bacharach.)
Of 33 tracks from 1959-61 compiled on the Él label's Bacharach CD, 14 are by Bacharach with a writing partner other than Hal David.
See also Only in Oz (14): Diana Trask - Oh Boy (1974)
I have also written more about her career at my website under Diana Trask - Going Steady (1958)
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