In My Good Books
Tuesday May 18th, 2021 with Pat Moore
Today - David Bowie narrates Peter and the Wolf, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra !! It's wonderful, you really should listen. Following Peter and the Wolf, YoYo Ma, and Fats Waller...lots of Fats.

Today, rather than read to you, I’m going play for you David Bowie's narration of Sergei Prokofiev's 1936 composition Peter and the Wolf. Produced by Jay David Saks, the music is performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. Bowie recorded his narration in December 1977 at RCA Studio B in New York City after completing his promotional appearances for his album "Heroes" (1977). The album was released in May 1978 on the RCA Red Seal label. The LP also contained a recording of Benjamin Britten‘s The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra on the B-side. It reached number 136 on the US Billboard 200 chart. The recording has received positive reviews from critics and Bowie's biographers, with Bowie's appearance garnering praise. It has since been reissued with different artworks. For those of you who do not know, the musical itself tells the story of a boy named Peter who travels outside his grandfather's garden in hopes of finding a big bad wolf. Each animal is represented by a different musical instrument, with a clarinet representing Peter's pet cat and a trio of French horns representing the wolf.[3] Originally premiered in Moscow in 1936 to lukewarm reception, the composition remained relatively obscure in the western world until Walt Disney created an animated short based on it in 1946.