FROM
A SUMMER PLACE
PERCY FAITH & ORCHESTER
SONGWRITERS: MACK DISCANT & MAX STEINER
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM:
LABEL: COLUMBIA RECORDS
GENRE: EASY LISTENING/MOVIE THEME
YEAR: 1959
"Theme from A Summer
Place" is a song with lyrics by Mack Discant and music by Max Steiner,
written for the 1959 film A Summer Place, which starred Sandra Dee and Troy
Donahue. It was recorded for the film as an instrumental by Hugo Winterhalter.
Originally known as the "Molly and Johnny Theme", the piece is not
the main title theme of the film, but a secondary love theme for the characters
played by Dee and Donahue.
Following its initial film appearance, the theme has been
recorded by many artists in both instrumental and vocal versions, and has also
appeared in a number of subsequent films and television programs. The
best-known cover version of the theme is an instrumental version by Percy Faith
and his orchestra that was a Number One hit for nine weeks on the Billboard Hot
100 chart in 1960.
Percy Faith recorded the
most popular version of the theme, an instrumental orchestral arrangement, at
the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. It was released in September
1959 as a single on Columbia Records, credited to "Percy Faith and his
Orchestra," prior to the November 1959 release of the film A Summer Place.
The single was not an
immediate hit and did not enter the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart until
mid-January 1960, finally reaching #1 six weeks later on February 22, 1960. It
went on to set an at-the-time record of nine consecutive weeks at #1, a record
which would not be broken until 1977, when "You Light Up My Life"
spent ten weeks at #1. (Elvis Presley's double-sided hit "Don't Be Cruel/Hound
Dog" remained at #1 for 11 weeks in 1956 prior to the 1958 creation of the
Hot 100 chart; The Beatles' "Hey Jude" tied, but did not break, the
nine-week record in 1968.) It remains the longest-running #1 instrumental in
the history of the chart. Billboard ranked Faith's version as the Number One
song for 1960.
The Faith version reached #2 in the UK. It was also a #1
hit in Italy under the title "Scandalo Al Sole."
Faith won a Grammy Award
for Record of the Year in 1961 for his recording. This was the first movie theme
and the first instrumental to win a Record of the Year Grammy.
Faith re-recorded the song
twice: first, in 1969, as a female choral version, then, in 1976, as a disco version
titled "Summer Place '76."
In 2008, Faith's original
version was ranked at #18 on Billboard's top 100 songs during the first 50
years of the Hot 100 chart. The Billboard Book of Number One Hits called
it "the most successful instrumental single of the rock era."
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