UK Release date : Friday, January 6, 1967
The Family Way - Original Soundtrack Recording (Stereo - UK)
By Paul McCartney • Official album • Part of the collection “Paul McCartney • Classical albums”
Last updated on August 18, 2024
UK Release date : Friday, January 6, 1967
By Paul McCartney • Official album • Part of the collection “Paul McCartney • Classical albums”
Last updated on August 18, 2024
Previous album Dec 10, 1966 • "A Collection of Beatles Oldies (Stereo)" by The Beatles released in the UK
Article Jan 06, 1967 • The Kellys, housekeeper and chauffeur of Paul McCartney, resign
Session Jan 06, 1967 • Recording "Penny Lane" #5
Album Jan 06, 1967 • "The Family Way - Original Soundtrack Recording (Stereo - UK)" by Paul McCartney released in the UK
This album was recorded during the following studio sessions:
Early December 1966
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
2:11 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:11 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:00 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:30 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Cue 10M1 / 6M3 / 4M1 / 1M3 / 1M4
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
3:28 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Cue 7M3 (Love In The Open Air)
Written by Paul McCartney
3:02 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
2:10 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:22 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:06 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:47 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:02 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
2:51 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
Written by Paul McCartney, George Martin
1:03 • Studio version • B • Stereo
George Martin : Producer John Underwood : Viola Joy Hall : Cello Raymond Keenlyside : ViolinPerformed by : George Martin Orchestra Neville Marriner : Violin
Session Recording: Early December 1966 • Studio CTS Studios, London, UK
The directors, the Boulting Brothers, actually approached me – one of them, Roy – and he was interested in some of the music we’ve been writing. He said, ‘Would you be interested in actually writing something for film?’ I said, ‘Wow, great honour.’ And they’re very good directors, quite famous English directors, so I knew they’d be good and the film would be good, and a very good cast with John Mills and Hayley Mills and Hywell Bennett. So I said, ‘Yeah, okay!’
Paul McCartney – From The Beatles Bible
From Wikipedia:
The Family Way is a soundtrack album composed by Paul McCartney, produced and arranged by George Martin, and credited to “the George Martin Orchestra”. Released on Decca Records in January 1967 under the full title The Family Way (Original Soundtrack Album), it is the soundtrack to the 1966 film The Family Way, directed by Roy Boulting and starring Hayley Mills. It consists of Martin’s arrangements of music composed by Paul McCartney of the Beatles especially for the project. The record was preceded by a non-album single, again credited to the George Martin Orchestra, issued on 23 December 1966 by United Artists Records and comprising “Love in the Open Air” backed with “Theme from ‘The Family Way'”.
“Love in the Open Air” won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Instrumental Theme in 1968. The Family Way was remastered and released on CD in 1996 with musical compositions omitted from the original album, including the two tracks issued on the 1966 single.
Composition and recording
McCartney and Martin began collaborating on the project in November 1966, shortly before the Beatles started work on their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney’s contribution to the project was minimal, according to authors Howard Sounes and Steve Turner. McCartney composed a brief piano piece, which Martin then interpreted into several variations and arrangements, sufficient to produce 24 minutes of music. At McCartney’s suggestion, one of the versions had a brass band arrangement, anticipating his production of the Black Dyke Mills Band’s instrumental “Thingumybob” in 1968. Turner writes that, given the film’s setting in northern England, the use of a brass band in the Family Way soundtrack might have been part of McCartney’s inspiration for the fictitious Sgt. Pepper band, which McCartney termed “a bit of a brass band, in a way”.
A second composition was required for a pivotal love scene in the film. Quoting Martin’s recollection, Sounes says that he had to “pester Paul for the briefest scrap of a tune” for this piece. Martin recalled that only after he had threatened to write the theme himself did McCartney comply, and that it was created on the spot at McCartney’s home in St John’s Wood, as Martin stood over McCartney at his piano. Titled “Love in the Open Air”, the piece was “a sweet little fragment of a waltz tune”, according to Martin.
McCartney, who had initially been enthusiastic about the project, likened his subsequent lack of productivity to a type of writer’s block. As a result of the delay, recording for the score did not begin until 15 December. The sessions took place over three days at CTS Studios in London. Members of the George Martin Orchestra included violinists Neville Marriner and Raymond Keenlyside, viola player John Underwood and cellist Joy Hall. Aside from the brass band, other musicians contributed on church organ and tuba.
Release
Although The Family Way was released in January 1967, most commentators consider George Harrison’s Wonderwall Music (1968), also a film soundtrack, to be the first solo album by a member of the Beatles. Unlike with McCartney’s film score, Harrison directed and produced the recordings for Wonderwall Music, in addition to playing on the album.
The Family Way was released on CD, in mono, in 2003. In 2011, a new remastered version of the soundtrack was released by Varèse Vintage. It featured the 1967 score in the original sequence, remastered from the first-generation stereo master tapes. It also included the unreleased stereo mix of “A Theme from The Family Way” as a bonus track. This piece was originally issued as the B-side of the 1966 UK/US single by the Tudor Minstrels. […]
Michel Laverdière: [The Family Way soundtrack] was actually the first time you would officially compose outside the Lennon-McCartney tandem.
Paul McCartney: Yes, and you know, it’s funny. That’s true. It’s funny because talking to Yoko recently, you know, you talk about all these things that happen way back in history. It turns out John was not pleased; but I didn’t know ‘til a year ago that he wasn’t pleased. He always told me, “Fine.” ‘Cause he’d been acting in a film – he did a film called How I Won The War – so we started to do little solo thing, just for a change, just for a break, and so I assumed, I asked him, “Is it okay with you?” He said, “Yeah, fine, fine.”
But Yoko told me that he was actually a little bit put off by that, because he hoped probably that I would say Lennon-McCartney will write this together. But to me it seemed a good opportunity to get away of what I did normally. But Yoko just told me apparently John was a little bit hurt about that. Which is sad. But we did actually talk about it. He just never told me at that time. He probably just covered up.
Michel Laverdière: Because that was the first time we could read: music composed by Paul McCartney?
Paul McCartney: Yeah, that’s right. For me it was very interesting, because it allowed me something of my own. You know, like women these days want to get away from their husbands, get a life of their own. It was a bit that. Because with The Beatles, it was a bit like a marriage. It was quite good to just get away do something of my own. I think if I’d known John was disturbed, I would have just asked him to join me. We could have done that.
Paul McCartney – Interview with Michel Laverdière, May 23, 1995
Sleeve notes:
Arthur Fitton (Hywel Bennett) and Jenny Piper’s (Hayley Mills) wedding is a typical North of England working class affair. He is a cinema projectionist and she is a counter assistant in a gramophone record shop. But they are both unusually sensitive youngsters, particularly Arthur whose favourite recreations are good literature and Beethoven.
Their first night, which is spent in Arthur’s parents’ house before departing for a “package” honeymoon in Majorca, is a disaster. At the reception at a local pub the couple are embarrassed by much well meant but vulgar ribaldry. Even worse, a privileged number of revellers go back to the Fitton house and keep the party going until the early hours.
Before retiring Arthur is forced into “the elbow game”, a test of strength, with his father Ezra (John Mills). This creates a certain amount of bad blood. The last straw is when the bed, which has been rigged by Arthur’s boss Joe Thompson (Barry Foster) collapses around their ears.
Worse is to follow. The travel agent has absconded with everybody’s money and they are only two of many people who face a bitter disappointment when they arrive to catch the coach to the airport. The only thing to which they can wave goodbye is their honeymoon.
The enforced second night at the Fitton house is no better than the first, merely different. Through the cobweb thin walls Ezra can be heard rampaging around his room in search of the chamber-pot which his wife, Lucy (Marjorie Rhodes) had hidden out of consideration for her daughter-in-law’s maidenly modesty.
The days pass into weeks and still the marriage is not consummated. Arthur goes to seek advice at the local Marriage Guidance Council. His interview is overheard by a neighbour who is a “char” in the building.
Jenny’s mother, Liz Piper (Avril Angers) senses that something is wrong and worms the truth out of her. She and her husband Leslie (John Comer) send Jenny to see Uncle Fred (Wilfred Pickles). He is a masseur and state registered male nurse. And, what’s more he keeps rabbits. Who could be better to solve a young couple’s problems?
The situation deteriorates, as does Arthur’s always uneasy relationship with his rough and tough father. “You can do yourself a damage, reading all those books” is Ezra’s outlook.
With Arthur in the projection box until late at night and at week-ends, and Jenny’s job keeping her behind the counter from 9 till 6, the couple don’t see too much of each other. Jenny goes around more and more with her young brother-in-law Geoffrey (Murray Head). They are lightheartedly happy in each other’s company.
Inevitably the newlyweds’ problem becomes public property and equally inevitably Joe Thompson makes one wisecrack too many to Arthur. The result is a gory punch-up in the cinema car park.
Storming home to his spouse – in the middle of the afternoon – he calls her a bitch for telling such intimate tales. He makes to start on her where he left off with Joe. She retaliates and they trip over each other in the tiny room and fall on to the bed.
The neighbours in adjacent gardens listen with connoisseurs’ interest to the newest skirmish in the battle of the sexes.
BEATLE PAUL WRITING HAYLEY’S FILM SCORE
THE NME understands that Paul McCartney is writing the musical score for the new Boulting brothers’ film “Wedlocked Or All In Good Time” which stars Hayley Mills. This is the second solo Beatle project hinted at by Brian Epstein in last week’s NME. John Lennon is, of course, currently filming a leading acting role in “How I Won The War” on location in Spain.
It will be the first time Paul has written officially without John. Publisher Dick James said on Wednesday: “Any music written by either Paul or John must be published by Northern Songs.” They are, of course, under contract to that public company.
“Wedlocked” was written by Bill Naughton — who also wrote the film “Alfie” — and is based on the play “All In Good Time,” which Paul is believed to have seen when it was presented in the West End. Hayley Mills takes a new step in her film career by playing a married woman, Jenny Fitton, in the film. She and her husband (played by Hywell Bennett) discover after their wedding that an unscrupulous travel agent has absconded with their money, compelling them to spend their honeymoon with their parents.
The Beatles’ a-and-r manager George Martin may be involved in producing the soundtrack recording.
The film, which is in colour, has already been completed at Shepperton studios, with some scenes being shot on location in the North.The picture will be premiered early in the New Year. There was no official confirmation on Wednesday of Paul’s involvement. One of the Boulting brothers told the NME: “It is premature to say anything.” The Beatles’ Press officer said: “No announcement is being made for some time.”
From New Musical Express – October 14, 1966
ANOTHER BEATLE TO SOLO – OFFICIAL
It’s official – another Beatle being lined up for a solo non-acting project in the near future. It is rumoured that the Beatle will be Paul McCartney.
Manager Brian Epstein admitted this week: “All I will say is that a solo project is planned for one of the Beatles which will be announced soon.” But he declined to confirm whether it was Paul.
This led to pop business rumours this week that the project might be an album of Indian music by George Harrison, who has been in India since September 14 learning the sitar. […]
From Disc And Music Echo – October 15, 1966
Beatles producer waxes Paul’s film music
GEORGE MARTIN has now completed the supervision and arrangement of the incidental music for the new Hayley Mills-John Mills film, now resided “The Family Way”. Paul McCartney provided all the basic melody themes, which were subsequently developed by Martin in his scoring. But John Lennon was not involved.
The film, an ‘X’ certificate, is to be premiered on December 18. A soundtrack LP of the music will be issued in the New Year, probably on the United Artists label. Next week, the George Martin Orchestra records the two main themes from the film — the opening title and the love theme — for release as a single.
Martin told the NiME on Wednesday that the Beatles are still engaged in recording sessions. They have now cut several titles, but no decision has yet been made regarding titles for their next single to be issued in January.
From New Musical Express – December 10, 1966
Just for once, a Beatle takes a back seat…
PAUL MCCARTNEY wrote the music for the new Hayley Mills film “The Family Way”, but it certainly isn’t the outstanding feature of the production.
All the accolades must undoubtedly be poured on the head of John Mills, Hayley’s father-in-law in this parochial parody of young married life in a Northern industrial town. As the bold, blunt, couldn’t-care-less father of Hywel Bennett (the young husband) Milles is magnificent. He typifies the working-class set-around which this rather contrived domestic drama revolves… […]
One can’t help feeling that Paul had an easy time composing the music for “Family Way”. The score isn’t the most instantly noticeable thing about it. No doubt it will become an extremely popular and much-requested theme as the film does the rounds, but it had a definite undercurrent of that lifting melody “Nature Boy”, with which Bobby Darin had a lot of success. […]
From Disc And Music Echo – December 24, 1966
THE FAMILY WAY ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK RECORDING: (Decca). Paul McCartney’s score for this Boulting Brothers’ film is adequately melodic but in no way memorable. It’s doubtful if any Beatles connoisseurs would recognise Paul’s fair hand on the score.
From Melody Maker – January 21, 1967
If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.
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Jake • 3 years ago
Never believe anything Yoko Ono has to say. Of COURSE she would disparage McCartney if she could.
