24 Aug
“Classical Gas” by Mason Williams
February 1, 1968 - “Classical Gas” by Mason Williams is one of the most influential instrumentals of all-time and was on William’s album, The Mason Williams Phonograph Album released on Warner Brothers records. At the time, Williams was a writer for the Smothers Brothers show. The instrumental won three Grammy awards: Best Instrumental Composition, Best Instrumental Performance, and one for Best Instrumental Arrangement.
“Classical Gas” was first used on the Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour as the soundtrack to a 2 minute history of the United States. I remember lots of quick cuts, and it was very good.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:59 pm(Maybe) the next week, Tom & Dick Smothers came out and said they had been getting a lot of inquiries about the song accompanying the film.
They introduced Mason Williams, who came out and played it.
Right on Kathy, I remember seeing that film on the Smothers Brother’s show as well and was totally mesmerized by it. It featured thousands and thousands of still images of everything and anything Americana from its day all syncopated to Mason’s Clasical Gas tune. The song itself is beautiful - a fantastic instrumental piece! Couple it with the film and the result was nothing short of spectacular. Others have said it was something way ahead of it’s time - perhaps MTV before we knew it. Some of the images were flashed for mere fractions of a second - you might not have raalized it, but it was just enough for your brain to register in the sub-consious. Sort of like the old trick the movie houses used to do by inserting a frame or two of a picture of a soft drink or popcorn in the middle of a film - to make you hungry or thirsty and head for the concession stand without you even realizing you’ve been goaded!! I’ve tried to get a copy of it but unfortunately is unavailable due to leagal wranglings 40 years later…- a total shame that others couldn’t see what even by today’s standards would be considered truly phenomenal!
September 20th, 2007 at 1:26 am