THE RICH MORTON SOUND - The Sequel That Never Was

Once in a blue moon an album appears that’s so clever, so knowing, so accurately aimed at its intended target that it shouts out to be heard.

So authentic is The Sequel That Never Was by The Rich Morton Sound that if you found a vinyl copy (sadly it’s not available on vinyl – sorry to raise your collective hopes) in your local vinyl emporium, took it home and popped it onto your groovy 1970s ‘music centre’, you’d be convinced that you’d found a real album of lost film and TV themes from the ‘60s and ‘70s. 

What the album actually contains is real music for imagined sequels, prequels to, and TV spin-offs from, iconic films and TV shows. So for example you can marvel to ‘Go Continental’ and ‘Game On’ from The Britannia Job (the sequel to…you’ve guessed it…The Italian Job), thrill to the wonderful ‘Blue Rendezvous’ and ‘Come Lounge With Me’ from the 1970 sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair, Crown the King of Thieves, and lie back and enjoy the magnificent ‘In Camera’ and ‘The Dead Drop’ from Close Up, the imagined 1968 sequel to the 1966 cinematic classic, Blow Up.

It’s an album that sounds fantastic, and it is never better than on ‘Life is a Carousel’ (from Charades, the follow up to Carousel) with wonderfully atmospheric Swingle Singers ‘dabba dabba dah’ style vocal backing and Jazz Flute breaks of which the legendary Ron Burgundy himself would be justifiably proud and on ‘Daylight Rodeo’, which takes its lead from John Barry’s atmospheric downbeat theme to Midnight Cowboy and flips it over to create a gloriously upbeat theme to its imagined TV spin-off.

And if this hasn’t made every film soundtrack buff purr with delight, there’s even more to whip you up into a state of frenzy. The CD insert contains plot synopses AND suggested cast lists for these little beauties. The attention to detail is superb, for example the 1974 TV spin-off to the aforementioned Midnight Cowboy stars David Soul, Henry Winkler, Loretta Swit and Danny DeVito (as Leo Pirelli, ‘sleaze merchant’). Broadway Annie Rose (sequel to Annie Hall and prequel to Broadway Danny Rose) stars, along with the inevitable Woody Allen, Olivia Hussey, Carrie Fisher and the recently departed comedy genius Harold Ramis, billed simply as ‘Heckler’. Get Young Carter, the 1977 prequel to Get Carter boasts an amazing imagined cast including Malcolm McDowell, Dennis Waterman, with a supporting cast that includes Warren Clarke (unsurprisingly filling the role of Beefy, ‘a rival thug’) and Phil Davis (as J, ‘a darts player’).

But the most inspired casting of all is to be found in the talent list for Mr Benn – The Movie. Mr Benn (Peter Sellers), donning the gadget-laden dinner jacket of Secret Agent 52, travels to The Republic of Panagua in Central America, where with the help of Sancho (Andrew Sachs) and undercover American agent Virginia Langley (Raquel Welch), he thwarts the villain (Christopher Lee) just as the shopkeeper appears to let him know that it’s time to return to Festive Road. The shopkeeper, of course, is played by Arthur Lowe. 

Words: Neil Pace