Freddie McCoy: Spider Man (60th anniversary, all analog) [REAL GONE MUSIC]

Why you'll love it

This 60th anniversary edition from Real Gone Music is all analog, and it marks the album's first trip back to vinyl since Prestige put it out. McCoy's vibes swing through grooving originals and two long, lovely ballads, cut at Van Gelder Studio with Cal Lampley producing.

This edition

• 60th anniversary edition
• All-analog production
• Stereo mix

About the album

Not every superhero gets a theme tune with a vibraphone lead, but Spider-Man did, and a good one at that. Freddie McCoy cut this, his second album for Prestige, at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on October 6, 1965, and the back cover announced it as the first in a series of Marvel tie-in records.

McCoy wrote three of the six tunes. "Hav' Mercy" opens with a strutting soul-jazz groove, "Spider Man" is short, sharp and catchy, and "Speak Out, Deagan!" tips its hat to the company that built his instrument. In between, he stretches out on Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays" and the ballad "That's All," and gives "The Girl From Ipanema" a light bossa touch. Charles L. Wilson on piano, Steve Davis on bass and Rudy Lawless on drums keep everything loose and swinging.

The original Prestige labels still carried the title Hav' Mercy, so this is a record with two names and one very good groove. Sixty years on, Spider-Man has swung through rather a lot of films, and to our ears none of them has a better theme tune.

Also at Kops: more Freddie McCoy on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Real Gone Music (originally Prestige) (cat# RGM-2215), a reissue of the 1965 album.