I used to work at a now defunct supermarket (Purity Supreme) back in
the 1980's. They used to play "muzak" over the PA system (orchestra
music which often featured instrumental versions of popular rock
songs). There was an instrumental version of "Walking in Rhythm" by the
Blackbyrds. Does anyone know who did the instrumental version of that
song? I'd love to get a copy of it. Sorry if this is off topic for this
newsgroup, but I couldn't find any other groups where this would be
relevant.
Bryan
Totalrod2 @ aol.com

Yeah, Muzak did it. Muzak played only their own arrangements of songs
that were recorded by studio musicians. "Music the art, Muzak the
science".


There are some bootlegs floating around but Muzak does not sell or
distribute its product for sale. You can tape it off a SCA channel if
you are dedicated.

I figured the song was done by someone in particular. I have quite abit
of this type of music in my collection and here's a few examples of the
"muzak" I'm speaking of:
**Light my Fire (Woody Herman)
**Magical Mystery Tour (The Hollyridge Strings)
**Aqualung (The London Symphony)
**California Dreamin' (Mystic Moods Orchestra)
**Sunshine of Your Love (Gerald Wilson & his Orchestra)
**Last Train to Clarksville (Goldengate Strings)
**My Sweet Lord (Nelson Riddle)
**Summer in the City (Buddy Morrow)
**Green Tamborine (Terry Baxter & his Orchestra)
**A Horse With No Name (The Longines Symphonette Society)
Is there an artist or orchestra in particular who does "Walking in
Rhythm"?
Bryan Lord
Totalrod2 @ aol.com

wrote:
I figured the song was done by someone in particular. I have quite
abit
of this type of music in my collection and here's a few examples of
the
"muzak" I'm speaking of:
**Light my Fire (Woody Herman)
**Magical Mystery Tour (The Hollyridge Strings)
**Aqualung (The London Symphony)
**California Dreamin' (Mystic Moods Orchestra)
**Sunshine of Your Love (Gerald Wilson & his Orchestra)
**Last Train to Clarksville (Goldengate Strings)
**My Sweet Lord (Nelson Riddle)
**Summer in the City (Buddy Morrow)
**Green Tamborine (Terry Baxter & his Orchestra)
**A Horse With No Name (The Longines Symphonette Society)
Is there an artist or orchestra in particular who does "Walking in
Rhythm"?
Bryan Lord
Totalrod2 @ aol.com



Muzak produced, and recorded all their own music.
There might be a James Last version of the song you are looking for,
he's recorded almost every song ever written, and puts out a new Album/
CD every 11 days.

In article .com writes:

They used to play "muzak" over the PA system (orchestra
music which often featured instrumental versions of popular rock
songs). There was an instrumental version of "Walking in Rhythm" by the
Blackbyrds. Does anyone know who did the instrumental version

Almost certainly a Muzak group or an anonymous contractor. Everything
they use is material that they produce themselves or have produced for
hire. Even if you do find out how played it, you'll never get a copy
unless you get in your time machine, go back to the right time period,
wait in the market with a recorder handy, and catch it on the fly.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

They distributed their processed music-like product on tape, recorded
at an especially slow speed, at one time and the tapes went back for
erase and reuse or destruction at some point. They also distributed it
via subcarrier on FM and maybe in some market still do. Either way a
few nutty eccentrics intercepted the PMLP and retained it for their
use. Many "ambient" musicians such as Brian Eno are known to possess
some quantity of Muzak PMLP and to have studied it att length.

A few "secret" LPs were made also for demo and inhouse training
purposes. More than one has escaped.

If you have a time machine and Muzak is your first concern of
interception, you are one sorry dude. It's like a '62 Reissue Strat in
Seafoam Green...

wrote:
I figured the song was done by someone in particular. I have quite abit
of this type of music in my collection and here's a few examples of the
"muzak" I'm speaking of:
**Light my Fire (Woody Herman)
**Magical Mystery Tour (The Hollyridge Strings)
**Aqualung (The London Symphony)
**California Dreamin' (Mystic Moods Orchestra)
**Sunshine of Your Love (Gerald Wilson & his Orchestra)
**Last Train to Clarksville (Goldengate Strings)
**My Sweet Lord (Nelson Riddle)
**Summer in the City (Buddy Morrow)
**Green Tamborine (Terry Baxter & his Orchestra)
**A Horse With No Name (The Longines Symphonette Society)

NONE of these are Muzak. Muzak is a company that does piped-in music,
and ALL of their arrangements are specific to them.

What you are referring to is "Easy-Listening Music" on commercially-released
records.

But, if you heard it over a supermarket PA system, there is a good chance
that it is either from Muzak or from 3M, both of which provide piped-in
music services for businesses, and both of which have their own performers
and arrangers so they don't have to pay royalties to anyone other than the
composer.

Is there an artist or orchestra in particular who does "Walking in
Rhythm"?

If it was a commercial release, it may be on allmusic.com. But if it was
on a Muzak or 3M system, it will not be available for commercial release.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

|There was an instrumental version of "Walking in Rhythm" by the
|Blackbyrds. Does anyone know who did the instrumental version of that

Contact the muzak company.

|song? I'd love to get a copy of it. Sorry if this is off topic for this
|newsgroup, but I couldn't find any other groups where this would be
|relevant.

One Muzak selection that has been deemed the holy grail of
Muzak is a the Ambroy Dukes "Journey to the Center of Your Mind."
Why so?
Ted Nugent hated Muzak so much that he tried to buy the Muzak
corporation.

FWIW: There's a copy of JTTCOYM floating around it's sounds like
a cat chasing a mouse! Flutes and violins very trippy.

On 5 Apr 2005 01:55:43 -0000, Thrasher Remailer wrote:
|There was an instrumental version of "Walking in Rhythm" by the
|Blackbyrds. Does anyone know who did the instrumental version of that

Contact the muzak company.

|song? I'd love to get a copy of it. Sorry if this is off topic for this
|newsgroup, but I couldn't find any other groups where this would be
|relevant.

One Muzak selection that has been deemed the holy grail of
Muzak is a the Ambroy Dukes "Journey to the Center of Your Mind."
Why so?
Ted Nugent hated Muzak so much that he tried to buy the Muzak
corporation.


I started feeling old when I heard "C'mon Feel the Noise" on Muzak.

I worked at a Kroger store in rural West Virginia (the town of Madison,
30 miles south of Charleston in the coal fields) in the early 90s and
we had this extremely antiquated in-store music system. The store had
been built in the early 80's and the sound system involved this box
with about 10 large tapes in it. The tapes looked kinda like 8-track
tapes, only they were about 8" by 10" big (but flat, like an 8 track).
Anyhow, they weren't using the sound system when I got to this store,
so I took it upon myself to get it up and running so I could drive the
employees batty with the crummy music (I was the assistant manager, so
it was my job to drive them batty as it was their job to drive me
batty). It was about 3-4 notches below Muzak music in terms of
quality. Anyhoo....with this in mind, I suppose it's possible that if
you go back to the Purity Supreme store where you worked that all that
music could be on tape. Think about it....it's not likely that the
music was piped in via satellite like it is now. Of course, you did
mention that it is now defunct, but is the building still standing?

Good luck.

Mike

Muzak was pretty good about getting their tapes back because the fine
for losing them was as much as a year's music service. Still, a few
escaped. Stores would close and the machines, tape and all would go
home with the auction crew. Determined employees would take them home,
spool off the tape, and reload on some ****ty old tape with the Muzak
leaders spliced on and bulkerase them, and they would go back for
return. However these were rare events because no one gave a **** about
Muzak except to say how ****ty it was.

Very few people even today WANT Muzak. But someday they will probably
release a limited selection of the vintage stuff for sale, if they need
the money bad enough.

wrote:
They distributed their processed music-like product on tape, recorded
at an especially slow speed,

Actually, it was not all slow, and was even more evil. Many years ago,
I worked at an office job in Manhattan which had Muzak. It was sort of
briskly paced in the morning, and then slowed down to provide the
equivalent of aural prozak. However, after lunch the pace picked up
again, and the typing and pencils around the office moved in time with
this crap. It was very much about programming the behavior of the
workforce.

There is a great scene in King Vidor's classic film "Our Daily Bread"
which portrays this perfectly. The workers at a commune are digging a
ditch to get water to their garden, and the picks stike on the upbeat
and the shovels on the downbeat. Way cool!

"Mike" wrote in message
oups.com...
I worked at a Kroger store in rural West Virginia (the town of Madison,
30 miles south of Charleston in the coal fields) in the early 90s and
we had this extremely antiquated in-store music system. The store had
been built in the early 80's and the sound system involved this box
with about 10 large tapes in it. The tapes looked kinda like 8-track
tapes, only they were about 8" by 10" big (but flat, like an 8 track).
Anyhow, they weren't using the sound system when I got to this store,
so I took it upon myself to get it up and running so I could drive the
employees batty with the crummy music (I was the assistant manager, so
it was my job to drive them batty as it was their job to drive me
batty). It was about 3-4 notches below Muzak music in terms of
quality. Anyhoo....with this in mind, I suppose it's possible that if
you go back to the Purity Supreme store where you worked that all that
music could be on tape. Think about it....it's not likely that the
music was piped in via satellite like it is now. Of course, you did
mention that it is now defunct, but is the building still standing?

Good luck.

Mike


The Kroger store sold out a couple years ago, and Black's Foodland and
Krogers traded buildings so Kroger could downsize and Black's upsize. I
think the system is still in place and in use. Unfortunately, it lives on.
sorry for the OT.
rb

"Mike" wrote ...
I worked at a Kroger store in rural West Virginia (the town of
Madison,
30 miles south of Charleston in the coal fields) in the early 90s and
we had this extremely antiquated in-store music system. The store had
been built in the early 80's and the sound system involved this box
with about 10 large tapes in it. The tapes looked kinda like 8-track
tapes, only they were about 8" by 10" big (but flat, like an 8 track).

We had a system like this at the hospital where I used to work.
One of my jobs was to create new custom tapes for the system.
Was it a continuous loop (like radio carts & auto 8-track)? or
did it have two 10.5-inch reels in the case?, I can't remember.
It must have been reel-to-reel as I don't think a continuous-loop
system would work with 10.5-inch equivalent of tape. And I
don't remember using the special back-lubricated tape for that.

I did another project in the mid 1980s where I made a multi-
language sound track for a slide show and packaged it into
a Fidelipak continuous-loop cart. Five languages alternating
through three of the tracks, and the fourth track dedicated to
the slide-advance tone. Used a modular Telex cart deck and
four playback preamps, one modified with a relay-closure
output for the slide projector. Modified it all for 220v 50Hz
and shipped it (untested @ 220v 50Hz) to Europe where it
played for two weeks without a hitch. Dunno if there is even
a computer-based solution for this today? (Multi-track playback
synced to "slide-show")

The tempo of the music may have varied, but the speed of the tape was
extremely slow, to permit a long playing time. They were virtually
logging recorders.