Vince Guaraldi's final three albums released during his lifetime were recorded for Warner Bros.-Seven Arts after spending considerable time struggling to extricate himself from Fantasy Records.[1] Warner signed Guaraldi to a three-record deal, and insisted that his inaugural release consist of his Peanuts songs. This was done in part to help fill the void left by a lack of soundtrack albums to accompany the successful television specials, Charlie Brown's All Stars!, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, You're in Love, Charlie Brown and He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown. Guaraldi responded with new renditions of eight of his most popular scores from those programs on his first release, Oh Good Grief!.[1]
Guaraldi was then given complete artistic control over his sophomore, self-produced Warner effort, The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi, resulting in an unfocused and overindulgent album that was not well received by both critics and consumers.[2] At Warner's insistence, arranger Shorty Rogers was recruiter to produce Guaraldi's final album, Alma-Ville. Though deemed a focused improvement over the previous album, Warner lost interest in Guaraldi and did not promote the album. Both The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi and Alma-Ville fell into obscurity, with Oh Good Grief! remaining in print and a steady seller due to the perpetual popularity of the Peanuts franchise.[2]
Production
The Complete Warner Bros.–Seven Arts Recordings was compiled by prestige label Omnivore Recordings and produced by Grammy Award-winning Cheryl Pawelski. Pawelski recruited audio archivist Michael Graves (who worked on previous Guaraldi remastering efforts) to perform a high-definition 24-bit mix.[2]
In addition to a double-CD release, Oh, Good Grief! was issued on translucent red vinyl.[6]
Track listings
All tracks written by Vince Guaraldi, except where noted.
