THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,420) The Montage — “I Shall Call Her Mary”
This “wistful” baroque pop wonder is a “highlight” (Richie Unterberger, liner notes to the CD reissue of Montage) of a “damn fine album, the real Left Banke follow up album”. (BrooklynAvenue, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzY73l1I7MY) Like Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, and much like the Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle, Montage [see #252, 1,091] seizes you from the moment the opening cascade of voices showers you on the fantastic ‘I Shall Call Her Mary.'” (Jack Rabid, https://www.allmusic.com/album/montage-mw0000017255) “Wonderful and perfect baroque pop like only Michael [Brown] and Curt Boettcher/Gary Usher knew how to make. . . . This might be . . . Brown’s best composition after ‘Walk Away Renee’ and ‘Pretty Ballerina'”. (SuperBenblake, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ga2VGsHNcE)
“Call Her Mary” was apparently written as an homage to Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las (see #1,203). (Richie Unterberger, liner notes to the CD reissue of Montage) “Written for his next crush – Mary Weiss of the Shangri La’s. The lad had good taste in women – and terrible expectations!” (jondoe888i, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ga2VGsHNcE) “Renee dated everyone in the Banke, but Michael so his tastes were kind of off kilter.” (harvey1954, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ga2VGsHNcE) Harsh, harsh!!!
After walking away from the Left Banke, Michael Brown, “who had been the group’s chief artistic force as principal songwriter, arranger, and keyboardist — worked with Montage to continue in [a] splendid Baroque pop/rock vein” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/montage-mn0001206263), “mastermind[ing] an entire LP of material that was both similar to, and nearly on par with the Left Banke’s unsurpassed fusion of pop-rock and classical music. . . . [T]he graceful baroque-tinged melodies could have been no one else’s.” (Richie Unterberger, liner notes to Montage)
Jack Rabid tells us more:
Montage sounds far more like the real follow-up to the Left Banke’s first LP, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, than the actual one, The Left Banke, Too. This is because after the first LP the band’s three singers had sadly parted ways with keyboardist and prime songwriter Michel Brown, who instead became Montage’s mentor/mastermind. (It’s a long story: Brown’s dad was managing the band to the distrust of the other members and Brown, like Brian Wilson, similarly disdained touring in favor of staying home to write and record.) And though Brown was not technically a Montage member, he not only wrote all the music and produced this LP, but he also played all the trademark piano and organ and charted the vocal arrangements. Yet the four New Jersey no-names he found clearly translated his vision of extraordinarily lush, unspeakably beautiful orchestral chart pop. . . .
Here is the 45 version:
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