The Molly Maguires
We are processing another collection for sale at FSMCDs.com—more on that another time, this isn’t an announcement post.
I handle a lot of these CDs personally and it’s always a wave of nostalgia to see and touch these discs (again). I grew up on so much of this music and love it all to this day. And sometimes particular titles bring back special memories.
When I was maybe a year into the newsletter that became Film Score Monthly (1991?), I met composer and songwriter Fred Mollin, one of many seasonal Martha’s Vineyard residents my dad saw as a doctor (hope that’s not a HIPAA violation).
Fred had recently done a Friday the 13th TV Series album on GNP Crescendo and introduced me—by phone, this is pre-email—to the producers, Mark Banning and Ford Thaxton. Ford knew everybody else around, it seemed, and very quickly I was in touch with numerous composers, agents, record producers and the like.
One of the labels was the short-lived but very notable classical and soundtrack label, Bay Cities Records. I got to know Nick Redman, who spent many hours talking with me about films and scores I knew little about—a terrific education, and very generous on his part.
Remember, I was in high school, barely 17. I knew I would be heading off to college soon and it was a very strange and transitional time, with a blended family (new brothers from my dad’s second marriage) and everything about my life, family and surroundings irreversibly changing. And, on top of that, I was suddenly a media figure in the very small pond of film music publications.
I remember fairly early on getting a care package from Bay Cities that included their new or recent releases, Jerry Fielding Film Music 1 and 2 and also The Molly Maguires by Henry Mancini. Fielding I knew and liked from his Star Trek scores, and became a lifelong favorite (a whole other story).
I knew Mancini from his famous themes but nothing about The Molly Maguires...but I remember putting it on our CD player (a boom box beside the ancient Macintosh in what used to be our dining room, then a kind of quasi-office). And I loved it, I thought it was just the most beautiful tune.
So I don’t get unusually nostalgic about a lot of albums, but I do about this one. I seem to remember it was spring or early summer, so this must have been 1992, and it’s an enduring memory—sitting at that little computer desk, working on articles for the next newsletter, listening to The Molly Maguires...in what was essentially the last summer of my childhood.
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