UK reissue label ACE RECORDS’ latest themed compilation is a wonderful and intriguing look at music from espionage and spy thrillers – on both the big and little screens.
‘COME SPY WITH US’ (complete with great period cover art work) offers a generous 25 tracks with music that crosses all genres. Soul is best represented by The Miracles and Dusty Springfield. The Miracles’ song is ‘Come Spy With Me’ – the theme to a movie that never came out – while Dusty’s contribution is the defining version of ‘The Look Of Love’ which was featured in the 1966 Bond spoof ‘Casino Royale’. The famous Bond theme itself is here too – but in a quirky version from Johnny and the Hurricanes. Other familiar theme tunes on the set include the theme from ‘Danger Man’, ‘Mission Impossible’ (the one used in THAT TV ad) and the lounge jazzy theme to a wonderful TV series called ‘Burke’s Law’.
Other highlights include Nancy Sinatra’s ‘The Last Of The Secret Agents’, Matt Monro’s ‘Wednesday’s Child’ (the theme to ‘The Quiller Memorandum’) and Sarah Vaughan’s ‘Bye Bye’ (from ‘Peter Gunn’).
Award for quirkiest cut? That goes to Diana Ross and the Supremes’ ‘Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine’ – great Northern style backing track, pity about the lyrics, but you probably guessed that!
