Quotations of J.S. Bach’s music in pop recordings fascinate me especially when they are unannounced. Basically, they make me wonder why they’re there. I stumbled upon an example of this a few weeks ago through a thrift store purchase of Club 15, an LP promotion produced by the Campbell Soup Company.
Club 15 seems to have been a club for women to inspire fitness and weight loss. Gymnast Muriel Davis Grossfeld, who competed in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics on the U.S. team, was the club’s spokesperson and exercise advisor. In addition to being featured on two LP albums, she also wrote a 27-page pamphlet on the facets of Club 15, published in 1965 by Campbell Soup Company.
Partly, it was the liner notes that piqued my interest in this LP, and specifically the seeming acknowledgment via scare quotes that Club 15 was something to be avoided: “Here are some ideas for organizing your CLUB and planning ‘fun’ activities.” I was also excited by the inserted booklet of exercises that included drawings both elegant and peculiar.
It helps when you realize the squiggles are supposed to be ponytails.
Not sure I’d be able to get beyond Exercise No. 1.
This does not look like a “fun” activity.
Part D isn’t looking so good.
The record itself features Ms. Grossfeld announcing exercises with musical excerpts meant to last the duration of the exercise. In addition to “Moonlight Sonata” and “Morning Mood” from the Peer Gynt Suite are two Bach selections: the Minuet in G (which had become especially famous in 1965 for its use in The Toys’ “A Lover’s Concerto”), and the Two-Part Invention No. 2 in D Minor.
Exercise to be performed to Bach’s Two-Part Invention No. 2.