Spy music is rad. The best thing about secret agent/spy/James Bond themes is that the songs are generally so good it doesn't really matter who's doing them, they usually come out okay. The era in which spy music was popular (roughly late fifties through the late sixties) was also about the time that cash-in records were popular. Any group of capable studio musicians could piece together an ersatz compilation of a dozen or so songs that were already recognizable to the tightwads that didn't want to shell out for the OG versions. Apply that process to instrumentals and you have the whole Ventures, Billy Strange, Al Caiola, Hugo Montenegro clusterfuck.
Todays featured carpetbagger is Reg Guest and his combo The Reg Guest Syndicate. I gotta say, he does a bang-up job. It's big sound, orchestration and all the trimmings. There's a few Guest originals in there too. "Underworld" is a good one, albeit borrowing a riddim from "Green Onions". But, ho-ly shit, does the instrumentation make up for it. The unrelenting extreme fuzz on the guitar sets the mood on the whole thing. It's Steve Cropper playing Davie Allan's rig, turned up to 11 with Paul Burlison dropping the amp. Alas, this was the Reg Guest Syndicate's sole release. I'm guessing that he (Guest) went back to faceless studio work. Anyway, I tip my hat to the under-valued yet more than competent person of any trade. Why can't it be the same for some no-name band leader?
The Reg Guest Syndicate - Underworld mp3 at Internet Archive
The Reg Guest Syndicate - James Bond Theme mp3 at Internet Archive
The Reg Guest Syndicate - Man From U.N.C.L.E. mp3 at Internet Archive
The Reg Guest Syndicate - Thunderball mp3 at Internet Archive
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