In Season 2 of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, Hanna-Barbera decided to add a pop soundtrack to the series, mostly for chase scenes in the 2nd half of the show. We now know that Austin Roberts, who'd later have a Top 40 hit of his own with "Rocky" in the mid-70's, re-recorded the show's theme song as well as some of those chase songs, including this one, "Pretty Mary Sunlight". GibletsNgravy uploaded this clip, taken from the episode, "Don't Fool With a Phantom":
Actor-singer Jerry Reed recorded his own version 2 years later when he appeared on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and Reed's version was chosen for the "Scooby-Doo's Snack Tracks" CD. Uploaded by thebeautybroke to YouTube:
Reed's version, understandably, was far superior. I could've used a clip from his appearance, but, I thought it'd might be better if you heard the whole song......
6 comments:
Roberts also hit #12 (Billboard) with "Something's Wrong With Me" in 1972.
We're lucky any of those season two Scooby songs survived intact to wind up on the "Snack Tracks" CD. Too bad Austin's version of "I Can Make You Happy" wasn't one of them. His vocals are more lively (based on the surviving audio) than on the one sung by Davy Jones!
Jerry Reed's take of "Pretty Mary Sunlight" is great; that he never considered to put it out as a single (even if he had to re-record it) is stunning. Could've been a country hit easily.
Funny thing is, I'd never heard of Roberts until "Rocky", and I only had that song on one of those K-Tel compilations that I bought second hand back in the day.
I had the Snack Tracks CD at one time, and traded it away when I lost interest. There's tracks on there from the 13 Ghosts series, as well, including a duet with the ghosts voiced by Arte Johnson & Howard Morris. Have to see if I can find those.
I agree Jerry Reed's version of "Pretty Mary Sunlight" is better than Roberts' version, but I still think both versions of it and "I Can Make You Happy" should have been included on the CD.
Austin Roberts wasn't credited with the singing for the second season of SDWAY, he was credited under his real name... George Austin Robertson, Jr. . He's had an impressive career in music since then, even if it wasn't as typical rock star.
Yes, I admit I downloaded "Rocky" to my iPod.
Thank you, magicdog. Now, if only we can ID who recorded the theme in season 1.......
It depends on who you ask.
One source claims it was David Mook, another source claims it was Larry Marks. I'm leaning towards it being Marks, as Mook co-wrote the theme with Ben Raleigh and spent a good deal of his career as a producer not a singer.
Marks has been credited as the vocalist, as Marc Nobleman revealed on his blog.
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