1965 Sounds Orchestral – Cast Your Fate To The Wind
While you may not recognize the name Vince Guaraldi, you probably are familiar with his music. Vince was a jazz piano player who began recording music with various groups in 1951.
He began a solo career in 1959 and recorded the song Samba de Orpheus with his Vince Guaraldi Trio in 1962. The record did not do well until disk jockeys in the US turned the record over and played the instrumental on the b-side, Cast Your Fate To The Wind.
The single peaked at #22 on the Hot 100 and #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart in early 1963. The recording won the 1963 Grammy award for Best Original Jazz Composition. Unfortunately, that didn’t lead to any more charting singles.
While that may have qualified the single as a one-hit wonder, the story actually had a happier ending. Producer Lee Mendelson was working on the television show A Boy Named Charlie Brown and the music impressed him enough to hire Vince to do the music for the show. That began a long association with the Peanuts shows.
John Schroeder was a British songwriter who worked as a composer, arranger, and producer. Johnny Pearson was a piano player and composer who led the Top of the Pops orchestra for a dozen years. John produced Johnny’s first solo album on Oriole Records, after which the pair moved to Pye Records and recruited a collection of musicians and formed The Sounds Orchestral. They began recording pop and easy listening music in 1964.
A cover version of Cast Your Fate To The Wind became the first hit for Sounds Orchestral in 1965. Their single peaked at #10 on the Hot 100, #5 on the UK chart, and reached the top of the US Adult Contemporary chart in 1965.
Sounds Orchestral released Canadian Sunset as their next single, but it stalled at #76 in the US and #43 in the UK. The group continued releasing successful albums through 1975 but never reached the Hot 100 again.
All of that may qualify Cast Your Fate To The Wind as a one-hit wonder for two different artists in two different years!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Guaraldi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_Orchestral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_Your_Fate_to_the_Wind
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