San Sebastian Strings

During 1967 the multifaceted American singer, composer, and renaissance figure Anita Kerr maintained her base in Los Angeles. While assembling a fresh lineup of her vocal ensemble the Anita Kerr Singers, composing and cutting jingles for radio and television, and serving as choral director for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, she launched a fresh partnership with poet and songwriter Rod McKuen on the instrumental/spoken-word album The Sea. McKuen supplied his supple voice for romantic meditations on the natural world, while Kerr handled composition, arrangement, and conducting duties for the studio orchestra later billed as the San Sebastian Strings. The Sea together with its follow-ups The Earth (1967) and The Sky (1968) stood as defining entries in the late-'60s easy listening movement. Kerr continued to guide the San Sebastian Strings as they supplied the musical backdrop for more than a dozen additional McKuen releases until the collaboration concluded in 1975.