That Happy Feeling
"That Happy Feeling" was an instrumental pop music single recorded by Bert Kaempfert on March 16, 1962 and featured as the second cut on his album A Swingin' Safari. That song and the title track were among the first pop instrumentals to incorporate elements of South African music. It is also the title track of what is virtually the same album as the German "A Swingin' Safari", issued under a different name in America. The song was composed by Ghanaian musician Guy Warren in 1956 under the original title "An African's Prayer (Eyi Wala Dong)".
Although Kaempfert's recording of the tune only peaked at number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart when issued as a single in 1962, its upbeat style, flute/marimba melody line and trumpet/trombone arpeggios combined with a full string section and chorus helped it to become a staple of beautiful music radio.
The tune also proved to be a natural choice for locally produced children's television programming, especially in the United States. In New York City, Sandy Becker used it as the theme for his local program on WNEW and in Southern California, the song was used between children's programs during the early days of KBSC Corona/Los Angeles. It was played over the title card of the station's logo and not always to its conclusion, presumably because a master control technician was busy cueing the tape of whatever show was scheduled to air.
It should also be of note that the song was also used on another Los Angeles television station, KABC-TV Channel 7, when the station would sign on in the early morning to begin its broadcast day well before round-the-clock broadcasting became the norm much later.
It is used in Adam Elliot's 2009 film, Mary and Max.
External links and references
- Ordering information and brief history at Amazon.com
- Awards/charts section at Kaempfert.de
- YouTube video combining stills from the Sandy Becker show with the original recording
- Allmusic.com entry for A Swingin' Safari (1998 re-release)