1976 No. 1, A Disco-Inspired Version Of Beethoven, Popped To The Top 50 Years Ago Today
On October 3, 1976, the No. 1 song in the country was probably the most widely known example of what's considered classical music — although it was arranged for contemporary audiences and style into a disco song that will transport boomers right back to their first dance club moment. Fifty years ago, Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band's playful, inventive, and still reverent "A Fifth of Beethoven" spent one week atop the Hot 100.
Murphy wasn't just some musician who cashed in on the disco fad. He was a classically trained composer and one-time arranger for "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" who was stuck writing commercial jingles. What he really wanted to do was make contemporary pop versions of classical and symphonic works and see them scale the pop chart. There was precedent: the Toys had converted a Johann Sebastian Bach piece into "A Lover's Concerto" in 1965, and Apollo 100's 1972 hit "Joy" was likewise inspired by a Bach song called "Jesu, Joy of Man Desiring." When disco took hold, Murphy saw his entry point and went for it.
Very few people wanted to hear A Fifth of Beethoven until everybody did
First, Walter Murphy recorded a demo of himself playing the disco arrangements he made of symphonic pieces and sent it out to numerous record companies. Only one of those labels, Private Stock, showed any real interest, and at that, it saw potential in just one of Murphy's songs: "A Fifth of Beethoven," based on Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, technically "Symphony No. 5 in C Minor," from 1807. While most of the instruments on the multi-tracked song were performed by Murphy, Private Stock thought it would have trouble marketing a one-man outfit, and initially issued the "A Fifth of Beethoven" single attributed to a group that it completely invented called the Big Apple Band.
Murphy had seemingly carved out his coveted niche, but his follow-up disco takes on symphonic compositions — including Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" — weren't nearly as successful as "A Fifth of Beethoven." As for whatever happened to this '70s one-hit wonder, he moved into composing for film and television. Murphy wrote the theme music and original songs for Seth MacFarlane's animated shows, including "The Cleveland Show," "American Dad!" and "Family Guy," winning an Emmy Award for the latter series in 2002.