Wasn’t there are vocal group that did a lot of this in the late 60’s? (Especially movie soundtracks & commercials)
Are you thinking of Manhattan Transfer?
No; wolfmeister’s thinking of the Swingle Singers–camptastic! Jazz-scat noodling the scores of Bach, Vivaldi, etc. Yummy yummy stuff.
My first thought was the closing music for WKRP in Cincinnati.
Eddie Murphy had an SNL bit: “Buckwheat Sings!” promoting his album with cover versions of “Bette Davis Eyes” and “Three Times a Lady” that were completely incoherent. Does that count?
NO I was definitely not thinking of the Manhattan Transfer.
I don’t even know what the name of the group was - but in the late 1960’s you could hear them all over the place. Among other things they did the music for the war movie “Castle Keep”. Weird huh? I tried to find any info on this at www.imdb.com but no mention of the group was given.
Somehow “Swingle Singers” sounds vaguley familiar.
Thanks lissener !!
You probably are well aware of these, but have you tried Lisa Gerrard’s solo and soundtrack work? There’s some good stuff there.
One of my fave bands, The Heavy Blinkers, a Bacharach-influenced band, did this to good effect in their song “Malmo.” Strange, because they’d never done it before, or since.
Then there’s the Cocteau Twins…but, of course, there are allegedly real words behind whatever it is that Liz Fraser is singing.
Adiemus. Another “made up language” band.
my $.02