"That Happy Feeling" is a

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...

instrumental composed by Ghanaian musician Guy Warren in 1956 under the original title "An African's Prayer (Eyi Wala Dong)", and recorded as a single by

Bert Kaempfert Bert Kaempfert (born ; 16 October 1923 – 21 June 1980) was a German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records and wrote the music for a number of well-kno ...

Background

The track was recorded on March 16, 1962, and featured as the second cut on Kaempfert's album '' A Swingin' Safari''. That song and the title track were among the first pop instrumentals to incorporate elements of

South African music The music of South Africa exhibits a Culture of South Africa, culturally varied musical heritage in conjunction with the Ethnic groups in South Africa, multi-ethnic populace. Genres with the greatest international recognition being Mbube (genr ...

. 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.

Chart performance

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 The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

marimba The marimba ( ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the mari ...

melody line and

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

arpeggio An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords. Arpe ...

s combined with a full string section, a brass section, hand claps, guitars, and chorus helped it to become a staple of beautiful music radio.

Popular culture

The tune also proved to be a natural choice for locally produced children's television programming, especially in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

: *In

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, Sandy Becker used it as the theme for his local morning program on WNEW *In

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

, the music was used between children's programs during the early days of KBSC Corona/

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of 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 Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as swit ...

technician was busy cueing the tape of whatever show was scheduled to air. The instrumental was used for station sign on and sign off at TV stations once owned by the former

Kaiser Broadcasting The Kaiser Broadcasting Corp. was an American broadcast media company that owned and operated television and radio stations in the United States from 1957 to 1977. History Creating a broadcast chain Kaiser's involvement in broadcasting bega ...

System, including

WKBS-TV (Philadelphia) WKBS-TV (channel 48) was a television station licensed to Burlington, New Jersey, United States, which served the Philadelphia area. Operating from September 1965 to August 1983, it was one of three major independent stations serving the Del ...

Channel 48 in

Burlington, New Jersey Burlington is a City (New Jersey), city situated on the banks of the Delaware River in Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of Philadelphia. As of the 2020 United States census, the c ...

, and

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and

WKBF-TV WKBF-TV (channel 61) was a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, which broadcast from January 1968 to April 1975. Owned by Kaiser Broadcasting as one of an eventual group of six stations, it was the first ultra high frequency ( ...

Channel 61 in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

, Ohio. Both stations are now defunct. *The tune was also used on another Los Angeles television station,

KABC-TV KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship station of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station mai ...

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''. *It is also used by the UK's Cambridge Talking News as its signature tune on its weekly recordings for the blind and partially sighted. *A version sung by Herb Oscar Anderson was used on WABC Radio 770

References

External links

Ordering information and brief history at Amazon.com
{{Authority control 1962 singles 1960s instrumentals 1956 songs Bert Kaempfert songs