Newspaper Article

SO LONG TO THE GOOD OLD ORGAN

Terry Ann Knopf Globe Correspondent

1980

Overview

Despite his roots in the past, [Charlie Paul] personifies the modernization process. Today, he composes, arranges and records the orchestra music for \"As the World Turns,\" \"The Guiding Light\" and \"General Hospital.\" \"It's exciting. It's a challenge. I frequently use three guitarists and two percussionists on top of the usual woodwinds, strings and horns,\" he says exuberantly. Paul and his collaborators also make more elaborate use of music to set the mood and tone of a scene. At Hope Bauer and Alan Spaulding's wedding on \"Guiding Light,\" one of the characters sang the Perry Como hit \"And I Love You So.\" And, in the now famous scene from \"General Hospital\" when Luke Spenser raped Laura Baldwin, the heinous act was committed with the throbbing beat of Herb Alpert's \"Rise\" in the background. If soap opera music has grown more sophisticated and subtle, it has also become the vehicle for reaching out to new audiences - especially young people. \"General Hospital\" (not incidentally the No. 1 rated soap) makes heavy use of a nightspot called the \"Campus Disco.\" Popular tunes like \"Rotation,\" \"Night Drive\" and Donna Summer's \"On the Radio\" are frequently heard blaring on the jukebox, although never so loudly as to interfere with the dialogue.

• Publisher: Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC
• Subject: Paul, Charlie / Taubman, Paul