While Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip appeared daily in newspapers across the world, Vince Guaraldi’s music helped bring the gang to wider audiences through his jazzy television and film soundtrack recordings. In the 1966 animated special It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween, with Linus hoping that, finally, he will be visited by The Great Pumpkin, while Charlie Brown is invited to a Halloween party. As usual Guaraldi’s integral score drives the proceedings and steals the show. It’s one of the most desired soundtracks in the beloved collection of music from the iconic Peanuts animated TV specials and it’s now available on vinyl for the first time ever via Craft Recordings! The vinyl package features the iconic pumpkin etching on side-B, plus an introduction from the TV special’s executive producer, Lee Mendleson, and insightful liner notes by Peanuts historian, Derrick Bang.

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Music from the Soundtrack) features some of the most iconic tracks in pop culture, including the instantly recognizable “Linus and Lucy,” as well as the languid, lyrical “Great Pumpkin Waltz.” The music was recorded on October 4, 1966 at Desilu’s Gower Street Studio in Hollywood, California by Guaraldi (piano) and his longtime friends and trio sidemen – bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey – joined by Emanuel Klein (trumpet), John Gray (guitar) and Ronald Lang (woodwinds). The entire scoring process was overseen by composer, arranger and conductor John Scott Trotter, well known for a three-decade run as Bing Crosby’s music director and close friend.

“This is the quintessential Vince Guaraldi for our Peanuts’ specials…some of his best atmospheric jazz,” Mendelson shares. “Vince’s score carries the gang with the autumn leaves, through the scary and cold Halloween night. This music comforts the indomitable faith of Linus, still waiting for his hero since 1966 – forever in our ears, hearts and memories.” “Guaraldi had a strong sense of how music could – and should – be employed to maximize the viewing audience’s emotional response,” writes Bang. “[He] emphatically established the Peanuts ‘musical personality’ with this third outing, and all subsequent prime-time specials owed much to the groovin’ atmosphere that is so prevalent in Great Pumpkin. Guaraldi had a gig for life…and his legacy lives on, expand[ing] by the year, thanks in great part to the jazz swagger given to an insecure blockhead and his lovably crazy beagle.”

Following the astounding popularity of Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip and the first two successful Peanuts television specials – A Charlie Brown Christmas and Charlie Brown’s All-Stars – It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown debuted October 27, 1966 with a phenomenal 49 percent audience share, meaning 49 percent of the people watching television during those 25 minutes had tuned in to see Charlie Brown.