Hugo Winterhalter & His Orchestra with Eddie Heywood - Canadian Sunset (1956)

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Pure beauty unfolding in real time. This was among the first modern romantic instrumental hits of the post-swing, dawning rock n' roll era. There would be a lot of these by the
likes of Percy Faith, Andre Kostelanetz, Morris Stoloff, Henri Mancini, David Rose, Billy Vaughn, Richard Maltby, Bert Kaempfert, Horst Jankowski and many others. It is a form of music all but lost today, fading out forever sometime in the early 1980's, but in the 1950's and 1960's it was a major staple for pop music fans, filling the gap left by the death of Glenn Miller and the Big Band era. In a sense, this form of pop music was what the Big Band instrumentals eventually evolved into, some of its bandleaders getting their start in the early 1940's.

"Canadian Sunset" ultimately reached #2 on both Billboard's Hot 100 and the Cash Box Top 100 on October 6, 1956 following the tremendous success at #1 of "Moonglow/Theme from Picnic" by Morris Stoloff (a small part of which I used at the end of my music video of "All Day Music" by War).