The Midnight String Quartet were an easy listening chamber music quartet, consisting of two violins, a viola, and a cello, made up of students (at the time) or graduates from the University of Southern California.
They played covers and standards over several albums from 1966 to the early seventies, supplemented by a professional rhythm section, often including bass, drums and guitar and sometimes piano and harpsichord.
Their First album, Rhapsodies for Young Lovers (1966) was arranged by Leon Russell and spent 59 weeks in the Billboard charts peaking at number 17 in November 1966.
Midnight String Quartet continued releasing albums with a double album Best of the Midnight String Quartet being released in 1971.
[2][3] Interest resurfaced during the Lounge Revival of the mid nineties and has seen among others, the re- release on cd of Rhapsodies for Young Lovers on the Varèse Sarabande[4] label with extra tracks and additional liner notes by ‘Elevator music’[5] and‘The Cocktail’[6] author Joseph Lanza.