Tag Archives: broadway

Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers

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The song “Shy” from the Broadway musical, Once Upon a Mattress, made a star out of Carol Burnett. The score was composed by Mary Rodgers, and of course, the last name Rodgers should ring a bell because indeed, Mary Rodgers was the daughter of Richard Rodgers, which was both her blessing and her curse. “Shy” is not only the name of the song but also the name of Mary Rodgers’ recent autobiography, published posthumously with the help of NY Times theatre critic Jesse Green. if there is a major theme in the story of Mary Rodgers life, it is how does a talented daughter get out from under the shadow of a very famous musical genius.

Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review of Shy, as broadcast today on the Art Express radio program, heard on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.

Tilting At Windmills

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Richard Kiley in his greatest Broadway role, as Miguel Cervantes/Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion.

Wikipedia tempts us with the information that the original lyricist was to be W. H. Auden, but his lyrics were considered too satirical and biting towards the bourgeois audience and so was replaced.

What I would give to see those discarded lyrics!

Thanks to YouTuber The Ed Sullivan Show

Start of Something Big

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Monday Morning, Walden Robert Cassotto (that’s Bobby Darin to most of us) with the Steve Allen standard; and “Just in Time” from Bells are Ringing

Thanks to YouTuber The Ed Sullivan Show

The Company Way

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One more lesson in obsequiousness from How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. The late Robert Morse rings every bit of humor from the song. The clever lyrics and music are by Frank Loesser.

Thanks to YouTuber Movieclips

Would You Light My Candle?

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As snow and cold invades these parts, Renée Elise Goldsberry seeks some warmth from Will Chase in Rent.

Thanks to BroadwayInHD

A Brotherhood of Man

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Daniel Radcliffe in a non-Harry Potter-ish role, insists on the unity of us all, as his corporate brethren in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying agree. Robert Morse and Matthew Broderick who both played the same role, introduce the high-spirited number at the Tony Awards.

Who knew that Radcliffe was such a great song-and-dance man?

Thanks to YouTuber The xNYr

Audition

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Monday morning, put the oxygen tanks on standby.

That’s Graeme Henderson putting the chorus gypsies through their paces in the London West End revival of 42nd Street

Thanks to YouTuber Great Performances | PBS

Tonight

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Monday morning, as the 1961 vs the 2021 West Side Story movie buffs argue, let’s go back to the glorious original Broadway theater cast of Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert. Certainly no one better than they were. Here they are in a tv appearance on Ed Sullivan, about 1958. Unfortunately, this YouTube version ends early, but some is better than none…

Thanks to YouTuber The Ed Sullivan Show

How We Gonna Pay…?

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Monday Morning, waking up hyperactive, the power is out and last year’s rent is due.

The frenetic choreography is over the top for me, but the music and lyrics as sung by the 2008 Broadway cast of Jonathan Larsen’s Rent are still zippy.

Thanks to YouTuber BroadwayInHD

The Song In Every Musical That No One Likes

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The very clever Sarah Smallwood Parsons sings a truth universally acknowledged, to hilarious effect.

Click on the image to play.

Thanks to YouTuber CharactersWelcome

I Want To Be With You: Sammy Davis Jr.

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Monday Morning, Mr. Wonderful, as Sammy Davis’s character in his first Broadway play was called.

If Sammy Davis were only a dancer he would be known as one of the greatest tap dancers of the 20th century.

If he were only a singer he would be known as one of the greatest male vocalists of the 20th century.

He was both.

Here he is with a song from his second musical, Golden Boy, from 1964, about an African-American boxer who falls in love with a white woman.

Paula Wayne who played Sammy’s lover, Lorna, in the show, said that when the time came during rehearsals for Sammy to kiss her, Sammy was very reluctant to do so. It was the first time an interracial kiss had happened on the Broadway stage; but Paula insisted that there would be no problem. She was soon to find out otherwise—the day after the show opened there were pickets in front of the theatre from white supremacists groups denouncing the show.

But the show ran for 500+ performances and had a great, under-appreciated score by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams—probably the best score they ever created.

Thanks to YouTuber varadero1839

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

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With the madness of the last week it’s nice to just relax and give oneself up to an artist who is totally in control of her talent.

Lady Gaga sings a jazz/pop version of the Rodgers and Hart standard that promises a lot and delivers a lot.

She sang this often on her 2015 tour, and if you look on YouTube, you can see that in every performance the vocal arrangement is different, she’s clothed in a different costume and wig, and yet every performance is right on the money. Really a rare talent.

Click on the image to listen.

Thanks to YouTuber Lucs Said

Lucky To Be Me

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Tony Yazbeck singing, and dancing on location, the Comden-Green-Bernstein standard from On The Town.

Aside from Yazbeck’s winning performance, if you’re a New Yorker, you’ll have fun identifying the locations.

Thanks to YouTuber On The Town on Broadway

Quintet

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Monday morning, The Jets, The Sharks, Tony, Maria, and Anita get ready for the big night. Lucky them to have the Bernstein/Sondheim music to prepare to. Still the best score from an American musical in my opinion.

Thanks to YouTuber John Long

Fool’s Gold

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The great and idiosyncratic Anthony Newley, singing, in costume, the song from Stop The World, I Want To Get Off! that had him laughing all the way to the bank.

Thanks to YouTuber Anthonay Newley

That Business Called Show

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Monday morning, Miss Merman doing what she did best.

Years ago, I was visiting someone in Roosevelt hospital in NYC, and to my surprise, there was Ethel, unpretentiously doing volunteer clerk work.

Thanks to YouTuber Alan Eichler

All The Things You Are: Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald

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Monday morning, we go legit. If you follow my blog regularly, you might know that this is one of my favorite jazz standards (see here and here and here for other versions). But it was originally written for a Broadway play for two duets with a lush orchestra. Here are  two wonderful legit singers, Norm Lewis and the extraordinary Audra McDonald, with their heavenly version.

Thanks to YouTuber Kylie Briggs

Hymn For A Sunday Evening

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Department of Self-Referential Videos Department.

The original Broadway cast of Bye Bye Birdie—including the fabulous Paul Lynde— singing the Ed Sullivan song—on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Thanks to YouTuber lee a

“Time Is An Ocean”: Marc Anthony and Ruben Blades

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The short-lived original 1998 Broadway production of The Capeman had a beautiful score by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott. And it was sung superbly by two icons, Marc Anthony and Ruben Blades.

The video above was uploaded last month to YouTube by Blades himself. In this song, Ruben Blades plays the older Salvador Agron, the so-called Capeman murderer, looking back and trying to reach his younger, 16-year-old incarcerated self, played by Marc Anthony.

I hope that someday more video surfaces, as that show really needs to be re-evaluated. It was performed for a few times in the summer at Central Park’s outdoor Delacorte Theatre in 2012, but was not picked up for a longer run. If anyone is interested, I’ll tell a funny story concerning my viewing of that production.

Quality

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Monday, the singing teen-agers on the corner wake you up at 4:00 in the morning.

In 1996, Paul Simon, along with Derek Walcott, wrote the music and book for the Broadway play, Capeman,. The critics killed the show, unfairly in my opinion, but the songs are some of Simon’s best work. The play took place in 1950s New York City, and the music was an amalgamation of doo-wop and salsa. This song was one of the decidedly doo-wop influenced songs.

Click on the video to play

Thanks to YouTuber nostalgicdoowop

Who Can I Turn To?

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At one time, Anthony Newley was a huge star. Before he was 35 years old, he acted in, directed, and wrote the words* and music to two smash Broadway musical plays, Stop the World—I Want to Get Off!,  and The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd. Many of the songs from those two musicals became standards: “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “Who Can I Turn To?” were covered by hundreds of singers. Newley used to enjoy saying that if he had never done anything else in his life, he could make a good living from the residuals of “What Kind of Fool Am I?” alone.

When he left the stage, he became a kind of parody of himself, as he played the Las Vegas venues, a glorified lounge singer. He never matched the heights of  his earlier years, and the memory of his success has faded over the years. But as you can see in the clip above from the Ed Sullivan show, Newley in his prime was one of the most distinctive, eccentric, talented, and influential artists of the 1960s. Click on the video to see a quintessential Newley performance.

Thanks to YouTuber gmulvein

*Reader Sandra Nordgren wrote in to correct us that it was Leslie Bricusse who wrote the words to the songs. Thanks, Sandra.

Hey There

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Last week I went to a delightful community theater production of The Pajama Game. The songs were written by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler, and the show was a big hit when it first opened in 1954. They followed up a year later with Damn Yankees which also was a big hit. Unfortunately, Jerry Ross died shortly afterward at the age of 29, and Adler, who lived to be 90, never had a Broadway hit again.

The action of the play is the love story between a union leader and a supervisor of the Sleep-Tite pajama company. The love plot is set against the background of an impending strike demanding a 7 and 1/2 cents an hour wage increase. While not politically sophisticated, the story actually celebrates the struggle of union members for better wages, a sentiment you would be hard-pressed to find in today’s popular entertainment.

The score delivered some pop songs that are still standards today. Here’s “Hey There,” sung by John Raitt, who created the lead role in the original Broadway production and the movie. Raitt had one of the great Broadway voices, perfectly suited for the strong leading man tenor roles of Rodgers and Hammerstein as well as The Pajama Game.