Here’s to the Eagles, despised by many critics who didn’t think their music was tough enough for rock and roll, but loved by their many fans who made their Greatest Hits the best selling album of all time (29 million copies thus far). I loved them best in concert and “Seven Bridges Road” was a particular knockout—the band standing together, doing what sounded to me like flawless 5 part harmony.
Read More“Sing for Your Supper”, a Rodgers and Hart trio from The Boys from Syracuse is irresistibly goofy, especially when it’s done so enthusiastically by world class singers. I couldn’t decide who did it better—the Broadway stars Rebecca Luker, Audra McDonald and Mary Testa or the opera legends Frederica von Stade, Marilyn Horne and Renee Fleming.
Read MoreLet’s start with Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. To know their music is to love it. They wrote a string of classic songs without ever managing to write a hit Broadway show. “Come Rain or Come Shine” was written for St. Louis Woman that lasted 103 performances in spite of its gorgeous score. Eileen Farrell, accompanied by Leonard Bernstein, performs it here.
Read MoreWhat a week this has been! There are so many fantastic songs out there that it was hard to pick just one a day. Thank you NYFOS for asking me to play this really fun game. Today’s selection is “Feeling Of”, written (and performed) by the super talented Melissa Lusk for her band BOY GIRL PARTY.
Read MoreThis is one of my favorite conventions in theater—the character who has one (showstopping) song. This song from Jason Robert Brown’s incredible score is sung by Whitney Bashor, who plays the ex of the leading man. She only appears for this moment, but lends so much depth and realism to his backstory. Bashor has a really gorgeous voice and I look forward to hearing more from her soon!
Read MoreFor a Tuesday, I thought something a little more serious (just a little though) could be in order. I have always loved the songs of Reynaldo Hahn and particularly love Susan Graham’s compilation of Hahn’s songs—”La Belle Epoque”. A particularly summery one is “Quand je fus pris au pavillon”, an upbeat memory song about losing your heart to a fancy lady in her pavillion. The piano captures the exhilaration of youthful love and Susan Graham’s voice sounds so honeyed and sweet.
Read MoreThis super creative setting of a teenage girl’s extracurricular activities by the UBER talented Kristen Childs has come to mind because her new musical, Bella: An American Tall Tale has just opened at Playwrights Horizons and I’m dying to see it. The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, which was a total delight in the early 2000’s, had several of my all time favorite performers in it— Adriane Lenox, Darius DeHaas, Jerry Dixon, LaChanze. There are a lot of selections that bear listening to, but “The Skate” is one of my favorites.
Read MoreLast year I saw a ‘new’ musical theatre piece that was a collaboration between lyricist Vid Guerrerio and the greatest musical theatre composer of them all…Mozart. The piece was called Figaro (90210), and it brilliantly updated the opera to present-day L.A. Susanna is an illegal immigrant who has been working in a sweatshop, and is now a maid working for ‘Paul Conti’, a shady businessman who has promised to sponsor her for a green card in return for services rendered. First performed in L.A. before the presidential primaries a couple of years ago, it was/is of our moment and of all time (since it is Mozart!).
Read MoreInstead of going to my senior prom, I took my high school girlfriend by train from New Rochelle, only ‘forty-five minutes from Broadway’ to dinner at Sardi’s and for a performance of A Little Night Music. (I ‘came out’ within two years, it took Gail a little longer). A year later, I saw the first incarnation of Side by Side by Sondheim in London; by then I was a confirmed Sondheimite.
Read More