If I could sing like anyone else, I'd want to sing like Cleo Laine. I first fell in love with her singing when I discovered the London revival album of Showboat at the library. She played Julie, and her version of Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine is still one of my all time favorite songs.
I love her versions of jazz songs, popular songs, and Broadway songs. No One is Alone is from Stephen Sondheim's musical, Into the Woods:
This summer, I've been involved in a community theater production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,* Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's pop/opera version of the Biblical story of Joseph. It's a fun musical, and a number of the songs are in varying styles: Disco (Go Go Joseph), Calypso (Benjamin Calypso), Elvis (Song of the King), French (Those Canaan Days) and country/western - One More Angel in Heaven:
This is the movie production starring Donny Osmond as Joseph, Maria Friedman as the Narrator, Robert Torti as the Pharaoh, Joan Collins as Potiphar's Wife, and Richard Attenborough as Jacob.
* I've written much more about the community theater production at my other blog, Moomin Light.
It seems like everyone has sung this song, but she was the first. In 1973, she won a Tony award playing Desiree in Stephen Sondheim's musical, A Little Night Music. "Send in the Clowns" was written with Glynis Johns in mind.
If you're not familiar with Glynis Johns, but you think you've seen her before, click here.
[Hat tip to Broadway, baby for reminding me of Glynis Johns' version. You can listen to more versions of "Send in the Clowns" (including Cleo Laine's, Frank Sinatra's, Glenn Close's, Barbra Streisand's, Barbara Cook's, Judi Dench's, and, of course, Judy Collins') go to Broadway, baby's posts, La meilleure version de Send in the clowns, and Versions de Send in the clowns (suite).]
After hearing strains of this song over and over in the background during the Macy's Day Parade, I had to post it tonight.
The movie, New York, New York, came out in 1977 at the beginning of the great movie musical drought. For some strange reason, I've never seen the movie, even though I've always loved the jazzy soundtrack. This song has been covered by many singers, including an excellent version by Frank Sinatra, but, to me, there's no version as wonderful as Liza Minnelli's. That being said, the first time I've actually seen this clip is tonight when I found it on YouTube.
The title song was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb (who also wrote Chicago and Cabaret). Kander and Ebb grudgingly rewrote "New York, New York" because Robert DeNiro (the other star of the film) insisted that they do so because the first version was too weak. After it became one of the most recorded songs in history, they concluded that they were glad he insisted.
Here is Elaine Page playing Edith Piaf singing "If You Loved Me" ("Hymne A L'Amour"). She played Piaf in the 1993 musical play, Piaf. From the Wikipedia:
The Guardian wrote that Paige was "a magnificent, perfect Piaf". She had originally signed up for a year but was forced to leave the production early due to exhaustion. The demanding play required Paige to sing 15 songs, some in French, and to be on stage for 2 hours 40 minutes in total. For her portrayal of Piaf, she was nominated for a fourth Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical...
I've always thought that Julie Andrews was born too late. Her talent would have had more outlet had she been in Hollywood during the golden age of musicals, rather than the ending of an era.
However, the 1982 film, Victor/Victoria was a wonderful opportunity for her (and it's one of my favorite movies). Here, a quiet spot where she's singing "Crazy World." She also performed this role in the Broadway version of "Victor/Victoria'" in 1995.
How to categorize this performance? "Mack the Knife" is the opening song to Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht's music drama, The Threepenny Opera. It introduces the character of the highwayman, MacHeath.
The song was made a hit by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darrin in their individual jazz and pop recordings. Sting's recording, from the album, Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, is sung in a more straight style, closer to the original. He also starred as MacHeath in a revival in New York in 1989.
This is a different translation so it doesn't start with "Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear..."
Shirley MacLaine is full of energy as Charity Hope Valentine, a taxi dancer who always has hope for the future, no matter how badly things go, in Bob Fosse's first film as a director, Sweet Charity. The story was written by Neil Simon (from the story of the Fellini film, Nights of Cabiria), although the screenplay was written by Peter Stone. The choreography was also Fosse's, and it's based on Fosse's Broadway musical (which starred his wife, Gwen Verdon). The songs are by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields.
Here, Charity is celebrating her good fortune at getting the interest of an actor (played by Ricardo Montalban).
I've had this song (by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein) in my head lately. It was originally written for the musical, Very Warm for May,* but it's been recorded by countless musicians since then. I had a difficult time picking which YouTube video to feature, but Judy Garland's turned out to be one of my favorites.
* Stephen Sondheim saw the original production of Very Warm for May when he was nine. He says that that performance was one of the things that inspired his interest in musical theater.
Did you ever wonder what it's like to be in a painting? Forever?
This is the opening song, sung by Bernadette Peters and the cast, for the second act of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, one of my favorite musicals. The first act is the story of George Seurat's creation of his painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - 1884. The second act, which I don't care for as much as the first, is the story of one of Seurat's descendants and his struggles.
"Sunday in the Park with George" was nominated for ten Tony Awards, including best musical, best score, best actor (Mandy Patinkin) and best actress (Bernadette Peters); unfortunately, it only won technical awards.
I love it for the music, the singing, the thoughtful way in which it unfolds, the questions it raises about creating art and about art's relationship to the community, and the self-referential way the story works (for instance, the pointillistic artist's fictional lover is named "Dot").