DVDs: Lane, Parish, Strouse & Schwartz
In January, I reviewed the first four of the eight, fifty-minute "Songwriters" programs recently made available on Wellspring DVDs. With this month's release of a final disc, the eight programs are now available on four DVDs which can be purchased separately or in a boxed set called "The Songwriters Collection."
An offshoot of producer Maurice Levine's "Lyrics and Lyricists" series for New York's 92nd Street Y, these early-'80s cable TV programs document the work of important musical-theatre writers, with the songwriter present before a studio audience to discuss and perform his work, with the help of guest vocalists. The programs devoted to Alan Jay Lerner, Sheldon Harnick, E.Y. Harburg, and John Kander and Fred Ebb were reviewed in January, and today I'm looking at the other four.
Composer Burton Lane didn't write enough book shows. His first was Al Jolson's final stage vehicle, Hold on to Your Hats 1940. Next was the glorious score with E.Y. Harburg for Finian's Rainbow 1947. But there were only two more, both with Alan Jay Lerner, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever 1965 and Carmelina 1979. There were also Broadway revues as well as films like Royal Wedding with Lerner and Give a Girl a Break with Ira Gershwin.
On the Lane program, the composer is joined by Bobbi Baird Levine's wife and two Broadway talents, Larry Kert West Side Story, Company and Martha Wright Mary Martin's replacement in South Pacific and The Sound of Music. Wright offers pretty renditions of "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" and "Too Late Now." Kert, who had around this time been performing a musical about Jolson, offers a big-voiced "There's a Great Day Coming Manana" from Hats, along with "If This Isn't Love" and "Come Back to Me." Baird is most impressive in "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?"
Lane opens the show, singing and playing "Old Devil Moon," and goes on to offer appealing renditions of "How About You?," "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love," Clear Day's title song, and "Where Have I Seen Your Face Before?," the latter the last song he wrote with Harburg. Lane tells of the great difficulty he had composing "Glocca Morra"; how a dance composition was turned into "Look to the Rainbow"; and seeing the Gumm Sisters perform and subsequently arranging and playing for Frances Gumm's MGM audition. Lane also sings a duet of "Applause, Applause" with the recorded voice of Ira Gershwin.
The only questionable inclusion in the "Songwriters" series is the program devoted to Mitchell Parish. Parish was a major tin-pin-alley lyricist, but not really a theatre man. True, from the late '20s to the early '40s, he did contribute to Broadway revues Continental Varieties, Earl Carroll's Vanities, It Happens on Ice. And Parish's lyrics were even the subject of a Broadway revue, named after his most celebrated composition, Stardust.
Prior to the Manhattan Theatre Club's re-opening of the Biltmore Theatre last fall, the last show at the house had been Stardust, which ran 118 performances in 1987 and featured Michelle Bautier, Maureen Brennan, Kim Criswell, Andre De Shields, Jason Graae, and Jim Walton. With the addition of design by Erté, Stardust was tried again three years later, in a production that starred Betty Buckley, Christine Andreas, Hinton Battle, and Karen Ziemba and was announced for Broadway but expired in Washington, D.C.
In addition to "Stardust," Parish's most popular lyrics include "Stairway to the Stars," "Stars Fell on Alabama," "Volare," and "Hands Across the Table." The seventy-nine-year-old Parish is dapper and charming as he offers advice to prospective lyricists about pairing opposites "the moon is high/the lamp is low", never wasting anything, and not analyzing images like "Deep Purple." He effectively warbles "Carolina Rolling Stone" and his signature work, but leaves most of the singing to his little-known but able vocalists, Irving Barnes, Jeri Craden, Liliane Stilwell, and Robert Vallee.
The final disc includes the programs devoted to Arthur Schwartz and Charles Strouse. Riding high from his current hit Annie, composer Strouse opens his program with "Tomorrow," and goes on to sing the lovely "Once Upon a Time" from All American. Looking back on Bye Bye Birdie, he recalls disagreeing with Gower Champion about the staging of "How Lovely to Be a Woman" he admits Gower was right and how "A Lot of Livin' to Do" was finally made to work in the show. And he performs the celebrated theme song he composed for TV's "All in the Family."
"How Lovely to Be a Woman" is delivered by young Allison Smith, Broadway's current Annie at the time of this 1981 taping. Smith joins the other musical guest, Debbie Shapiro now Gravitte, for "One Boy." Shapiro is in terrific voice on "Welcome to the Theatre," and shares with the composer Golden Boy's "Lorna's Here" and "I Want to Be With You." The two ladies join Strouse for "Applause," "But Alive," and a song from The Night They Raided Minsky's.
Strouse is then joined by lyricist-director Martin Charnin, and together the two attempt to recreate a backers' audition for Annie. They recall how the music for "Easy Street" was accidentally discarded, and the problem of Annie's opening number, with Strouse and Charnin performing the original choice that didn't work "Apples, Apples", the second choice "A Hard Knock Life", and, because it was Annie that audiences were interested in, the unconventional choice of opening with a wistful ballad, "Maybe," here performed by Smith.
Strouse and Charnin sum up all the chaos of making a show by reviving the title song lyrics by Lee Adams of Strouse's one-night disaster A Broadway Musical. Because Strouse sings and plays so well and is such a relaxed, affable performer, and because Shapiro's vocals are outstanding, this is one of the best programs in the series.
Composer Arthur Schwartz is also joined by some choice singers, Nancy Dussault, Judy Kaye, and Ed Evanko. A charming raconteur, Schwartz opens with one of his many compositions with lyricist Howard Dietz, "Dancing in the Dark," quickly moving on to a song he wrote with Larry Hart at summer camp, "I Love to Lie Awake in Bed." The tune later became "I'll Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan." Schwartz recalls leaving the legal profession for the theatre, and working with the speedy Dietz in many a hotel room.
Dussault does particularly well by the first Dietz-Schwartz hit, the lovely "Something to Remember You By." She also gets Schwartz's favorite rhythm song, "A Shine on Your Shoes," and an E.Y. Harburg lyric, "Then I'll Be Tired of You," the only song Schwartz wrote not for a film or show. "Alone Together" falls to Kaye, who shares with Dussault the Bette Davis wartime number, "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" lyric by Frank Loesser. Evanko sings "If There Is Someone Lovelier Than You," Schwartz's favorite collaboration with Dietz.
There's a sequence of numbers from Schwartz's finest book show, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, with Dorothy Fields lyrics. "Make the Man Love Me" is Kaye's best rendition on this 1982 program. Evanko does "I'll Buy You a Star," Dussault the upbeat "Look Who's Dancing." To close the show, the trio shares "That's Entertainment" with the composer.
Documenting some peerless pros, "The Songwriters" is a valuable series.
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