Thursday, June 28, 2012

June 27: Countrified Musicals

In honor of Ring of Fire opening soon at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre... Details to follow when I have a stronger internet connection.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

June 20: Jerry Herman


Each Tomorrow Morning - Angela Lansbury, Dear World [Original Broadway Cast] (Sony)
I Wanna Live Each Night - Christine Baranski, Miss Spectacular (DRG)
I Wanna Make the World Laugh - Company; Howard McGillin, Mack & Mabel [1995 London Cast] (Capitol)
Showtune - Company, Parade (Decca U.S.)
Shalom - Robert Weede, Milk and Honey [Bonus Track] (DRG)
Milk and Honey - Robert Weede, Milk and Honey [Bonus Track] (DRG)
Motherhood - Chris Calloway; Emily Yancy; Pearl Bailey, Hello, Dolly! [1967 Cast Recording] (RCA)
It Only Takes a Moment - Emily Yancy; Jack Crowder, Hello, Dolly! [1967 Cast Recording] (RCA)
Before the Parade Passes By - Carol Channing, Hello, Dolly! [OBC Deluxe]
Ballet - Orchestra, Dear World [Original Broadway Cast]
It's Today - Angela Lansbury, Mame - 1966 Broadway (Sony Classical)
One Extraordinary Thing - Joel Grey, The Grand Tour (ArkivMusic Sony 60001)
Gooch's Song - Jane Connell, Mame - 1966 Broadway (Sony Classical)
And I Was Beautiful - Angela Lansbury, Dear World [Original Broadway Cast]
I Don't Want to Know (from Dear World) - Leslie Uggams, Jerry's Girls (Polygram)
Wherever He Ain't - Bernadette Peters, Mack & Mabel [1974 Original Broadway Cast] (MCA)
I Am What I Am - George Hearn, Star Spangled Rhythm Disc 4 (Smithsonian)
The Best Of Times - Jerry Herman & company, Tap Your Troubles Away! - The Words And Music Of Jerry Herman (LML Music)

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

June 13: Fathers of Fathers


Breeze Off the River - Patrick Wilson, The Full Monty (BMG)  
Father to Son - Cast, March of the Falsettos [Original Cast] (DRG)  
Race You to the Top of the Morning - Mandy Patinkin, The Secret Garden [Original Broadway Cast] (Original Cast Record)
Father's Day - William Solo, Children of Eden [Original Cast Highlights]  
Soliloquy - Ron Raines, Broadway Passion (That's Entertainment)  
A Father Now - Jerry Colker, Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down (Jay 1239)  
Other Pleasures - Kevin Colson, Aspects of Love [Original London Cast] (Polydor 841 126-2)  
You Two - Michael Ball; Carrie Fletcher; George Gillies, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [Original London Cast] (Sony)  
Father's Footsteps - Orchestra, Mary Poppins [Special Edition] Disc 1 (Disney)
 The First Man You Remember - Kevin Colson, Diana Morrison, Aspects of Love [Original London Cast] (Polydor 841 126-2)
InĂștil - Carlos Gomez, In the Heights (Ghostlight 84428)  
The Hardest Part of Love - Adrian Zmed; William Solo, Children of Eden [Original Cast Highlights] (RCA Records)
I Like You - Ezio Pinza; William Tabbert, Fanny [Original Broadway Cast] (RCA)  
Fathers of Fathers - Brent Barrett; Patrick Scott Brady; Richard Muenz, Closer Than Ever [Original Cast] Disc 2 If I Sing - Richard Muenz, Closer Than Ever [Original Cast] Disc 2 (RCA)  
Fathers and Sons - Original Cast, Working [Original Cast Recording]

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

June 6: The Sherman Brothers

Supercalifragilisticexpialidoc - Julie Andrews, Walt Disney Presents The Sherman Brothers (Disney)
Substitutiary Locomotion [From - Angela Lansbury; Cindy O'Calla, Classic Disney, Vol. 4
Gratification - Richard Sherman; Robert Sherman, Tom Sawyer (Varese Sarabande)
Protocoligorically Correct - The Sherman Brothers, The Slipper and the Rose
Busker Alley [From Busker Alley] - Gary Beach, Believe: The Songs of the Sherman Brothers
Tall Paul - Annette Funicello
Let’s Get Together - Haley Mills
You’re 16, You’re Beautiful, and You’re Mine - Johnny Burnette
Things I Might Have Been - Kitty Wells
Higitus Figitus (Sword in the Stone) - Karl Swenson; Ricky Sorenson, The Music of Disney: A Legacy in Song Disc 1 (Disney)
Tiggers - Jim Cummings, The Tigger Movie (Walt Disney)
Winnie the Pooh [From Winnie the Pooh & the Honey Tree] - Chorus, Walt Disney Presents The Sherman Brothers (Disney)
Makin' Memories - Disney Singers, Walt Disney Presents The Sherman Brothers (Disney)
The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room - Disney Singers, Walt Disney Presents The Sherman Brothers (Disney)
(There's A) Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow - Rex Allen, The Music of Disney: A Legacy in Song Disc 3
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Title Theme - Orchestra, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [Rykodisc] (Rykodisc)
Over Here! - Maxene Andrews; Patty Andrews, Over Here! (Sony Classical)
Chim Chim Cheree - Dick Van Dyke; Julie Andrews; Karen Dotrice; Matthew Garber, Disney's Greatest, Vol. 2
River Song [Tom Sawyer] - Lawrence Clayton, Believe: The Songs of the Sherman Brothers
Tell Him Anything [Slipper & the Rose] - Susan Egan, Cinderella: Songs from the Classic Fairy Tale
Do You Remember Me - Shelby Flint, Snoopy Come Home (Paramount)
Your Heart Will Lead You Home [From the Tigger Movie] - Natalie Toro, Believe: The Songs of the Sherman Brothers (Fynsworth Alley)
Feed the Birds - Original London Cast, Mary Poppins [Original London Cast] (Walt Disney Records)
Let's Go Fly a Kite - Dave Tomlinson; Dick Van Dyke, Mary Poppins [Special Edition] Disc 1

I truly recommend the documentary The Boys by one son of Richard and one son of Robert Sherman. It's available to rent online.

Some additional notes on Robert Sherman and WWII...


While watching that wonderful documentary, The Boys, I couldn't help but notice Robert Sherman's eyes. In the family photographs as young boys, Bob's eyes were as bright and hopeful as his younger brother's. But in most of the subsequent photographs, after his time in WWII, there is a distinct veil to everything about him, especially his eyes. Near the end of the documentary, Bob says he was "the first one" into Dachau concentration camp.

(That was some field doctor treating Bob after he was shot in the knee on April 12, 1945, to get him limping along to get into Dachau by the end of the month... I digress.)  His 45th Infantry Division was "first" into the camp, with many different areas of the compound, with the 42nd Infantry division, of the 157th Infantry Regiment. The Army boys faced incredibly horrific sights, described several places online. I'm touched by Don Rodda's descriptions: http://www.evesmag.com/dachau.htm

On the day of the Americans' arrival, prisoners were crammed together in barracks - each one built to hold 250 people, but instead held 1600 people. That's like trying to fit 13 people into two beds. And there were 20 of these barracks, holding approximately 32,000 prisoners. Even during and after the celebration of the Allied arrival, prisoners continued to die because they were beyond medical help.I'm not even going into the death train and skeletal corpses. 
This was all new to the Allied forces. The ordinary GIs knew very little - if anything - about these concentration camps. NOTHING in their training or word of mouth prepared them for what they saw. Young Robert B. Sherman had enlisted at age 17. "I didn't know anything about anything. But I learned," he said on tape in The Boys. "We saw the poor, faded prisoners and had terrible experiences looking at corpses. It was enough nightmares for the rest of our life."
It's very possible that, if Robert Sherman was with his unit in Dachau, he witnessed or was even involved (unlikely with that knee injury) in the covered-up killing of surrendering German soldiers.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_Massacre 
Several reports say how the sights and smells made the soldier vomit, going "out of our heads." One soldier, John Degro, wrote for Howard Buechner, "After viewing this situation we went further on, boiling mad, half out of our heads.... We came across a German hospital. How comfy the patients were, lying between clean white sheets with no regard for what was going on a few yards away [the 'death train' to be specific]. We ordered everyone out, regardless of their condition." According to some reports, more than 100 of those Germans were shot dead. Other prisoners reportedly killed the remaining guards who had been their keepers and torturers. A photo exists of two prisoners, gleeful smiles on their faces, killing their guard with a shovel.
Another layer is Robert Sherman's own connection to Judaism. His father, songwriter Al Sherman, was born to Russian-Jewish immigrants. None of the Sherman Brothers materials speak of religion, but Robert's wedding film clearly shows yarmulkes and a wedding canopy. Robert's donations of paintings to a temple are also featured in The Boys. Antisemitism was high in the '30s-'50s, so it's an unfortunate fact that most Jews hid that religious/cultural side of themselves, but it wouldn't be a stretch to infer that Robert Sherman identified as Jewish to some degree. The knowledge that this was happening to his own brethren, or at least those who shared some part of his culture or religion, would be especially horrific.
Robert Sherman, like so many of his comrades in arms, refused to remember those terrible times. He said that he did have a "nervous breakdown" when he returned, but then went on to dream about his 'Great American Novel,' painting pleasing images, and of course creating wonderful songs with his brother. I find it heroic and inspirational that someone who saw the worst of what man can do to one another worked on bringing joy to other people.