Carol Hall wrote such a terrific, toe-tapping country-Western score to ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,'' and captured the show with such good ol' boy humor and high spirits. Among my favorites: ''A Lil Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place,'' ''Texas Has a Whorehouse In It,'' ''Doatsey Mae,'' ''The Bus From Amarillo'' and ''Hard Candy Christmas.'' Though she won Drama Desk Awards for that score, the Tony nominators didn't even nominate her; maybe they had a bias against her catchy country score to her crowd-pleasing hit. Instead, they nominated the more traditional musical-theater scores to a couple of flops (''Carmelina,'' ''Grand Tour'' ).
Anyway, Hall wrote much more than ''Whorehouse.'' She wrote the beautiful ''Jenny Rebecca'' (''Four years old, how do you like the world, so far?'' ), which Barbra Streisand recorded for her classic ''My Name Is Barbra'' album. In the '70s, Marlo Thomas invited Hall to write songs for her album and TV special ''Free to Be You and Me,'' and Hall penned many songs for ''Sesame Street.'' Her tunes were recorded by Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Cyndi Lauper, Reba McEntire and LeAnn Rimes. Barbara Cook loved to do ''A Change in Me'' from ''The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public.'' And Hall herself put out ''Hallways,'' a stellar CD, featuring herself singing ''Hard Candy Christmas.'' Also included: a poignant portrait of U.S. soldiers in the Gulf, fighting ''War on Christmas Day,'' hauntingly sung by Tom Andersen, Scott Coulter and Tim DiPasqua.
By the way, when Hall's ''Whorehouse'' was featured on the 1979 Tonys, the cast did ''The Aggie Song,'' and it's probably the most censored song in Tonycast history. See for yourself ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbxkV5phyxo
Updated On: 10/13/18 at 04:00 PM
