Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman#0
Posted: 1/29/06 at 8:40pmSo i have had a gripe with her. As I am only 25 I did not see her perform live but listening to her original cast recordings hurt my ears. Loud all the time. I then stumbled upon a recording of her last performance (live of course) and quality low but her clear voice is just amazing. She commanded the whole song and only wish I could have seen her live.
re: Ethel Merman#1
Posted: 1/29/06 at 9:09pm
I think it hurts your ears because her style was to belt a song so the words could be heard in the last row of the theatre. She never toned it down for records or films, because she felt that her style was what people wanted to see.
When she made her debut in 1930, audiences had heard singers before with small voices that usually did battle with the 30+ piece orchestra's. Merman's voice cut through the band and forced the opening night audience at GIRL CRAZY to take notice right from her first number: Sam and Deliliah ... she sang the first line "Dee-lilah was a flooo-oozy" and later said the audience let out a yelp.
Then a few minutes later she introduced "I Got Rhythm" and the place went wild. Now, it's a great jazz number to begin with but she sold it with gusto. And suddenly Broadway had aa new style of heroine. Parts were written around her.
Now someone used to today's singers might find her straigh-forward belt old fashioned but I prefer it to the orgasmic wailing of so many of today's so called pop singers.
Watch Ethel in her two Fox Films. CALL ME MADAM preserves her stage performance in that hit (and is a funny, enjoyble film.) In THERE's NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS she rises above a really terrible plot and offers her definitive performance of the title song. One amusing bit when Johnny Ray comes home and announces to his vaudeville family that he wants to become a priest: 1950s code menaing he is gay. Given that Johnny Ray and Dan Daily were both openly gay and that Merman, Mitzi Gaynor and Marilyn Monroe are all gay icons it now plays as one of the campiest films of the 50s.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
re: Ethel Merman#3
Posted: 1/29/06 at 10:09pmI was lucky enough to see her perform live. The first Broadway show I attended was "Hello, Dolly!" and she was Dolly. I saw that show five times before it closed, including the final performance. At the time it closed, it was the longest running musical in Broadway history at 2,844 performances. Ethel was great! Too bad she didn't record the whole score but the "new" songs were recorded so at least we have those.
Broadway Star Joined: 5/29/03
re: Ethel Merman#5
Posted: 1/29/06 at 11:33pm
Well for 40 years she personified musical comedy.
I often wonder if she had been younger if she would ever have tackled Mrs Lovett. (she reportedly refused to attend SWEENEY TODD. "Who wants to see a show about a guy who cuts peple up and bakes them into pies?" she demanded.)
Imagine if she has lived to play Norma Desmond in a musical version of SUNSET BLVD (but not the awful ALW version!)
After her 1977 concert with Mary Martin teir were rumours of a musical version of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE for the two of them to star in. It never got beyond teh rumour stage but wouldn't that have been something?
It is a shame that so few of her shows got full cast albums. A few singles of TAKE A CHANCE and ANYTHING GOES. 4-songs each from RED HOT AND BLUE, STARS IN YOUR EYES and PANAMA HATTIE. A radio brodcast version of SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS.
By the time of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN Decca had started doing cast albums but their sets of AGYG and CALL ME MADAM are not very theatrical. The 1966 revival of AGYG is one of her best cast albums, and the film soundtrack of MADAM is really good too.
HAPPY HUNTING was not good but Ethel makes it fun and though short at 40 minutes, the album comes to life whenever she is singing. GYPSY is of course her best role and her cast album is an essential for any collection.
Surprising that Columbia did not engage her to do stereo studio re-creations of GIRL CRAZY or ANYTHING GOES. Columbia had recorded both thse shows with Mary Martin in the early mono Lp days. The two divas did cross parts a few times: Martin did the road tour and TV version of AGYG, and played HELLO DOLLY in London. But, I doubt Mary had the acting chops to pull off Madame Rose and can you imagine Ethel as Peter Pan?????
LOL!
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
re: Ethel Merman#6
Posted: 1/29/06 at 11:49pm
One must remember back in her day that they had no Body Mics as is the norm today, and there were mics placed around a stage but going from one place to another you were on your own.
That said, I assure you, Nobody came out of a show she was in saying they couldn't hear her. She had projection and it worked for her. There was an old Ethel joke they used to tell of her saying "I may not be good but I'm loud". She was good, and, she was loud too, but in a profession where it was a BIG PLUS. Nobody ever told that lady to "Sing Out Louise!"
re: Ethel Merman#7
Posted: 1/29/06 at 11:53pmEthel Merman was incredible back in the day but it is hard to listen to some of her material. I have some original Gypsy cast recordings and it is way different than Bernadette
Light in the Piazza with Megan and Emi
"Girl you got money runnin' in yo bloodline."-Carl the Bartender
re: Ethel Merman#8
Posted: 1/29/06 at 11:54pm
You have to appreciate her as an example of the spirit of the kind of brash, in-your-face, strong and independent American woman who came of age during the Great Depression, worked in a factory or in the military during World War II (although Merman was onstage), tried to be a housewife in the 1950s and became even stronger and more independent in the 1960s, on the eve of the women's movement. She has a lot in common with other "strong" female performers of her time, like Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck. Tough broads, but they had heart and brains and guts--and a soul.
Her singing style may seem loud and unsubtle to you--and she would probably admit to being both!--but she could be heard easily and clearly at the back of the balcony--with NO microphones or amplification. Any contemporary singers you know who can do that?
And finally, she was a skillful comedienne, who knew how to set up a joke and how to deliver a punchline.
So you should experience her more as a force of nature than as a singer, like a hurricane that sings. If you know what the term "camp" means--think of Ethel as being so darn big and loud and unsubtle that she's actually pretty good.
Feel free to laugh at her a little. Then listen to her "Rose's Turn."
re: Ethel Merman#9
Posted: 1/30/06 at 12:00amThat was so well put, I could just imagine Stritchie saying "You could damn well bet ass on it!", LOL!
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