What are Your Favorite Rodgers & Hammerstein Lesser Known Songs?- Page 3

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/15/15 at 9:04pm

Thanks, Eric, I'll have to look for one of those recordings. All I know of the show is "All the Things You Are" and what I've read in academic accounts of Hammerstein's work. At least one dissertation does credit MAY along with SHOW BOAT as essential precursors to OKLAHOMA! But my impression was that most critics saw it as another passé operetta.

 

I did misrepresent the show's success. I see now it only ran for 2 months; hardly a success even in the days before shows ran for decades.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/15/15 at 9:22pm

You're thinking of Very Warm for May I think   Music in the Air was earlier and ran nearly a year, which was seen as healthy enough back then (the run actually ended due to a theatrical strike I believe)  https://www.ibdb.com/Production/View/11668

It did have an operetta-ish setting (Bavaria).

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 12:55am

GavestonPS said: "Thanks, Eric, I'll have to look for one of those recordings. All I know of the show is "All the Things You Are" and what I've read in academic accounts of Hammerstein's work. At least one dissertation does credit MAY along with SHOW BOAT as essential precursors to OKLAHOMA! But my impression was that most critics saw it as another passé operetta.

The Song is You  from Music in the Air is one of  my top five fav Kern's songs!! also includes the great song Ive told every little star-jane pickens does a a great version...

All the Things you Are, BTW came from the kern-Hammerstein fantastic show "very warm for may"

 

 

I did misrepresent the show's success. I see now it only ran for 2 months; hardly a success even in the days before shows ran for decades.

 

"

 

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 2:52am

"You Never Had It So Good," cut from "Me and Juliet" and performed by Donna McKechnie in the stage adaptation of "State Fair."  That adaptation also interpolates "So Far," "The Man I Used To Be," "The Next Time It Happens," "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" and "Sweet Hog of Mine" from the '62 film version.  It also uses the melody from "One Foot, Other Foot" from Allegro" for "Driving at Night" with lyrics devised by Tom Briggs, Jamie Hammerstein and Bruce Pomahac.  But my favorite unknown is probably "No Other Love."

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 9:37am

Seems like a lot of people saw or heard the Encores' Pipe Dream and discovered a lot of songs that they liked. I bet that if someone wrote new lyrics to "Sweet Thursday" it would be a hit.

 

On Rodgers and Hart, I've seen the 1932 film Love Me Tonight, a pre-code comedy starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette McDonald that introduced "Isn't It Romantic" and "Lover' ( a song that Peggy Lee did wonderfully). And before that film they had about a half dozen still popular songs from Broadway, including "Spring is Here" and "With a Song In My Heart." You don't hear that much about the sad life and early death of Larry Hart. He left everyone with his lyrics. Rodgers, I believe, said that he would write the music first and then have to find Hart and force him to stay until he finished the lyrics. How could this little man write such beautiful love songs?

 

If you believe Wikopedia, one of those who saw "Very Warm for May" during its short run was nine year old Stephen Sondheim, who claimed that it inspired his interest in the musical theater.

 

Sinatra doesn't have much Rodgers and Hammerstein among his best known songs. He recorded "Some Enchanted Evening" and "This Nearly Was Mine," but was not much competition for Ezio Pinza, the opera singer who originated the role on Broadway. He had a great deal of admiration for "Soliloquy"  from Carousel and frequently sang it in concerts.

Updated On: 11/21/15 at 09:37 AM

[The Other One]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 2:41pm

Putting in a word for the Original Cast Recording of Pipe Dream, too.  

[degrassifan]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 4:03pm

I love "I Have Loved and I've Learned," which was cut from The Sound of Music but later used in the Broadway version of Cinderella but was cut during previews. I wish they kept it in. It's a good song and gives the stepmother some backstory, and through it we see how she steers her daughters down the wrong path. I learned the song was originally for Max and Elsa. I assume it was written before "How Can Love Survive." 

 

I also love "He Was Tall" from Cinderella, which was cut from The King and I. It was originally the introductory verse of "Hello, Young Lovers."  

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 8:08pm

EricMontreal22 said: "You're thinking of Very Warm for May I think   Music in the Air was earlier and ran nearly a year, which was seen as healthy enough back then (the run actually ended due to a theatrical strike I believe)  https://www.ibdb.com/Production/View/11668

 

It did have an operetta-ish setting (Bavaria).

 

"

Yes, I was always talking about VERY WARM FOR MAY. I just didn't notice you had switched the conversation to MUSIC IN THE AIR. The latter opened in 1932 and ran for almost a year, per IBDB.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 8:25pm

As I just wrote in the very thing you quoted, complete with the IBDB link.  I am now so confused.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/16/15 at 10:32pm

The first one that comes to mind is "Love, Look Away" from Flower Drum Song.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 3:43am

Not a deep cut like the rest of you all are posting but the amount of times I've listened to "Yatata" from Allegro could easily be considered an inordinate amount, and I still find it oddly thrilling. It's so driving and eerie, and it makes me wish dearly the show had been a wild success, which may have prompted further experimentation, as opposed to their turn from sentiment to sentimentality. I'd love to see a big, barnburning revival that invests entirely in its premise and concept.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 11:07am

best12bars said: "The first one that comes to mind is "Love, Look Away" from Flower Drum Song.

been playing lea salonga's version from the revival ocr over and over...its fantastic!

"

 

[jv92]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 1:47pm

To add to the post-1951 discussion:

 

I just think the shows are uninspired and blame mean old man Rodgers. I think he stopped caring about whether the property really "sang", and dragged Oscar into anything that seemed feasible, but in the end, wasn't really right. They weren't really right for PIPE DREAM, as nice as some of the songs are. FLOWER DRUM SONG didn't beg to be musicalized, as interesting and as nice as some of the songs are. They just stopped doing interesting ideas, and sort of gilded the lily until 1959. 

 

THE SOUND OF MUSIC, however, screams to be musicalized, which is part of the reason why it works and why it succeeded. I find the show maudlin at times, but it's still touching, and there's no denying that it works. (It would have worked even better had Hammerstein written the book, but I think he was too ill without even knowing it specifically.) 

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 9:16pm

I don't know about Hammerstein writing the book to the SOM. His best works deal with some sort of culture clash between groups and his SOM would have almost certainly been more Nazis v. Austrians. That might have been quite interesting, though I'm not at all sure the Captain's attitude toward the Germans was typical of Austrians of the period.

 

*****

 

Eric, I was merely echoing your remark that MUSIC IN THE AIR was earlier by giving the exact year, 1932.

But the confusion was mostly mine: VERY WARM FOR MAY was not an operetta; it was a modern-day musical comedy, with a book that sounds like BABES IN ARMS meets GUYS AND DOLLS, at least until it was mangled shortly before the Broadway opening. Who knows when Sondheim saw it? It was reportedly very successful in its pre-Broadway tryout. Hammerstein wrote his shares of operettas, was even known primarily for them in the 20s and 30s, but VERY WARM FOR MAY was not an example.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 10:18pm

jv92 said: "To add to the post-1951 discussion:

I just think the shows are uninspired and blame mean old man Rodgers. I think he stopped caring about whether the property really "sang", and dragged Oscar into anything that seemed feasible, but in the end, wasn't really right.

 

thanks for you inputs jv92. Was Rodgers known to be a "mean spirited" person or was that just in his last years and in what ways did that behavior come out?

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 11/17/15 at 11:28pm

His daughter Mary, who died last year, was interviewed a lot about her father and left the impression that he was not a warm and loving father. He was not even friends with Hammerstein, which I am pretty sure was the choice of Rodgers.

 

I mentioned above that Peggy Lee had had a big hit with her recording of "Lover?" According to a 2009 book by David Lehman that may not be the most reliable source:

 

After Peggy Lee recorded her version of "Lover", a Rodgers song with a dramatically different arrangement from that originally conceived by him, Rodgers said, "I don't know why Peggy picked on me, she could have ****ed up "Silent Night".

 

And he was incensed by that hit 1961 version of "Blue Moon," a song that was just a pleasant piece of fluff  in any incarnation:

 

The 1961 doo-wop arrangement of the Rodgers and Hart song "Blue Moon" by The Marcels so incensed Rodgers that he took out full page newspaper ads urging people not to buy it. His efforts were unsuccessful as it reached #1 on the charts.

 

It's just hard to reconcile this Scrooge-like Rodgers from the one who wrote so many light and witty tunes with Hart and had a genuine affection for him (if not enough to save his life). I know of nothing that would have soured him on life.

Updated On: 11/17/15 at 11:28 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 12:06am

broadwaysfguy said: "jv92 said: "To add to the post-1951 discussion:

 

I just think the shows are uninspired and blame mean old man Rodgers. I think he stopped caring about whether the property really "sang", and dragged Oscar into anything that seemed feasible, but in the end, wasn't really right.

 

 

 

thanks for you inputs jv92. Was Rodgers known to be a "mean spirited" person or was that just in his last years and in what ways did that behavior come out?

 

"

He increasingly was--there is a lot of talk about him calling Sondheim a fag when they did Do I Hear a Waltz, and mixed things about how he treated Hart, albeit he must have been frustrated by his alcoholism. 

I think The Sound of Music is a fine musical.  But it is by far the most traditional musical of their "big 5" they ever did--in many ways it really is a play with music.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 12:28am

But even Sondheim (in his recent memoirs) talks about Rodgers' behavior as if it were something new, and attributes it to Rodgers' fear of aging and irrelevance (as well as homophobia). So was Rodgers generally mean or merely cold and impersonal? I don't know.

 

But we should never miss a chance to repeat Sondheim's quote to NEWSWEEK (I believe): "Hammerstein was a man of infinite soul but finite talent; Rodgers was a man of infinite talent but finite soul."

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 1:00am

Didn't Rodgers have severe clinical depression? Or am I making that up? I've also heard his wife was kind of a jerk.

[The Other One]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 8:18am

I think he was the most brilliant composer in the history of the United States.  Still is.

 

Sinatra disliked him as a person while acknowledging the beauty of his music.  Mary Martin, Shirley Jones, Barbara Cook, Diahann Carroll and I am sure most of his leading ladies all more than hinted about having to fend off his advances.  Most of them stop short of disliking him in their comments.

 

His post-Hammerstein career must have been a bit daunting for him.  His first show as composer and lyricist was a hit and the two songs he wrote for the film version of "The Sound of Music" are of a piece with the rest of the score (well, "I Have Confidence" is no classic but it's performed so well you don't immediately notice), but the effort must have been too much for him so he sought out new lyricists.  Nothing ever seemed to work to his satisfaction.  The theater changed, popular music changed; he was revered on the one hand, passe on the other.  None of his shows succeeded.  It must have been quite disorienting.  I'm sure Laurents was difficult for him to work with; Laurents was difficult for everyone to work with.  

 

I think the story of this brilliant artist continuing to work in times whose changes he was not entirely prepared for is actually quite poignant.  Whether he became more and more prickly as he faced all of this doesn't, for me, take away from the magnificence of his output.  Every writer's life is a lonely one.  Rodgers was spared that fact more than most for almost forty years due to Larry Hart and Oscar Hammerstein.  Having to face it in his 60s, with musical tastes changing all around him, must have been downright frightening.  

 

Sondheim should write a show about him.  

[jv92]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 10:20am

Charley Kringas Inc said: "Didn't Rodgers have severe clinical depression? Or am I making that up? I've also heard his wife was kind of a jerk.

 

Both. He was in a terribly unhappy charade of a marriage. Music really saved him, which is very moving. It's part of the reason why people had to endure TWO BY TWO, though. He had to keep writing to survive, and unlike someone like Sondheim finding a more experimental voice to collaborate with mid-career (James Lapine) who took him in new directions, Rodgers was turning out the same old, even less inspired sh*t. Even if some of the stuff is pretty, it ain't CAROUSEL, folks. Or even PIPE DREAM. 

 

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 10:34am

After the Hammerstein collaborations, there isn't much I enjoyed of Rodgers, except the new song for "The Sound of Music". " Two by Two", "Rex", and "I Remember Mama" aren't anything exciting. I only own "Rex" of those three, but have heard the others.

 

The only one "post-Hammerstein" I really enjoyed was "No Strings". I think it was pretty interesting. "Do I Hear A Waltz" is interesting, because of the lyrics by Sondheim. BTW, no one has a copy of the script of "No Strings" I can read, or know where to get it, do they?

Updated On: 11/18/15 at 10:34 AM

[Tom5]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 10:46am

My opinion of R&H can come only from their scores and it is that Hammerstein was genius squared and Rodgers was genius cubed. Also, I did like all of Rodgers' compositions from "Do I Hear A Waltz", especially the title waltz number in addition to "The Sweetest Sound I Ever Heard"" from "No Strings" in which he was both composer and lyricist.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 1:59pm

thanks jv, other one and gaveston on background on rodgers...

genius often brings with it a tortured life for many reasons....

Ive been deep diving into the Rodgers & Hart catalog

Am stunned by how many songs ive never heard of before are some of the most beautiful songs ive ever heard, and Rodgers genius shines though in both bodies of work with the two also very talented partners......

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 11/18/15 at 7:07pm

on the Rodgers discussion, just found my funniest rodgers lyric line from the Rodgers & Hart song

Give that Girl a Hand!

"She's the only reason sailors

ever come on land,

Wont you give that darling little girl

a hand"