Replies: 12 Unseemly Comments
I have to choose Anyone Can Whistle. I heard that song on an LP sung by the author (still the best recording if you ask me)when I was in high school ... and let me tell you, it spoke to this smart, talented but socially inept student in ways you couldn't imagine.
So many other wonderful songs, but that one will always hold a special place for me.
Posted by Phil Crosby @ 03/08/2002 09:54 AM PST
Bruce, I am soooo glad you had a chance to dish about Liza and Mr. Gest - this will undoubtedly be THE wedding of the century! I'm sure that Liza will continue to look more and more like her mother, to Mr. Gest's delight....oh, to be a fly on THAT bedroom wall.....then again, maybe not....shudder....
Posted by Anita @ 03/08/2002 10:04 AM PST
Bruce, you make me laugh, and that's a good thing. If I may be momentarily off your chosen topic (but then aren't I usually?), you may be interested to know that Oldies.com has a FAB sale on ALL their old Prestige, Fantasy, et al. jazz stuff, which includes several boxed sets of Bill Evans' work (in fact, virtually his entire recorded legacy, including the stuff he did the week before he died). I got their handy-dandy catalog because I am a very special preferred customer, but I think if you just call their 800 number and mention their sale, you will get their sale prices, which are quite remarkable (one of the boxed sets lists for close to $200 and was on sale for less than $100).
In terms of Sondheim, you chose my favorites. I have been surprised that "Road" hasn't been covered more by jazz artists, even vocalists. A nip or tuck of a "Benjamin Stone" here and there could make it more universal, as if it weren't already.
And to bring this all back home, as it were, I got an Oldies.com reissue of a 70s Andy Williams 2-fer (including his take on "Could I Go Back" from "Lost Horizon," which is really quite good), and it reminded me he changed the lyric to "Day by Day," since evidently he didn't feel it was appropriate to "see" God. How does your close personal friend Stephen Schwartz feel about that? :) (Yes, this is the longest post in history--bitch-slap away).
Posted by JMK @ 03/08/2002 10:21 AM PST
Too many to choose from, but I especially like "Buddy's Blues," "What More Do I Need" and "Too Many Mornings," the latter because it was introduced by the brilliant John McMartin (the only star in Follies to NOT get a Tony nomination). I also like Sondheim's "The Boy From..." written with Mary Rodgers (very poignant and sweet).
Posted by Robert Armin @ 03/08/2002 10:27 AM PST
My favorite Sondheimlich Maneuvers have been:
With so little to be sure of from Anyone Can Whistle
Pretty Women from Sweeney Todd
Giants in the Sky - ITW
and I still love Lonny Price performing "Franklin Shepard, Inc." from Merrily.
Posted by Craig @ 03/08/2002 10:46 AM PST
P.S. But, wait, there's MORE (oy!). Forgot to mention, if you don't have them already, get Toots' two "Brasil Project" CDs and his incredible duet CD with Brasilian legend Elis Regina. They are all muito neato!
Posted by JMK @ 03/08/2002 11:01 AM PST
Difficult to choose but"Not A Day Goes By" sung by Carly Simon is one of my alltime favourite (note non US spelling) tracks written by your close friend SS. "Move On" also "gets" to me.(The cast album version)
Posted by Tom from OZ @ 03/08/2002 01:06 PM PST
I have to vote for "Move On", or, if you like, the entire "song" that begins with "Sunday in the Park with Georges" and goes through "We Do Not Belong Together" to reach its climax in "Move On".
Besides the fact that it is the "unemotional" Sondheim at his most brilliantly emotional, it served to inspire Joe and me after we finally got through a long and very trying lawsuit.
But then any of us who considers himself an artist in any way must be constantly subvocalizing "Finishing the Hat".
Posted by William F. Orr @ 03/08/2002 01:35 PM PST
I always thought that Someone In a Tree from Pacific Overtures was the best song Mr. Sondheim ever wrote.
Two other songs that I cannot get tired of listening to or being moved by are Our Time from Merrily We Roll Along and Move On from Sunday in the Park With George.
Another song that is starting to grow on me is a cut song I recently heard from Into the Woods. Second Midnight. Which is a fascninating use of music and lyrics. It thematically uses music and lyrics (mainly) from Children Will Listen and the finale. Interstly this where the lyrics come from for the intro verse of Streisand's version of Children Will Listen.
Other interesting song is: A House For Mama from Wise Guys (aka Gold) I don't know if this song will be in the new version. It is one of the most sentimental lyric and music I think Sondheim as ever wrote.
Posted by Michael Shayne @ 03/08/2002 05:22 PM PST
What a topic!
Being Alive is probably the first Sondheim song that I became obsessed with, so if I had to pick
one, that would be it.
Although Every Day a Little Death
comes in a close second, not to suck up to the teacher or anything...
Posted by Lolita @ 03/08/2002 11:17 PM PST
I like a lot of Sondheim songs. Perhaps the most affective for me are:
Being Alive, The Ladies Who Lunch, Another Hundred People, Buddy's Blues, The Right Girl, Could I Leave You, Losing My Mind, The Miller's Son, Send In The Clowns, Pretty Women, Move On, A little Priest, Not a day gone by, Old Friends, Wait, Liasons, and a long etc. And of course I love the
Posted by Enrique Saavedra @ 06/07/2002 12:49 PM PST
I like a lot of Sondheim songs. Perhaps the most affective for me are:
Being Alive, The Ladies Who Lunch, Another Hundred People, Buddy's Blues, The Right Girl, Could I Leave You, Losing My Mind, The Miller's Son, Send In The Clowns, Pretty Women, Move On, A little Priest, Not a day gone by, Old Friends, Wait, Liasons, and a long etc. And of course I love the voices of Barbara Cook, Bernadette Peters, Anthony Warlow, Angela Lansbury, George Hearn and Mandy Patinkin singing this songs.
Posted by Enrique Saavedra @ 06/07/2002 12:49 PM PST