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[FJL]

Michael - Your description of our dinner last night reminds me of the very old joke about what's the proper place setting for a dinner party in Provincetown:  fork, knife, spoon, dish, dish, dish, dish.

[Jrand73]

I have a theory -- yes, a theory!

It's that there are so many people out there who want to believe that they, too, can have a career in entertainment...that they, too, can sing, or dance...that they're willing to embrace (yes, EMBRACE!) any mediocre form of same as proof that ANYONE can be a star despite a lack of talent.

And I don't mean a singing voice, or the ability to tap or do a little dancing...

And that's why the phenomenon of "American Idol" works so well in the TV ratings.  I haven't heard a single song by Kelly or Clay since the competition that I would want to hear again.  They're being mass-marketed and the target audience is that mass that buy into the "anyone can be a star" theory.  The current state of affairs is being driven by this.

Real talent is RARE and there is not a profusion of it and it is not rife in all the arts....there are few, true, talented artists out there...and they get wasted, for the most part, singing mediocre material and performing mediocre choreography.

Nowhere does it rear its tacky, ugly head more obviously than in Hollywood, but it's on Broadway, too.

(Huge exhalation of breath)!

That just about says it.

It's NOT an improvement - devolving is a good word.  Changes in the entertainment industry don't HAVE to be embraced by every form of entertainment - and the yowling and growling that goes on in the Broadway theatre today is an irritation to me.  Of course the songs that are being growled and yowled are pretty irritating, too, so it's a small loss.

I hate RENT....I thought TOMMY was okay, but didn't like the changes to the ending of the story....I liked AIDA...I like the SCOUNDRELS score a lot, mostly Butz and not so much Lithgow, don't like him at all in anything... I like THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA....stuff like that there.

As for all these stars that never were....parking cars and pumping gas and reality television is in their near futures, I hope!    

[Jrand73]

Well....Angela Lansbury in MAME and GYPSY (I have only heard the cast albums) was not so hot either...I don't think she can sing much...but there I have to stop discussing my unpopular opinions before a brouhaha breaks out here on Wisteria Lane.

I can't be convinced to change my mind - the opinions were not formed lightly.

[Jrand73]

Fortuna just emailed me with the subject line:  Get your effective aid for less here.

[Jrand73]

In my mailbox today:

STATE FAIR 60th ANNVERSARY EDITION
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY w/s edition
BATMAN BEGINS w/s edition
THE CARDINAL - Criterion Special Edition Mint which I got for 16.60 including s/h

[Jason]

Parking cars and pumping gas as punishment for someone following their dream, even if they may not have what others would consider "the right stuff?" Wow. I guess, then, for all the auditions I've gone to and wasn't cast cause I didn't have "the right stuff," I might as well go grab my overalls and an oil rag now and quit wasting my time...

[Jrand73]

Parking cars and pumping gas as punishment for someone following their dream, even if they may not have what others would consider "the right stuff?" Wow. I guess, then, for all the auditions I've gone to and wasn't cast cause I didn't have "the right stuff," I might as well go grab my overalls and an oil rag now and quit wasting my time...

I didn't say that.  

I hate the internet.  

[Jrand73]

Goodbye.

[Jason]

I was just teasing, Jack.

[bk]

Angela is not a voice you really can "listen" to on a CD, but it's the whole package that works onstage.  Never saw her in Mame, but she was really good in Gypsy and much more than that in Sweeney.

Differences of opinions are fine - especially when accompanied by smilies, so don't anyone go getting red-faced and storming off or I will hunt you down and make you listen to Rent for three days straight.

[bk]

I will HUNT YOU DOWN and make you listen to John Lithgow's Greatest Hits until you want to rip your very eyes from their sockets.

Criterion didn't release The Cardinal - it's a Warners DVD.

[bk]

WISTERIA, baby, WISTERIA!

My meeting place has been changed for the Linda Purl meeting.  I'm just waiting for directions - it will now be at her house, which means I won't be breakfasting, which means I can eat tonight whilst we're editing.

[Ron Pulliam]

Parking cars and pumping gas as punishment for someone following their dream, even if they may not have what others would consider "the right stuff?" Wow. I guess, then, for all the auditions I've gone to and wasn't cast cause I didn't have "the right stuff," I might as well go grab my overalls and an oil rag now and quit wasting my time...

DO you know the way to San Jose?

[Jason]

Sad news today...

Sam, the Ugliest Dog in the World, has passed away. He was 14 years old.

[Jason]

DO you know the way to San Jose?

I've got a lot of friends in San Jose

Woh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

[Ron Pulliam]

I've got a lot of friends in San Jose

Woh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Nothing wrong with being rejected at an audition.  But if you aren't going on auditions, you'll never know if you might have been cast.

There are all sorts of dreams, and they often change...or die...

I've had dreams, and I've had reality.  Reality won.  The key has been to channel the dreams into different areas.

If you're not going to audition, you're never going to be cast.

If your "temporary" job won't let you audition, then you've chosen a new career.


Just some ruminations...well intended...truly...

[Ron Pulliam]

Who am I?  Dear Abby?  Ann Landers?  Confidentially Yours?

[Ginny]

bk, the memories you evoked for me by mentioning Joan Weldon and Karen Morrow!  The first professional musical I saw, at age 8, was a touring Music Man at Detroit's Riviera Theatre, with Joan Weldon as Marian and Forrest Tucker as Harold Hill.  The first show I saw in Detroit's "new" Fisher Theatre in the early '60's, was The Unsinkable Molly Brown, with Karen Morrow in the title role.

[Jason]

Nothing wrong with being rejected at an audition.  But if you aren't going on auditions, you'll never know if you might have been cast.

There are all sorts of dreams, and they often change...or die...

I've had dreams, and I've had reality.  Reality won.  The key has been to channel the dreams into different areas.

If you're not going to audition, you're never going to be cast.

If your "temporary" job won't let you audition, then you've chosen a new career.


Just some ruminations...well intended...truly...

Believe me, Ron...I know. I'm doing the best I can to figure out a way to get out of my "temporary" job and get back to where I started. And I know they were well intended ruminations. No worries about that.  

[Ron Pulliam]

I will HUNT YOU DOWN and make you listen to John Lithgow's Greatest Hits until you want to rip your very eyes from their sockets.

The threat alone is sufficient.

Those Lithgow soup commercials are among the greatest so-called "entertainment" atrocities ever captured on video.

[Ron Pulliam]

I've come to the conclusion that we're simply going to have to blame it ALL on JoseSPiano!

[Ron Pulliam]

Or, we can place the blame on Mame.

[Charles Pogue]

I love KEAN...it's one of my favourite musicals (even though it was not a huge success and apparently the book was not the best).   Alfred Drake to me is the epitome of a great singer/actor.  The greatest!  

What I notice about the older singers especially, besides just the fullness and richness of tone, is the precise clarity of diction.  You hear and understand every word.  Judy Kaye is the prime practitioner of that for me today.

I think as younger singers grew up in the fifties and sixties, rock music and rock singers probably had significant influence on their vocal stylings and then we had the specific rise of the rock musical...HAIR and particularly Lloyd Webber.

But I think there has been a trend in the last 25 years of singers more interested in showing off their instrument than serving the song, so we get all that warbling around notes and gospelly bravado and going up and down octaves to create false drama.  You see it with singers who used to be clean singers like Barbara Streisand.  As Rosemary Clooney once said about a singer doing all kinds of vocal gyrations: "I wish she'd just light somewhere."

I think the strange shift and tone in vocal quality is often very apparent now that we have a lot of rock singers and younger singers coming out with albums of standards and the standards are not well served by these voices.  Carly Simon sounds thin and reedy, Rod Stewart...well...There is no better example than that god awful music from the Cole Porter musical.  If he had had voices like those originally singing his songs, they never would have been classics.

But I'm not sure this all really answers BK's question.  Because there are good singers out there on Broadway where the tone has change. I notice it more in the women vocalists than the males, however.

[Ron Pulliam]

...we have a lot of rock singers and younger singers coming out with albums of standards and the standards are not well served by these voices.  Carly Simon sounds thin and reedy, Rod Stewart...well...There is no better example than that god awful music from the Cole Porter musical.  If he had had voices like those originally singing his songs, they never would have been classics.

I pretty much agree with you, even though I am a Carly Simon fan.  That said, I don't find much appealing in her "standards" album, but...there is an exception: I'd rather hear her "In the wee small hours of the morning..." than anyone else's.  It's the perfect song, IMO, for her voice.

I always think of Fred Astaire when people complain about voices...he had a pretty thin singing voice...but it was the way he sold a song...and, I suppose, the imagery his voice invoked, that made folks appreciate him.  He was Porter's "voice of choice" for introducing his songs, if the accounts I've read are accurate.

[Ron Pulliam]

My favorite singer from the 40s:  Jane Froman.  

I love that husky contralto...and I wish there was one out there who sang in a similar way.

Anyone know of one?

[vixmom]

My favorite singer from the 40s:  Jane Froman.  

I love that husky contralto...and I wish there was one out there who sang in a similar way.

Anyone know of one?

 I know nozzing

[Ron Pulliam]

Then you're not helping, are you!!!

 

[Ron Pulliam]

What kind of voice does the Vixter have?

[Jason]

?? What is 'nozzing?'

[Ginny]

DR Jason - speaking of singers, I'm seriously looking into tickets for Barbara Cook at the Met, Friday, January 20, 2006, and need some seating advice.  These locations are all the same price, $95.:

Prime Orchestra
Balance Orchestra
Rear Orchestra
Side Parterre
Rear Grand Tier

For $25 less:  Dress Circle

For another $25 less:  Balcony

I'm willing to pay any of these prices, but would like your input as to whether, considering the type of performance, it's worth the $95.  If so, which of those locations would you recommend?  I'm inclining toward the Dress Circle, moderate that I am.  Thoughts?