Posted on 06/23/2012 7:37:15 PM PDT by EveningStar
Composer and lyricist Richard Adler, who won Tony Awards for co-writing snappy and infectious, songs for such hit Broadway musicals as "The Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees" and who staged and produced President John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration featuring a breathy Marilyn Monroe, has died. He was 90.
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ping
Steam Heat--Patti Page, 1954
From a day when we had MUSIC.
I know I’m in a great minority nowadays, but the songs being written now have not much to offer. The performances can be quite good, but so many seem to be all technology and repetitive chordings.
Give me a song that stays. (And this man knew how to write one - he also wrote jingles, like “Let Hertz Put You in the Driver’s Seat”. And I dare anyone who heard that commercial not to get stuck with THAT earworm now!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry8CpIg2fvU
Not to worry, there are plenty of hacks left to compose the silly, trite, disposable Broadway tunes.
Man, do I wish they’d return to making musicals. Some of the best music came from them.
Bye bye Adler, you were no idler.
RIP.
Cole Porter...enough said.
RIP Mr. Adler. Thanks for all the good memories.
I loved The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees. My brother was in a production of Damn Yankees when I was in 5th grade. I was amazed when he started dating “Lola” from the production. I thought she was so glamorous and dangerous.
I still love “Whatever Lola Wants”, “But then I thought about the Game”, “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal MO”.
And in The Pajama Game there was “Fernando’s Hideaway.” I saw that one at San Diego’s Starlight Bowl, where the actors and music stops for a few moments if the airplanes passing overhead get too loud.
Cole is my Favorite Songwriter.
I have a piano version of Ella Fitzgerald singing, “I Concentrate on You”. (not the ones on youtube, from the Cole Porter songbook, an alternate version. It’s slower and not so light).
Here is the lighter one, anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuewN0uStPk
I know it’s silly, but I cry every time I hear it. Not for the words, but for the shear beauty of hearing absolute perfection.
What a strange remark. Broadway musicals (past and one or two present) have brilliant music. The shows contributed to the Great American Songbook that made stars out of people like Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra.
The songs of Richard Adler are wonderful. If you can’t understand the comedic and lyrical elements of “Damn Yankees,” maybe you shouldn’t be giving your opinion on the subject.
Thank you for sharing...that is one I have never heard. God knows, Ella is one of the all time greatest. Are our young people missing out on this and other great artists of the past? Lady GaGa and that Beiber kid, don’t even get me started on hip hop and rap, are just making noise when compared with Ella, Frank, Dean, Jo Stafford, etc., etc., etc. Time to put on some Frank.
I got off topic..lol...Don’t Fence Me In...very snappy lyrics. Example... on my cayuse let me wander over yonder...or...turn me loose let me straddle my old saddle...just love that song. First one I learned to play on my Uke.
I got off topic..lol...Don’t Fence Me In...very snappy lyrics. Example... on my cayuse let me wander over yonder...or...turn me loose let me straddle my old saddle...just love that song. First one I learned to play on my Uke.
I got off topic..lol...Don’t Fence Me In...very snappy lyrics. Example... on my cayuse let me wander over yonder...or...turn me loose let me straddle my old saddle...just love that song. First one I learned to play on my Uke.
I got off topic..lol...Don’t Fence Me In...very snappy lyrics. Example... on my cayuse let me wander over yonder...or...turn me loose let me straddle my old saddle...just love that song. First one I learned to play on my Uke.
Sorry, sorry for the multiple posts. FR is being tempermental this am.
Sung by James Komack. Very, very funny song. I listen to that music when driving into NYC. Richard Adler rocked and you don’t know what you are talking about. In other words,in this instance, you are tangling with the wrong person.
Sung by James Komack. Very, very funny song. I listen to that music when driving into NYC. Richard Adler rocked and you don’t know what you are talking about. In other words,in this instance, you are tangling with the wrong person.
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