Broadway Revisited
(02/9/10): 10-07; February 6, 2010

Gypsy overture-- 1; fades under)

Hi, this is Art Hilgart and this is Broadway Revisited, a weekly exploration of the songs and shows, composers and lyricists, and performers who created the American musical theater.

(Music up, then fade)

1. My Funny Valentine 2:29

Frank Sinatra introduced our Broadway Valentine, with the song Rodgers and Hart wrote for a girl to sing to a boy named Valentine, in Babes in Arms. It's a sure bet that since people started singing, more songs have been written about love than anything else. Here's Lena Horne, with an attempt to define the word.

2. Love 2:47

Lena Horne sang that song by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine in The Ziegfeld Follies-- the M-G-M movie, not the stage show. The definition of love was complex in that number. In New Faces of 1952, love was simpler.

3. Love Is a Simple Thing 5:05

Arthur Siegel and June Carroll wrote that song, and June Carroll herself played the Charles Addams character, after we heard Rosemary O'Reilly, Robert Clary, and Eartha Kitt. For something completely different, here's a song from A Hard Day's Night.

4. Can't Buy Me Love 2:11

The Beatles may have overstated the case. Here are some other opinions.

5. Love for Sale / Just a Gigolo 8:19

After Ella Fitzgerald's selection from the Cole Porter Song Book, we heard Bing Crosby with the English lyrics of a 1930 song from the Viennese stage. After those songs about indiscriminate loving, as a public service we present this admonition to love safely.

6. I Got It from Agnes 1:44

That was Tom Lehrer, with an utterly tasteless song he wrote for Tomfoolery. Even the course of true love does not run smooth. Here are two versions of love apparently lost. In South Pacific, Rodgers and Hammerstein took the occasion very seriously. In The Little Show, Dietz and Schwartz took a lighter approach-- in which hope springs eternal.

7. This Nearly Was Mine/ I'll Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan 6:21

After Ezio Pinza delivered a song from South Pacific, composer Arthur Schwartz sang his own music and the words of Howard Dietz. Sometimes a wished-for lover is completely unattainable. Here's Cleo Laine, playing three women with crushes on a movie star. The first is a society woman, the second is a middle class schoolgirl, and the third is a Cockney cleaning lady.

8. Mad About the Boy 6:51

Cleo Laine impersonated those three Noel Coward characters. In Stephen Sondhiem's Assassins, there were other impossible dreams. Here Squeaky Fromme, who shot at Gerald Ford, sings to Charles Manson, while John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, sings to Jodie Foster.

9. Unworthy of Your Love 3:25

Those kids in Sondheim's Assassins didn't have a chance, but sometimes love leads to marriage. Here are two views on the institution's durability.

10. When You Are Old and Gray / The Folks Who Live on the Hill 5:21

Tom Lehrer took the cynical approach to marriage in Tomfoolery, while Jo Stafford expressed everyone's wish with Jerome Kern's music and Oscar Hammerstein's words. Here are a lot of Cole Porter's words on today's subject.

11. Let's Talk About Love / Let's Not Talk About Love 5:01

Danny Kaye sang his half of that Cole Porter song on Broadway in Leave It to Me. Eve Arden sang the first half in the show, but we heard Dolores Gray's recording. A Valentine's program wouldn't be complete without this song from Very Warm for May.

12. All the Things You Are 2:44

Dick Hyman's piano accompanied Sandy Stewart on that Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein masterpiece. To end today's seminar, we'll send you as our Valentine-- Pat Rooney singing Frank Loesser's wish, from Guys and Dolls.

13. More I Cannot Wish You 2:28

(Gypsy overture-- 2; to end)

National distribution of Broadway Revisited is supported by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who hope your love life is a smooth one. Join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited, which is produced with the assistance of Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. You can find our website with program schedules and stuff by typing Broadway Revisited into a Google search. And you can write to us at broadway@kzoo.edu. That's the word "broadway" at kzoo dot edu. And I'm Art Hilgart.

Total music: 54:46; Estimated talking: 3:30; Intro/outro: :30 Estimated total: 58:46

Promo: For Valentine's Day weekend, Broadway Revisited presents an assortment of love songs, some of them tender, but some comic Valentines, too. My Funny Valentine, this week on Broadway Revisited.