Broadway Revisited
(03/02/10):
10-10; March
6, 2010
The new music on stage and screen.
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)
In the first half of the twentieth century, most of America's popular music originated on Broadway or in movie musicals. That changed in the 1950s, when rock and roll became the nation's popular music, and went on to infiltrate Broadway and Hollywood. It began here.
1. Rock Around the Clock (Decca) 2:09
That 1952 recording by Bill Haley and the Comets smashed through the tepid music then in the top forty. It was derived from African American rhythm and blues, and it brought that genre to white teenage record buyers. In 1954, Rock Around the Clock became the title song of the first rock movie musical, starring Bill Haley and the Comets.
Also in 1954, Elvis Presley, who also began his career by copying black blues singers, began starring in movies with original songs-- he made thirty-one of them in thirteen years. Here's the title song of what's considered his best one.
2. Jailhouse Rock (Victor) 2:26
The title song of that 1957 Elvis Presley movie musical was written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller.
The Beatles are still regarded as the best of all the groups, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote words and music with quality matching that of Broadway. They made four movie musicals, beginning in 1964. For which they wrote all the songs. Here, in order, are the title songs
3. A Hard Day's Night / Help / Magical Mystery Tour/ Yellow Submarine (Capitol) 10:12
The last of those Beatles musicals was released in 1968, and that was also the year that rock crashed Broadway. Here's the show that did it.
4. Hair (Victor) 2:58
Hair, with music by Galt MacDermot and lyrics by Jerome Ragni and James Rado, captured the spirit of the 'sixties and was staged all over the world. In 1971, while Hair was still in its long Broadway run, Galt MacDermot had another hit, this one with lyrics by John Guare. In their adaptation of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, the title song was written for the young woman and her maid who travel from Verona to Milan disguised as men.
5. Two Gentlemen of Verona (Decca) 3:34
Galt MacDermot's Two Gentlemen of Verona ran for about two years, and during its run, Andrew Lloyd Webber opened a rock musical on Broadway. His source was the gospels. Here Judas sings the title song to Jesus.
6. Superstar (Sony) 3:54
Tim Rice wrote the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1971 show, Jesus Christ Superstar. The next year, Grease, a show that originated in Chicago, brought a high school rock musical to Broadway.
7. Greased Lightnin' (Polydor) 2:29
Including its two successful Broadway revivals, Grease has had a run of almost fourteen years.
Like Andrew Lloyd Webber, for his first Broadway show, Stephen Schwartz took the gospels as his text. In the 1976 show Godspell, Jesus and his disciples were young people in New York.
8. All For The Best (Arista) 2:27
Stephen Schwartz wrote both music and lyrics for Godspell. In 1982, Lloyd Webber returned to Broadway using an Old Testament source. Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was an expanded version of a short musical he'd written in 1968 for use in schools.
9. Jacob & Sons - Joseph's Coat (Polydor) 5:37
Tim Rice wrote the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
The team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller-- who wrote Jailhouse Rock and many other hit singles of the period-- had a successful Broadway show, Smokey Joe's Café. It was a plotless jukebox show, including twenty-one of their hits. From the 1995 original cast album, here's one of them.
10. Kansas City (Atlantic) 2:20
That Lieber and Stoller number was revived in their Broadway retrospective Smokey Joe's Café.
Jonathan Larson's Rent was a rock version of Puccini's La Boheme, set in New York. Here's the title song.
11. Rent (Dreamworks) 4:24
Jonathan Larson's Rent opened off-Broadway in 1996, but it was immediately transferred to Broadway, partly because of the excellent reviews and partly because of the publicity generated by the young composer's death on opening night.
The 2001 hit, Mamma Mia, is essentially another jukebox show, using (without credit) the plot of an old movie, Buono Sera, Mrs. Campbell to revive a string of hit songs by the Swedish rock group, ABBA. One of them became the show's title
12. Mamma Mia 3:19
In addition to its Broadway run of more than nine years, Mamma Mia has been a worldwide success.
The 2002 show Hairspray is based on the 1988 John Waters film set in the 1960s in which teenagers integrated a Baltimore afternoon dance show. It used assorted popular records of the period for music, but for Broadway a completely new score was witten by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whittman. Here's the title song.
13. (It's) Hairspray (Sony) 2:09
Hairspray ran on Broadway for almost seven years.
Avenue Q is about some low income young adults living in a remote part of New York. Something of a parody of Sesame Street, several of the characters are played by Muppet-like hand puppets.
14. Avenue Q Theme (Victor) 1:02
Avenue Q opened on Broadway in 2003 and ran for six years. We've sampled just a few of the many rock musicals which have appeared on stage and screen. Although traditional musicals are still on Broadway stages, most, alas, are revivals. We haven't named the Broadway casts on the records you've heard-- they'd be unfamiliar to you. They all got their long runs without stars.
We'll end our survey of rock musicals with the title song from the 1988 biographical documentary about John Lennon.
15. Imagine (Warner) 2:29
(Gypsy overture-- 2; to end)
Join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited. National distribution is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's produced with our engineer, Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. Our website with playlists, program schedules, and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com, and our e-mail address is Art@broadwayrevisited.com. And I'm Art Hilgart.
Total music: 51:09; Estimated talking: 7:05; Intro/outro: :30; Estimated total: 58:44
Promo (16): About
fifty years ago, rock and roll began to infiltrate Broadway and
Hollywood
musicals. This week Broadway Revisited surveys the advance of
the new music on stage and
screen.