Monday has come around again. Too soon. Too soon!
Never mind, eh? Today is the 115th anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest Patron Saints, The Merm - and what better wake-up call on a Tacky Music Monday could one ever have than she..?!
Ethel Merman (born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, 16th January 1908 – 15th February 1984)
It's been a very relaxing three-day weekend. I did get some stuff done, such as cleaning off the black mould caused by condensation around our bedroom window - oh, the delights of an old home! - but generally I was mainly sedentary. Now it's time to dust off the laptop once again, and see what joys the working week's going to bring...
To alleviate the forthcoming frustrations, let's indulge ourselves this Tacky Music Monday in the company of another of this weekend's birthday girls, the irrepressible Ethel Merman - doing Disco!
Those poor kids must have been threatened with unspeakable punishments to cheer the way they did...
More about Ethel's infamous "Disco phase" in a post I did way back in 2009.
Ethel Merman (16th January 1908 – 15th February 1984)
It is the season when just about all the main channels start to trot out all the feature fims to fill their schedules - some blockbusters, and loads of classics.
Here to guide us through one of the latter (that's bound to crop up somewhere over the Xmas/New Year period) is our favourite camp film enthusiast Steve Hayes, aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies - so Go! On! With! The! Showwww!
Love it...
Probably one of my favourite musicals of all time, the semi-autobiographical tale of a timid Vaudeville-player-turned-stripping-superstar and her domineering mother, Gypsy was an extremely unlikely storyline for a musical way back in 1959 [hardly the most enlightened of times] - yet, with its book (loosely based on Gypsy Rose Lee's salacious memoirs) by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and the imperious presence of the musical sensation Ethel Merman as its "Mama Rose", it was a huge success.
In a mirror of the plot of overbearing stage mother trying to dominate her children and live her dreams of stardom vicariously through them, it was in fact Miss Merman who pushed the show to be produced in the first place - yet, however, to her eternal chagrin she lost out to Rosalind Russell when it came to casting the film adaptation!
I love Gypsy because of its brash campery, and its plethora of end-of-the-evening arm-stretch-gesturing belt-em-out numbers - and so, Curtain up! Light the lights! Let's start with an unbeatable one:
[Love this - but I'm also rather fond of the Angela Lansbury version]Needless to say, "our gang" went along en masse to see the 2015 West End revival, starring Imelda Staunton, which was utterly phenomenal! - read more about that here.
Fab-u-lous!
RIP, Stephen Joshua Sondheim (22nd March 1930 – 26th November 2021)
[One of a series of tributes I will be posting to Mr Sondheim this week.]
Previous "Sondheim of the Day" entries:
Bugger!
Another weekend is over in the blink of an eye...
As we vainly attempt to wake ourselves up enough to haul the bloody laptop out of the cupboard once again, there's a glimmer of joy on the horizon. Tomorrow would have been the 90th birthday of the magnificent Miss Della Reese [see more here, here and here] and so, on this Tacky Music Monday...
...what better excuse do I need to revisit probably my favourite (and probably the campest) clip from an American TV show, EVER?!
Have a good week, dear reader.
...from Miss Merman...
...and Mr Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy (of course)!
Oo-la-la!
It’s not every day that one has the pleasure of seeing a septuagenarian hereditary baronet singing Cole Porter’s greatest hits in a Pizza Express, but that is the delightful, delicious and de-lovely experience on offer in John Standing Swings Cole Porter.I couldn't have put it better myself...
This top toff actor, whose mother was the actress Kay Hammond and whose stepfather was the actor Sir John Clements, has long been one of my favourites, with his mixture of wry old-school English charm and a delicious hint of the louche about him. And after success with an earlier Noël Coward compilation – his mother played Elvira in the premiere production of Blithe Spirit – Standing now turns to the even greater songs of Cole Porter.
With his lined, hangdog face, dashing co-respondent shoes, and wary, weary eyes that have clearly seen a lot over the years, Standing cuts a striking and charismatic figure. Better yet, his lived-in voice and air of casual sophistication are beautifully suited to the mixture of wry wit and aching romanticism of Porter’s American songbook classics. And yes, backed by a terrific pianist (Will Stuart) and a sexy, jazzy female double-bass player (Jo Carter), Standing really does swing.
The songs range from famous hits like I Get a Kick out of You, Anything Goes and Night and Day to the less familiar – I particularly liked You Do Something to Me with its effortlessly brilliant triple rhyme – “Do do that voodoo that you do so well”.