DELIGHTFUL DUETS

[samhexum]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct_PSY00HsA

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMFmQz_5GMM

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8nKC4htRNs

[OCClient]

Many are quick to eviscerate Xanadu

I think it's a treat. Here is Gene Kelly, paired with ONJ.

 

[LaffingBear]

A duet, and two trios, that always bring a huge grin to my face

[+ Gar1eth]

 

 

 

 

 

@TruHart1, here's one for you.

 

 

Gman

[+ WilliamM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0QhfT-dgFU

 

1953: Ford 50th Anniversary, one of early TV's highest rated specials. The Medley conceived and directed by Jerome Robbins.

[samhexum]

I have a JohnDenver Greatest Hits CD & always liked his duet with Placido.

[samhexum]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0QhfT-dgFU

 

1953: Ford 50th Anniversary, one of early TV's highest rated specials. The Medley conceived and directed by Jerome Robbins.

 

Jerome Robbins' Broadway was one of only 2 Broadway shows I ever walked out of (the other was HurlyBurly). I left at intermission, the two people I was with left after the first number in the second act. They should've called it Jerome Robbins' Boredway.

[samhexum]

I hope to god you're not judging one of the indisputable greats in ballet and Broadway just because of a tribute revue of bits and pieces of his work, recreated?

 

Robbins, by all accounts, was a very difficult man, but he was also brilliant at what he did.

I'm NOT judging him. I have no idea (or interest in) what he was like as a person. I'm just saying he wrote some incredibly boring material. No wonder that dame who's warbling with Ethel Zimmermann in that clip gave birth to such an evil oil tycoon... he was probably forced to listen to his mother singing showtunes throughout his youth, & the experience obviously warped him!

 

BTW, I've never understood Ms. Zimmermann's appeal. It's like listening to a Mack truck horn sing.

Edited September 9, 2017 by samhexum

[samhexum]

He didn't write. He directed and choreographed. Look him up.

I stand corrected. He directed and choreographed some incredibly boring material.

[samhexum]

So perhaps this particular thread is not really for you. Just saying. There are so many others to choose from, with material that may be more to your liking.

Funny, considering I started the thread... about delightful singing (duets).

 

It's not about choreography that may or may not have been brilliant, but was definitely (at least at times) incredibly boring, or at least set to incredibly boring musical numbers. We just got off on a tangent when I was reminded of that horrible, psyche-scarring (and wallet-draining) evening years ago when I attempted to sit through an evening highlighting the career of a possibly over-hyped 'legend'. That's several hundred hours (or so it seemed) of my life I'll never get back.

Edited September 9, 2017 by samhexum

[samhexum]

I just like seeing Alaina's eyes cross when she hits the high notes. By the way, with that voice, she's obviously going to college to study NEUROSCIENCE. I'm envisioning a medical version of COP ROCK in her future.

[+ WilliamM]

 

 

London Benefit

 

Mary Martin and Larry Hagman, mother and son.

Edited September 10, 2017 by WilliamM

[bostonman]

It's not about choreography that may or may not have been brilliant, but was definitely (at least at times) incredibly boring, or at least set to incredibly boring musical numbers. We just got off on a tangent when I was reminded of that horrible, psyche-scarring (and wallet-draining) evening years ago when I attempted to sit through an evening highlighting the career of a possibly over-hyped 'legend'. That's several hundred hours (or so it seemed) of my life I'll never get back.

 

Well - to each his own. I can't think of one number in that revue that I found "incredibly boring." But you just don't like musicals, clearly. And I think you doth protest too much.

[body2body]

Here is one of my favorite duets by Mr. Sondheim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM1RGdhuE1s

[N13]

[+ WilliamM]

[+ WilliamM]

[bostonman]

 

It has never made any sense to me when men sing "The Lady Is A Tramp." A man calling a woman a tramp, in any situation, is sexually vulgar even to a small degree. The context of the song originally (and which can be made obvious even outside the show) is that the woman singing is having self-deprecating fun with her simple lower class behavior - though really she's poking fun at folks in high society who behave just a little too stiff for their own good, and who would look down at someone like her for acting less highbrow.

 

And along with that, if the woman sings the song in the first person, as Hart wrote it ("I get too hungry for dinner at eight" etc) the self-deprecating humor comes through - whereas when a man (or perhaps even a woman) sings it in 3rd person ("SHE gets too hungry" etc) it just alters the feel of the lyric in general. A huge difference between one deliberately making fun of oneself, versus calling someone else a tramp.

 

Even when someone as lyric-aware as Sinatra sings it, IMO, the lyrics just don't work. It changes the meaning of "tramp," intentionally or not, from someone "lower class" to someone who's a "slut."

 

I don't know for sure that Hart ever heard any men perform the song (the big male entertainers seemed to pick it up in the 50's and later, after Hart had passed away), but I tend to wonder if he would have liked it, or if he too had thought it didn't translate right. Even when many popular standards were easily sung by either gender.

Edited September 10, 2017 by bostonman

[+ purplekow]

As a singer, Paul Simon is a great lyricist. Art Garfunkle on the other hand has the voice of an angel and very limited writing ability. As a team they were great. Individually, neither matches up to the power of the two of them together, IMO.

[samhexum]

As a singer, Paul Simon is a great lyricist.

 

I think Paul's siblings Neil & Carly are more talented than he is.

[bostonman]

I think Paul's siblings Neil & Carly are more talented than he is.

 

Siblings???

 

That said, Carly's actual sister Lucy is a fabulous, though much lesser-known, songwriter/composer (she wrote the beautiful classical and folk-tinged score for the 1991 Broadway production of The Secret Garden, among other things), and Carly's first husband (someone named James Taylor) is certainly one of the greatest singer/songwriters in American popular music.

 

As for Neil the great comic playwright, I have unfortunately heard that he is in very bad health - something on the level of Alzheimers or some sort of dementia. Very sad.

[samhexum]

Siblings???

 

That said, Carly's actual sister Lucy is a fabulous, though much lesser-known, songwriter/composer (she wrote the beautiful classical and folk-tinged score for the 1991 Broadway production of The Secret Garden, among other things), and Carly's first husband (someone named James Taylor) is certainly one of the greatest singer/songwriters in American popular music.

 

As for Neil the great comic playwright, I have unfortunately heard that he is in very bad health - something on the level of Alzheimers or some sort of dementia. Very sad.

I remember when he was married to James Mason's sister Marsha.

A favorite childhood memory... I went to the record department (remember those?) in Alexander's department store. At the register they were selling 'The Simon Sisters sing for children' for ten cents. Obviously, it was a big seller. They had a stack, but I stupidly bought only 2... they made great gag gifts. When gift-wrapped, the recipient obviously knew it was an album & got excited... until it was unwrapped!

 

 

[samhexum]

Speaking of discount albums...

I stumbled upon a classic... a brilliant comedy album... Totie Fields live in Vegas for 79 cents in the discount section of Sam Goody's (a record store... remember those?).

[N13]

Ethel changed her name well over 70 years ago because it was too long to fit on billboards. She did not realize some people might believe she was Jewish. Who cares? She was easily one of Broadway's greatest musical stars. I only saw her in person twice, both times in "Gypsy."

 

Her "Gypsy" tops my list (or ties with Streisand in "Funny Girl") for the greatest female musical performance I have ever seen.

[samhexum]

Paul McCartney got a little help from his friend to close out his first full concert at Madison Square Garden in a dozen years.

 

The legendary musician brought his pal Bruce Springsteen onstage Friday to perform the early Beatles hit "I Saw Her Standing There" – not once, but twice – during his encore.

 

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bruce Springsteen!" McCartney yelled as the roaring crowd began chanting "Bruce."

 

The Boss then gave McCartney a big hug amid the audience's eruption of cheers.

 

Springsteen's surprise appearance was one of the major highlights of McCartney's show at the Garden, which was his first concert there since 2005. He also performed there at the Hurricane Sandy relief concert in 2012.

 

McCartney played 40 songs during the three-hour concert, blending many of his biggest Beatles songs with his solo classics and Wings hits.

 

In addition to his two renderings of "I Saw Her Standing There" with Springsteen, he played "Yesterday," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Helter Skelter," "Golden Slumbers," "Carry That Weight" and "The End" during his encore.

 

 

A MUCH BETTER VERSION: