Archives for August 2016

“Previews of Past Attractions: Ry Cooder,” a 1970 Warner Bros. Records promotional mini-documentary about the singer-guitarist, produced by Van Dyke Parks:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.”

Leonard Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I pay tribute to the underappreciated artistry of Perry Como. Here’s an excerpt.

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Sixty years ago, Perry Como cut a hit record of the dumbest song ever written. O.K., maybe not quite ever, but “Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom),” a stupefyingly banal novelty tune, surely ranks right up there. I place in evidence Dick Manning’s lyrics: “Hot diggity, dog ziggity, boom/What you do to me,/When you’re holding me tight.” Recorded on Feb. 2, 1956, “Hot Diggity” shot straight to the top of the charts and stayed there until Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” shoved it aside. Its success says much about what American pop music was like between the end of the big-band era and the rise of rock and roll.

Como, who died in 2001, recorded numerous other hits of identical fatuity. To his credit, he despised them, though that didn’t stop him from cashing the royalty checks. “I’d tell the A&R man, ‘I can’t sing that garbage,’ and he’d say, ‘Just do one take—one take for me,’” he later confessed to an interviewer. Alas, he ended up paying a high price for his success: Because he became so closely identified with such songs as “(A Hubba-Hubba-Hubba) Dig You Later,” “Papa Loves Mambo” and “Zing Zing Zoom Zoom,” few people now know that Mr. C, as his fans liked to call him, was a golden-age pop singer of the very first rank….

In addition to being a pop star, Como was also a pioneer of network TV. He appeared weekly from 1948 to 1963, followed by a four-year run of monthly specials, and throughout that time his now-forgotten variety show was one of the most popular programs on the air. Not only was his casual just-folks persona well suited to home viewing, but you could hear every imaginable kind of music on “The Perry Como Show,” whose long string of celebrity guests included Luiz Bonfá, Nat King Cole, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Louis Jordan, Peggy Lee, Liberace, Johnny Mercer, Ethel Merman, Birgit Nilsson, the Platters, Helen Traubel and Hank Williams.

No matter who else was on the show, though, it was Como himself whom most people tuned in to hear—with good reason. His warm, light-grained high baritone voice was so technically finished that his singing seemed as effortless as his self-deprecating on-camera demeanor. Como’s other nickname, “Mr. Relaxation,” finally became a joke: When Eugene Levy impersonated Como on a 1981 “SCTV” skit called “Perry Como: Still Alive,” he was portrayed as a narcoleptic zombie who sang easy-listening versions of disco tunes while lying in bed with a microphone propped on his pillow, surrounded by gyrating dancers.

Yet there was nothing somnolent about Como’s unassuming, soft-spoken vocalism, which was intensely musical. His phrasing was unostentatiously elegant, his diction flawless…

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UPDATE: A reader writes:

Years ago, I interviewed Perry Como. At the end, to make closing small talk, I said that my parents considered him the best singer of his time, superseding Sinatra and Crosby, two more of their favorites. Como surprised me by asking for their phone number so he could call and thank them. Alas, they had both passed away, but I was struck that he made such an offer. He was one of the few celebrities I’ve interviewed who showed such generosity and humility.

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Read the whole thing here.

Eugene Levy impersonates Perry Como in “Perry Como: Still Alive,” originally telecast on SCTV in 1981:

Como and Luiz Bonfá perform Bonfá’s “Manhã de Carnaval” on The Perry Como Show. This episode was originally telecast on NBC on January 2, 1963:

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, closes Jan. 1, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, many performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, closes Jan. 1, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Sense & Sensibility (serious romantic comedy, G, remounting of 2014 off-Broadway production, extended through Nov. 20, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• Bye Bye Birdie (musical, G, closes Sept. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:
• The Lonesome West (black comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN MADISON, N.J.:
• Exit the King (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Measure for Measure (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

“Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves, we’re difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficuty than one confronts in the most ‘intellectual’ piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when if such simplification were applied to a description of our own inner selves we would find it demeaning? I think art has a right—not an obligation—to be difficult if it wishes.”

Geoffrey Hill, interviewed by Carl Phillips in The Paris Review, Spring 2000 (courtesy of Kate Maltby)

Arturo Toscanini leads the NBC Symphony in a performance of the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 555. This performance was originally telecast from NBC’s Studio 8-H in New York on December 4, 1948:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Every moment is a new moment, failure our eternal friend. You think you are learning things but those could also be staleness traps, formula, hitting the same lever again and again.”

Whit Stillman, interviewed by Chris White (Curator, May 23, 2016)

From 2006:

As for me, I’m the gray-headed drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and a resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, none of which I anticipated when I was sixteen. Back then I planned to marry my high-school sweetheart and spend the rest of my life teaching English in Smalltown, but a funny thing happened on the way to the future, and I ended up sitting on the aisle of a New York theater, watching The Fantasticks with a friend who had yet to be born the last time I saw it….

Read the whole thing here.