Word: lyricist
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...concede, "your head has to be arranged to receive them. Some people's heads are arranged so that they keep getting colds. I keep getting songs." During a 35-year show-business career, Loesser caught songs by the hundreds and infected millions with his melodious malady. Originally a lyricist, he came into his own as a composer-writer with the rousing Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition and the poignant Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year, both World War II favorites. Then came the series of Broadway musicals that placed him firmly in the company...
Monosyllable Champion. After Cole Porter, Loesser was probably the greatest American composer-lyricist. They were both superb melodists, but Loesser was not as interested in sophisticated word play as Porter. As his producer, Cy Feuer, recalls, Loesser "was a champion of the one-syllable word." As good proof as any is this line from the title song from Guys and Dolls...
OREGON SHAKESPEAREAN FESTIVAL, Ashland (July 19-Sept. 7). The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and King John are the varied fare of the Elizabethan theater's 29th season. Virtue in Danger, an updated romantic musical escapade revived from the 17th century by Screenwriter-Lyricist Paul Dehn and Composer James Bernard, will serve as the matinee, a light after-lunch petite farce...
...NOVEMBER just such a show opened at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. The show, Dear World, had all the earmarks of a hit: a hot star (Angela Lansbury); a composer-lyricist who had never written for a flop (Jerry Herman, whose previous efforts included Hello Dolly and Mame); and a successful librettist team (Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, authors of Mame and Inherit the Wind). Dear World's five-week tryout engagement here was a virtual sellout before the opening night...
Then there are the songs. "The Parish Boy's Progress" has nothing to sing about, but that has not stopped Composer-Lyricist Lionel Bart. Starveling orphans chant about Food, Glorious Food. Oliver asks Where Is Love? Fagin warbles, "Can a fellow be a villain all his life?" Well done? Indeed. Appropriate? In doubt. Putting trust in sounds and forms, Bart has obscured the message of "that great Christian," as Dostoevsky once called Dickens. The "demd horrid grind" is gone. In its place is solid, canny entertainment. Purists and sociologists will object as loudly as Christmas audiences will applaud...