|
Close Enough For Love (Andy Williams Album)
''Close Enough for Love'' is the thirty-ninth album, studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in 1986 by Atco Records. Williams writes in the liner notes: "This is essentially a ‘live’ album. Our objective was to get real performances from both the orchestra and myself, as opposed to the sometimes sterile perfection of countless overdubs and tracking sessions. To my amazement, we used the first takes on most of the songs. The excitement of first hearing Jeremy's arrangements affected me so, that I found a quality in my singing that wasn't there in later takes." The phrase "Romantic Music from the Movies" on the back of the CD booklet conveys the theme of the album, with half of the songs dating from the decade previous to its release and the other half going back to the era of Traditional pop music, traditional pop. Williams even updates the title songs from two of his albums, "Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses", with what, for 1986, were very modern ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual Phonograph record#78 rpm disc developments, 78 rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP record, long-playing (LP) records played at revolutions per minute, rpm. The album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983 and was gradually supplanted by the cassette tape during the 1970s and early 1980s; the populari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moon River
"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie ''Breakfast at Tiffany's (film), Breakfast at Tiffany's'', winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song also won the 1962 Grammy Awards for Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Record of the Year and Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Song of the Year. The song has been recorded by many other artists. It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded it in 1962 (and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony that year). He sang the first eight bars of the song at the beginning of each episode of The Andy Williams Show, his eponymous television show and named his production company and venue in Branson, Missouri, after it; his autobiography is called ''"Moon River" and Me''. Williams' version was never released as a single, but it charted as an LP track that he recorded for Columbia on a hit album of 1962, ''Moon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music. Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including ''Pal Joey (musical), Pal Joey'', ''A Connecticut Yankee (musical), A Connecticut Yankee'', ''On Your Toes'' and ''Babes in Arms.'' With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as ''Oklahoma!'', ''Flower Drum Song'', ''Carousel (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music''. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for brin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Milton Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was an American lyricist and half of the Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include " Blue Moon", " The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", and "My Funny Valentine". Life and career Hart was born in Harlem, New York City, the elder of two sons, to Jewish immigrant parents, Max M. and Frieda (Isenberg) Hart, of German background. Through his mother, he was a great-grandnephew of the German poet Heinrich Heine. His father, a business promoter, sent Hart and his brother to private schools. (His brother, Teddy Hart, also went into theatre and became a musical comedy star. Teddy Hart's wife, Dorothy Hart, wrote a biography of Lorenz Hart.) Hart received his early education from Columbia Grammar School and entered Columbia College in 1913, before switching to Columbia University School of Journalism, where he attended for two years. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babes In Arms
''Babes in Arms'' is a 1937 coming-of-age musical comedy with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by Rodgers and Hart. It concerns a group of small-town Long Island teenagers who put on a show to avoid being sent to a work farm by the town sheriff when their actor parents go on the road for five months in an effort to earn some money by reviving vaudeville. Several songs in ''Babes in Arms'' became pop standards, including the title song, "Where or When", "My Funny Valentine", " The Lady Is a Tramp", "Johnny One Note" and "I Wish I Were in Love Again". The film version, released in 1939, starred Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and was directed by Busby Berkeley. Its radically revised plot retained only two songs from the original stage version—"Where or When" and "Babes in Arms". The film is credited with popularizing the "kids putting on a musical for charity" trope. The original version had strong political overtones with discussions of Nietzsche, a Comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Funny Valentine
"My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart coming of age musical ''Babes in Arms'' in which it was introduced by teenaged star Mitzi Green. The song became a popular jazz standard, appearing on over 1300 albums performed by over 600 artists. One of them was Chet Baker, for whom it became his signature song. In 2015, it was announced that the Gerry Mulligan quartet featuring Chet Baker's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry for the song's "cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation’s audio legacy". Mulligan also recorded the song with his Concert Jazz Band in 1960. History ''Babes in Arms'' opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, in New York City on April 14, 1937 and ran for 289 performances. In the original play, a character named Billie Smith (played by Mitzi Green) sings the song to Valentine "Val" LaMar (played by Ray Heatherton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolph Green
Adolph Green (December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002) was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved film musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, during the genre's heyday. Many people thought the pair were married, but in fact they were not a romantic couple at all. Nevertheless, they shared a unique comic genius and sophisticated wit that enabled them to forge a six-decade-long partnership that produced some of Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood and Broadway theatre, Broadway's greatest hits. Biography Green was born in the Bronx to Hungary, Hungarian Jewish immigrants Helen (née Weiss) and Daniel Green. He was the youngest of three sons and had two older brothers, Louis (circa 1907-?) and William (circa 1910-?). After high school, he worked as a runner on Wall Street while he tried to make it as an actor. He met Comden throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Betty Comden
Betty Comden (May 3, 1917 - November 23, 2006) was an American lyricist, playwright, and screenwriter who contributed to numerous Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century. Her writing partnership with Adolph Green spanned six decades: "the longest running creative partnership in theatre history." The musical-comedy duo of Comden and Green collaborated most notably with composers Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein, as well enjoyed success with ''Singin' in the Rain'', as part of the famed " Freed unit" at MGM. Early life Betty Comden was born Basya Cohen in Brooklyn, New York in 1917, the younger child of Leo Cohen (originally Astershinsky), a lawyer, and Rebecca ( Sadvoransky) Cohen, an English teacher. Both were Russian immigrants and observant Jews. She had an older brother, Nathaniel ("Nat"), born . Basya "attended Erasmus Hall High School and studied drama at New York University, graduating in 1938," according to ''The New York Times''. In 1938, mutual f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Town (musical)
''On the Town'' is a musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on Jerome Robbins' idea for his 1944 ballet ''Fancy Free'', which he had set to Bernstein's music. The musical introduced several popular and classic songs, among them "New York, New York", " Lonely Town", "I Can Cook, Too" (for which Bernstein also wrote the lyric), and "Some Other Time". The story concerns three American sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City during World War II, 1944. Each of the three sailors meets and quickly connects with a woman. ''On the Town'' was first produced on Broadway in 1944 and was made into a film in 1949, although the film replaced all but four of the original Broadway numbers with Hollywood-written substitutes. The show has enjoyed several major revivals. The musical integrates dance into its storytelling: Robbins made several ballets and extended dance sequences for the show, including the "Imaginary Coney Island ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights,Starr, Larry and Waterman, Christopher, American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, Oxford University Press, 2009, pg. 64 and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. For much of his career Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other than F-sharp. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance craze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carefree (film)
''Carefree'' is a 1938 musical film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. With a plot similar to screwball comedies of the period, ''Carefree'' is the shortest of the Astaire-Rogers films, featuring only four musical numbers. ''Carefree'' is often remembered as the film in which Astaire and Rogers shared a long on-screen kiss at the conclusion of their dance to "I Used to Be Color Blind," all previous kisses having been either quick pecks or simply implied. ''Carefree'' was a reunion for the team of Astaire and Rogers after a brief hiatus following ''Shall We Dance'' and six other previous RKO pictures. The next film in the series, ''The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle'' (1939), would be their final RKO film together, although they would reunite in 1949 for MGM's ''The Barkleys of Broadway''. Plot Psychiatrist Dr. Tony Flagg (Fred Astaire) does his friend Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy) a favor by taking on his fiancée, Amanda Cooper (Ginger Rogers), as a patient. Amanda, a ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Change Partners
"Change Partners" is a popular song written by Irving Berlin for the 1938 film '' Carefree'', in which it was introduced by Fred Astaire. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1938, but lost out to "Thanks for the Memory." Hit versions in 1938 included those by Astaire, Ozzie Nelson, Jimmy Dorsey and Lawrence Welk. The song reached No. 1 on ''Billboard''s Record Buying Guide. The song has subsequently been recorded by many artists. Notable recordings *Steve Lawrence – for his album ''Academy Award Losers'' (1964) *Frank Sinatra - ''Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim'' (1967) *Bing Crosby - '' A Couple of Song and Dance Men'' (1975) *Andy Williams - '' Close Enough for Love'' (1986) *Barbara Cook - ''Live from London'' (1994) (in medley with "I See Your Face") *Harry Connick, Jr. Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. (born September 11, 1967) is an American singer, pianist, composer, actor, and television host. He has sold over 28m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
