Fran Landesman (October 21, 1927 – July 23, 2011) was an American
lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment.
Royalties
A lyricist's income ...
and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
. She grew up in New York City and lived for years in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, Missouri, where her husband
Jay Landesman
Irving Ned "Jay" Landesman (July 15, 1919 – February 20, 2011) was an American publisher, nightclub owner, writer, and long-time expatriate resident in London, England.
With the Beats
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the fo ...
operated the Crystal Palace nightclub. One of her best-known songs is "
Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most".
Early life and education
She was born Frances Deitsch in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1927,
Her mother was a journalist and a father was a dress manufacturer. Her brother, Sam Deitsch, founded and operated some neighborhood bars in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and, with his partner Ed Moose, later founded the
Washington Square Bar and Grill in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
Deitsch attended private schools through high school. For college, she studied at
Temple University
Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...
in Philadelphia and the
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...
in New York City.
There she initially worked in the fashion industry, as her father did.
While in New York, Deitsch met writer
Jay Landesman
Irving Ned "Jay" Landesman (July 15, 1919 – February 20, 2011) was an American publisher, nightclub owner, writer, and long-time expatriate resident in London, England.
With the Beats
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the fo ...
, the publisher of the short-lived ''Neurotica'' magazine, whom she married on July 15, 1950. They had two sons,
Cosmo
Cosmo may refer to:
Business and media
* Cosmopolitan (magazine), ''Cosmopolitan'' (magazine), a magazine for women, sometimes referred to as "Cosmo"
* ''Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure'', a 1992 video game
* Cosmo On-Line, a Brazilian generic Intern ...
, who became a journalist, and
Miles Davis Landesman, who became a musician and performance artist. Their nephew
Rocco Landesman
Rocco Landesman (born July 20, 1947) is a long-time Broadway theatre producer. He served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from August 2009 to December 2012. He is a part owner of Jujamcyn Theaters.
Early life
Landesman was bor ...
became a producer.
Professional career
Lyricist
She and her husband moved to
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, his home town. There Jay and his brother Fred Landesman started the Crystal Palace nightclub. This was a successful venture, attracting big-name acts and producing
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
theatre.
After listening to musicians and audiences when sitting in the bar of the Crystal Palace, Fran Landesman was inspired to write song lyrics, from 1952 onwards. One of her best-known is "
Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most", her exploration of
T. S. Eliot's "April is the cruelest month..." The Palace's pianist
Tommy Wolf Thomas Joseph Wolf Jr. (1925 – 1979) was an American composer and piano player. He was best known for his songwriting collaboration with Fran Landesman.
Life
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Wolf met Fran Landesman while playing piano at the Jeffer ...
set her lyrics to music, and the song became a hit, leading to more Landesman–Wolf collaborations.
Wolf composed the melodies for the songs for ''
The Nervous Set'', a musical with a book by Jay Landesman and lyrics by Fran Landesman. It had a brief run on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
, and featured the songs, "Spring" and "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men". ''Molly Darling'', a musical by Jay Landesman and Martin Quigley, was produced by the
St. Louis MUNY Opera.
Fran Landesman also wrote the lyrics for a proposed musical version of ''A Walk on the Wild Side'', adapted from the
1956 novel by
Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren (born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham; March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. His 1949 novel ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name.
Algren articulated ...
, known for his portrayal of down-and-outers.
[Fran Landesman papers 1959–1998](_blank)
, University of Missouri-St. Louis, accessed December 2, 2009 In 1960, she began writing with singer/pianist/composer
Bob Dorough, who was brought to St. Louis by
Tommy Wolf Thomas Joseph Wolf Jr. (1925 – 1979) was an American composer and piano player. He was best known for his songwriting collaboration with Fran Landesman.
Life
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Wolf met Fran Landesman while playing piano at the Jeffer ...
to play the lead in the musical.
(The book was adapted as a
film of the same name, released in 1962.)
The Landesman/Dorough song "Nothing Like You" was recorded by
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
and included on his 1967 album ''
Sorcerer''. Their "Small Day Tomorrow" has been recorded by many singers, and was the title of
Dorough's 2007 CD, which featured 12 songs with Landesman lyrics.
One of those songs, "The Winds of Heaven," was originally recorded in 1968 by
Jackie and Roy
Jackie and Roy was an American jazz vocal team consisting of husband and wife singer Jackie Cain (1928-2014) and singer/pianist Roy Kral (1921-2002). They sang together for 56 years and made almost 40 albums.
Kral's 2002 obituary in ''The New Y ...
, and was also covered by
The 5th Dimension
The 5th Dimension is an American popular music vocal group, whose repertoire includes pop, R&B, soul, jazz, light opera, and Broadway.
Formed as the Versatiles in late 1965, the group changed its name to "the 5th Dimension" by 1966. Betwee ...
.
In 1964 the Landesmans left St. Louis to move to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
She wrote lyrics for a number of well-known musicians (with an emphasis on
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
) such as
Pat Smythe
Patricia Rosemary "Pat" Smythe, OBE (22 November 1928 – 27 February 1996) was a British show jumper. She competed at the 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympics, winning a team bronze medal in 1956. She served as president of the British Show Jumpi ...
,
Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell; 26 June 1943) is an English R&B and jazz musician. Fame, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still performing, often working with contemporaries such as Alan Price, Van Morrison and Bill Wyman. Fame is the on ...
,
Tom Springfield
Tom Springfield (born Dionysius Patrick O'Brien, 2 July 1934 – 27 July 2022) was an English musician, songwriter and record producer who was prominent in the 1960s folk and pop music scene. He was the older brother of singer Dusty Springfield ...
,
Richard Rodney Bennett
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (29 March 193624 December 2012) was an English composer of film, TV and concert music, and also a jazz pianist and occasional vocalist. He was based in New York City from 1979 until his death there in 2012.Zachary Woo ...
and
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writ ...
. She continued to collaborate with composers in the USA, most notably
John Simon and
Roy Kral
Roy is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origin.
In Anglo-Norman England, the name derived from the Norman ''roy'', meaning "king", while its Old French cognate, ''rey'' or ''roy'' (modern ''roi''), likewise gave rise t ...
.
She also wrote the lyrics for Joyce Adcock's musical ''Dearest Dracula'', produced in 1965 at the
Dublin Theatre Festival
The Dublin Theatre Festival is Europe's oldest specialised theatre festival. It was founded by theatre impresario Brendan Smith in 1957 and has, with the exception of two years, produced a season of international and Irish theatre each autumn. ...
.
Landesman met British composer
Simon Wallace
Simon Wallace (born 1957) is a British composer and pianist.
Simon Wallace was born in Newport, South Wales. He studied music at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and University College, Oxford, where he ran the Oxford University Jazz C ...
in 1994, and collaborated with him for the rest of her life. She and Wallace wrote some 300 songs in total.
Theatre shows based on Landesman/Wallace songs include ''There's Something Irresistible in Down'' (1996), produced at the
Young Vic
The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth.
The Young Vic was established by Frank Dunlop in 1970. Kwame Kwei-Armah has been Artistic Director since February 201 ...
by members of the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
; ''Forbidden Games'' (1997) performed at the
Ustinov Theatre in Bath, the
Pleasance Theatre
The Pleasance is a theatre, bar, sports and recreation complex in Edinburgh, Scotland, situated on a street of the same name. It is owned by the University of Edinburgh, and for nine months of the year it serves the Edinburgh University Stude ...
in Edinburgh, and the
Gdansk Shakespeare Festival; and ''Queen of the Bohemian Dream'' (2007), produced at the
Source Theatre in
Washington D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
''The Decline of the Middle West'' (1995), performed at The Supper Club in Manhattan, also featured Landesman's lyrics.
In 1997, singer Nicki Leighton-Thomas released an album of Landesman/Wallace songs, originally titled ''Damned If I Do'' and re-released under the title ''Forbidden Games''. From 1999 Landesman worked closely with jazz singer Sarah Moule. In 2002 Moule released a collection of Landesman/Wallace songs titled ''It’s A Nice Thought'' and her three subsequent releases included 27 more Landesman/Wallace compositions. In 2010 Boston based singer Sheplay Metcalf released a collection of Landesman/Wallace songs ‘Something Irresistible’ In 2012, the award-winning jazz singer, composer and music director
Ian Shaw released the critically acclaimed album ''A Ghost In Every Bar (The Lyrics of Fran Landesman)'' as a tribute to Landesman. Accompanied by Simon Wallace, four of these songs had never been released before. Shaw had become a close friend of Landesman after working with her son Miles and recorded single tracks with her lyrics on six albums in his back catalogue, but this album fulfilled a promise he made to her to devote an entire album to her songs.
In 1996, Fran Landesman appeared on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
's ''
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usu ...
'' and requested a supply of
cannabis seeds as her luxury item. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
received a number of complaints.
In the 1970s, Fran Landesman also began writing and publishing poetry.
In the UK she became better known for this work than for her songs. She published several volumes of poetry, and performed her work at festivals and on
.
In the last 10 years of her life, Landesman performed more frequently, often in evenings when she would recite her poetry, sing her songs, and occasionally talk about her life and work. In 2003, she appeared in New York at
. In October 2008, she returned to St Louis to do a one-woman show at the
in London. In May 2010, the
presented ''An Evening with Fran Landesman'' as part of the ''Art of Song Festival''. Her last appearance was at RADA on July 21, 2011, two days before her death at the age of 83.