1970

Following years of playing non-musical “other woman” roles in films, Angela Lansbury had already been the toast of New York as Jerry Herman’s singing, high-kicking Mame when she opened in Dear World. With a score by Jerry Herman, Dear World proved no world-beater, but it had a charming, under-rated score that merits survival. The title song-sung by Angela, addled Parisian dowager-infectiously conveys the entertainment’s zany quality and suggests it could all one day be revived as Hello, Countess!

Night club comedian Dick Van Dyke, who co-starred with Miss Julie Andrews in the picture which won her the movie capital’s Academy Award, (Disney’s Mary Poppins), had his first important inning on Broadway, too, as the hapless agent in Bye, Bye Birdie (which he recreated on the screen). “Put On A Happy Face,” written by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, seems the ideal number to represent Dick’s first big starring splash in a show.

South Pacific is in a class by itself, a “show of rare enchantment, novel in texture and treatment, rich in dramatic sub-stance and eloquent in song,” wrote Brooks Atkinson. Some have called the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II production “the perfect musical comedy,” and there’ll be no arguments from this seat on the aisle, established opera’s Ezio Pinta as a matinee idol and put Mary Martin, after many so-so movie roles, right alongside Ethel Merman as a queen of musical comedy. Miss Martin’s “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” is a classic-women everywhere quickly adopted Nurse Nellie Forbush’s short hairdo that Mary maintained during the run because she literally washed that Ezio out of her hair on stage eight times a week.

West Side Story, with its ambitious, integrated score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim and dances by Jerome Robbins, remains a pace-setting work of the musical theater (as well as of Hollywood filmmaking-it won the 1961 Best Picture Oscar). When Larry Kert and Carol Lawrence, as an updated Romeo and Juliet, first duetted in anticipation of a special “Tonight” (the selection in this album), they were prophetic: from that night on this medium would be enriched.

England’s Julie Andrews was no $1,000,000 – a – movie star when she landed the coveted role of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe My Fair Lady. She had appeared on Broadway before in the Sandy Wilson spoof of 1920s musicals, The Boy Friend, but it was My Fair Lady which the New York Times and a record number of patrons called “one of the best musicals of the century,” that made her a star. Appropriately, Julie’s wistful rendition of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from that work is included in this album.

The generally conceded peak of Ethel Merman’s career came with Gypsy. singing songs by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim. As the ambitious Madame Rose, mother of Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc, she brought a dynamism to the stage with such numbers as “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” This role is Miss Merman’s own favorite among her many; and when Gypsy opened, Walter Kerr’s opinion was widely quoted: “The best damn musical I’ve seen in years!” No collection of musical moments from Broadway would be complete without this electrifying performance.

Long before Carol Channing wrapped her tonsils around the song (and show) Hello, Dolly!, she had captivated New York audiences with her portrayal of foxy-dumb flapper Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, aided by a Jule Styne-Leo Robin score. She had appeared to advantage previously in the revue Lend An Ear, but her first great popular hit was delivering “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” in Blondes. Herewith, an encore.

Joel Grey was already a versatile young veteran of the show his wars when he clicked for the first time on Broadway as the decadent, painted Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret. Performing John Kander and Fred Ebb tunes, Grey, said the New York Times. “burst from the darkness like a tracer bullet.” The ebullient title song is his on this collection.

In Harold Rome’s I Can Get It For You Wholesale new-comer Barbra Streisand got most of the attention as a singing funny girl called “Miss Marmelstein.” Before long, she was Funny Girl and the 1960s “Star of the Decade.” Miss Streisand here reprises her first success as the secretary Walter Kerr said had “folding ankles . Barbra’s great.” Mr. Kerr’s impetuous superlative has been vindicated by time, but Barbra’s ankles have proved this lady’s only features to escape further comment.

“The Party’s Over” is a fitting finale for this album. It was done by the late comedienne Judy Holliday in her first musical, Bells Are Ringing, which reunited her and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green, with whom she had worked years before as members of the satirical act called the Revuers. Jule Styne wrote the music for Bells, in which Judy was an operator at an answering service with the name “Susanswerphone.” Showtime should keep the party going indefinitely.

Doug McClelland
Editor, Record World

‘GUANTANAMERA’ is yet another example of the trio’s pre-eminence amongst the leading vocal groups in the densely populated jungle of the pop music world. It demonstrates many facets of the Sandpipers’ musical eloquence. For one thing, it shows clearly that like Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, they have elevated the art of combining musical simplicity to fine musicianship to a level it doesn’t often attain.

Used loosely, and in the wrong way, the term ‘simplicity’ conjures up an instant mental – and aural – picture of three musical morons. Nothing could be further from the truth! But using the expression in the most complimentary sense, it means simply that the Sandpipers deliberately eschew the involved, the raucous and the unnecessary. Instead, they wisely concentrate on the not-always-easy art of singing well, and in a way that communicates naturally and easily to their ever-growing audiences throughout the record buying.

As this album demonstrates too, Mike Piano, Jim Brady and Richard Shoff are never afraid to select material that is as varied as it is interesting. The result is an ultra pleasant melange of good music, with a definite international flavour, and delivered – as always – with a finesse and ease that is wholly commendable.

The song ‘GUANTANAMERA’ has received wide coverage from a variety of artists in the field of recording, but for many people it will be forever associated with the Sandpipers. Whichever way you look at it, theirs is a treatment which can be safely termed “definitive”.

The Beatles’ “THE THINGS WE SAID TODAY” sounds absolutely tailor-made for the Sandpipers.

Anyone who remembers the film “Hans Christian Anderson”, must surely recall Danny Kaye, in the title role, singing Frank Loesser’s “Inch Worm” in most charming fashion. The Sandpipers obviously did and, with the assistance of a high-voiced chanteuse, rescue this neglected little number from obscurity. The result is quite delightful.

Composer Georges Bizet is saluted in composer/arranger Nick de Caro’s salute to “CARMEN”. Whilst the Sandpipers warble sweet things about the obviously alluring young lady, co-arrangers De Caro and Mort Garson utilise the “Habanera” from Bizet’s “Carmen”; the operatic excerpt is delineated most effectively by a harpsichord and acts as an ingenious counter-melody to what the Sandpipers are singing.

A word here about the arrangers. Nick de Caro and Mort Garson provide an ideal setting for the singers; one that is always listenable, yet never instrusive.

Nick De Caro alone arranges “INCH WORM”, “GLASS” and Jimmie Rodgers’ sad little song “IT’S OVER”, the rest of the tracks were scored by De Caro and Mort Garson, in tandem. The Sandpipers could not have asked for more instrumental sympathy from their accompanists.

The Sandpipers – though they weren’t then known under that banner – first got together when Seattle-born Richard Shoff persuaded Los Angeles-born Jim Brady and Mike Piano, from Rochester New York, to form a vocal trio. The boys taught themselves to play instruments – Mike, for instance, is a piano player – but for several years their efforts went unnoticed. Then, in 1964, when they were known as “The Grads”, they played their first gig in Palm Spring, Florida. Later came many offers to play in many of the plush U.S. Nightspots – Harrah’s, both in the Lake Tahoe district of California and Reno, and the Sands in Las Vegas.

In 1965 they received a call from A&M chief, Herb Alpert, asking them to audition for Tommy Li Puma, a talented and knowledgeable record producer. Recalls Richard Shoff of the incident “We went to Herb Alpert’s office and did our whole show for him’ – rock, pretty songs, a cappella things. He was impressed but he said “Well boys, right now I’ve got only myself and I’m interested in pushing myself. Come back in six months when probably I’ll be ready to take on some new acts”. We thought it was the ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’ type of thing. But we went back and he signed us up”.

After hearing an album by folk singer Pete Seeger recorded live at Carnegie Hall, the Grads were most impressed by one of the songs he featured in this programme. It was a Cuban song called ‘Guantanamera’. The group featured the number of their second single release (the first hadn’t amounted to much from the sales standpoint). Just before its release, they changed their name to…. the Sandpipers.

The change of name, the song and the Sandpipers performance did the trick. They were off on the dizzy road to fame and fortune. To other best-selling records. To highly-acclaimed concert and club appearances.

The three talented young men, who as kids sang together in the Mitchell Boys Choir, Los Angeles, have continued to combine their impressive musical talents to the best advantage. They will surely continue to do so for than, many Years to come. And for us – that’s good news.

Stan Britt. “Record Buyer”, September 1970.