Bill Brent
300 Club - QQ All-Star
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2004
- Messages
- 354
Though outside of our normal musical format - we honor Galt MacDermot with the original cast album of Hair (in amazing surround sound).*
This past week, One day short of his 90th Birthday; Galt MacDermot, Composer of 'Hair,' Died.
MacDermot's career kicked off in the early 1960s when he won two Grammys for his composition "African Waltz." He made a name for himself on the Great White Way two years later when he wrote the music for Hair, and also composed the score for Broadway's Two Gentlemen of Verona, based on the Shakespeare comedy, winning the Tony for best musical in 1972, beating out Grease and Stephen Sondheim's Follies.
Featuring a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, Hair rode the wave of the sexual revolution, drug experimentation, anti-establishment rebellion and Vietnam War protests, generating a number of mainstream hits, including "Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In," "Good Morning Starshine," "Easy to Be Hard" and the title song.
Subtitled An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, Hair was initially turned down by most Broadway backers until Joseph Papp stepped in to premiere the musical downtown at the Public Theater in 1967. It moved to Broadway in 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances
Milos Forman made a film version released in 1979, starring Treat Williams, John Savage and Beverly D'Angelo. A Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park production transferred to Broadway in 2009 and ran for more than a year, winning a Tony Award for best revival of a musical.
In May of this year, NBC announced that Hair would be revived for a live television broadcast set to air in spring 2019. Network chairman Robert Greenblatt said at the time, "I’m overjoyed that James Rado and Galt MacDermot are trusting us with their masterpiece Hair, one of the most original shows ever conceived for Broadway with one of the greatest scores."
MacDermot was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2010, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada honored him with a lifetime achievement award.
So join us on The Great White Way Wednesday - curtain is at 8pm (Broadway, NYC time)
http://radiomaxmusic.com/ezmaxpop.html
*Encoded for QS from the Q4