Harvey Granat Songs & Stories: Dorothy Fields Part II
In his last 92Y presentation of the season, vocalist/raconteur Harvey Granat takes another look at Dorothy Fields. With the help of her son and estate trustee, pianist/arranger/lyricist David Lahm (our host’s accompanist) and guest Julie Budd, we spend an hour or so experiencing and hearing about the work of one of our most successful, cleverest and, as Stephen Sondheim noted, most conversational lyricists. She had, he continues “…a consistent and distinctive attitude – wry, rueful, earthy…”
Dorothy Fields (1905-1974) authored over 400 songs with 12 composers; 15 Broadway shows and 25 films. Sired by Comedian/Music Hall owner Lew Fields (of comedy team Weber & Fields), she segued from youthful poetry to smart, yet accessible lyrics and librettos as if destined for the profession.
With initial collaborator Jimmy McHugh, Fields wrote numbers for the prestigious Cotton Club. “As far as my mother’s career, it was her first major assignment,” Lahm tells us… “She figured out there she could do this stuff…I’m not a fantastic researcher of my family’s past,” he adds, “I play my mother’s songs, that’s how I connect…”
“Was it any more difficult to write for revues than musicals?” Granat inquires. “Shows were mostly revues then, but I think she preferred writing for characters,” Lahm answers. Granat performs a sincere “Don’t Blame Me” (composer Jimmy McHugh from the revue Clowns in Clover). He really is one of our finer all-but-unknown balladeers.
“1935 was a watershed year for Fields, her first opportunity to work with the enormously respected Jerome Kern,” our host tells us. Filming the musical Roberta, RKO found it was missing a love song to be performed during a fashion show. They had Jerome Kern’s melody, but needed lyrics fast. Fields was given the assignment without the composer’s knowledge. She wrote “Lovely To Look At,” overnight. Mercifully Kern liked it.
The two then wrote Swingtime together. “Who do you think was responsible for getting Kern to write like that (outside his usual genre)?” Granat asks Lahm. “(Fred) Astaire said to her, Can’t we get Jerry to write something I can dance to? “ Lahm replies. “Pick Yourself Up” and “Bojangles of Harlem” filled the bill. Fields was the first woman to win an Academy Award (with Kern) for the song “The Way You Look Tonight” from the film. Granat’s tender, low key version creates immediate intimacy. Overlapping piano waves caress.
Asked about his duties managing the estate, Lahm comments that Annie Get Your Gun has a bullseye on its back.” The musical had been Fields’ idea. When Kern died, Irving Berlin took over. “Can you imagine Kern writing for Ethel Merman?!” he quips. Fields then penned the book with her brother Herbert. Apparently, though songs are sacrosanct, that part of a musical is often “reinvented.” Lahm pronounces the word as if it had an odor.
In 2009, The Young Vic approached him about staging it. They even sent a woman to “babysit” him while development occurred. On a surprise visit to rehearsals in England, Lahm found Annie Oakley wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Not only that, but the show’s respected Chief Sitting Bill was made a buffoon. Depiction may have been historically accurate (as the company protested), but the Indian’s persona was far from faithful to the musical. “I told them you’re not licensing history, you’re licensing this show.” A codicil stipulating period costumes and set was later added.
At this point in the afternoon, Granat introduces Julie Budd. The vocalist was given advice by Fields at the ripe age of 13: “Julie, darling, you must remember one thing, always sing the verse. “ And she does – My joy in loving you is past understanding/It makes me much too eager/Much too demanding…prefaces “Close As Pages in a Book” (music- Sigmund Romberg).
Herb Bernstein, Budd’s accompanist since she was a preteen, replaces Lahm at the piano for “Pink Taffeta Dress,” a captivating song cut from Sweet Charity (music-Cy Coleman). “Don’t ask me why,” Budd says. “They felt for some reason it slowed things down. So what’s wrong with slow?”
A third number, “He Had Refinement,” (music – Arthur Schwartz from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) is unique in that the lyricist not only makes deft fun of “him,” but also of the singer. Budd is over dramatic and keeps her eyes closed much of the time shutting us out.
We hear brief renditions of three more songs from Brooklyn including a sensitive and sweet “Growing Pains” as sung by a father to his daughter…Nothing’s wrong, just growing pains/And they never hurt too long…It’s easy to see Granat has a daughter. She might just as well be there before him.
Lahm is a great fan of Schwartz. In fact, the only time he gave permission to change lyrics was an act of kindness. “Arthur called. He wanted to do a new score for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He wasn’t working, it would never be produced, and I wasn’t going to tell him no.” Schwartz was developing the piece when he died.
In 1958, Fields wrote the (6) Tony winning musical Redhead with Albert Hague. Years of unrealized projects followed before Cy Coleman appeared with Sweet Charity (8 nominations, one win for choreography). The lyricist’s final show was 1974’s Seesaw (also Coleman – 5 nominations, 3 wins.)
“On her last phone call to me the afternoon of her death, we discussed the Tony Award Luncheon to which she’d just been. My mother was active and had a production running…” Best possible scenario – to die with ones boots on.
Unfortunately,giving Budd three long numbers left Granat rushed to bring the show in on time. We hear no songs from Fields’ last three efforts and nothing about the end of her life.
See you September 27 for Duke Ellington – Special Guest Mercedes Ellington.
Top photo: Julie Budd, David Lahm, Harvey Granat (Courtesy of Harvey Granat)
Harvey Granat Songs & Stories: Dorothy Fields Part II
Harvey Granat, Host/Vocalist
Special Guests Dorothy Fields’ son, David Lahm (also MD/Pianist) and Vocalist Julie Budd
June 14, 2018
92Y at 92nd and Lexington Avenue
Venue Calendar
