Harvey Granat presents: Carole Bayer Sager
Host Harvey Granat is a producer, performer and educator. His skillful accompanist is Rob Kelly.
Fifty years a professional, Carole Bayer Sager is an Academy Award, Tony, Grammy, and Golden Globe award winning lyricist. She collaborated with Marvin Hamlisch on the musical They’re Playing Our Song based on their relationship; has been inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the New York University Alumni Association, is honored by the LA Chapter of the Recording Academy. She’s Granat’s cousin.
Today’s vocalist guests include:
Popular cabaret singer Marissa Mulder, winner of the Noel Coward and Julie Wilson Awards, a MAC award for Major Artist and Album Of The Year (Tom…In His Words) and a Bistro Award for vocalist of the year. The appealing artist has three CD’s available for purchase: Two Tickets Left, Tom…In His Words, and Illusions on ITUNES, Cdbaby.com, and Amazon.
Cheryl Segall was selected as part of the Distinguished Artists Concert Series for the Town of Oyster Bay. In addition, she regularly does shows at libraries and cultural centers. The artist has an active vocal teaching practice, working with many young people who have serious interest in singing. Her approach combines vocal instruction and life coaching with a goal to train her student musically and to instill self confidence in them as a person. She’s the Host’s daughter.
Granat introduces Sager as one of America’s leading lyricists. Scheduling having precluded her appearance in his series up till now, he’s grateful to finally present her – from her home in Beverly Hills. Today’s session opens with a video of “That’s What Friends Are For” (written with Burt Bacharach) from 1990’s Dionne (Warwick) and Friends television special: Keep smiling, keep shining/Knowing you can always count on me, for sure/. That’s what friends are for… Artists and audience alike sway.
Sager tells us she’d invited close friend Elizabeth Taylor to the recording session. “I turned to Burt and said we should give the money from the recording to AIDS research. He thought it was a wonderful idea.” (In 1985, Taylor had joined with Dr. Mathilde Krim and a small group of physicians and scientists to form the American Foundation for AIDS Research -amfAR)
Born in Manhattan, Sager used to write her own lyrics to pop tunes she heard. The teenager’s first collaborative song, “A Groovy Kind of Love” (with Toni Wine) was released as a single in England while she still attended The High School of Music and Art. It became a hit and circled back to the states. (Her own favorite version is that of Phil Collins.) Sager was afraid it might be a one-shot. There was nothing else besides lyric writing for which she felt the same passion.
Granat asks about Peter Allen. “He was such a great personality as well as a talented songwriter,” she responds, “A larger than life person and a wonderful performer who died way too young of AIDS. One of the first songs we wrote was ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud.’ Clive Davis asked Melissa Manchester to record it which was odd because she and I were writing together too. It was a big hit. Ten years later, a musical about Peter’s life, The Boy From Oz opened on Broadway starring Hugh Jackman. I ended up having written half the score.”
The guest tells us she first became aware of Manchester at a Bette Midler concert. The vocalist was then one of three of Divine Miss M’s back-up singers The Harlettes. Sager asked Musical Director Barry Manilow for her phone number in hopes of using Manchester to record a demo. After getting together, she chanced to ask whether she wrote. Manchester did.
“There’s a Carole/Peter song I fell in love with the first time I heard it,” Granat says. “It’s `You and Me (We Wanted It All.)’: You and me, / we wanted it all we wanted it all/Passion without pain/ sunshine without rainy days… “We wrote it praying Frank Sinatra would record it. He loved it, but we were asked to wait. It would be two years, but who turns down Frank Sinatra?!” Sager remarks. Granat sings the song. It’s palpably warm, resonant and rueful, one of his best renditions.
“Enter Marvin Hamlisch,” Granat says. “He was one of the most facile composers I ever worked with. If things were going well, we could write a song in fifteen minutes,” Sager recalls. This is a little like not acknowledging that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, and backwards. Both writers were evidently quick and precise.
Sager had been sent to the composer to co-write a song for a television project. He was on his way to London to score a James Bond film. “If I were writing for Bond,” she told him (carpe diem), “it would be a song called ‘Nobody Does It Better.’” Hamlisch lit up, went to the piano and began to play. He convinced the Broccolis (Bond producers) to take a chance on the greatly untried writer. “We finished the song long distance.” The two became a couple.
Marissa Mulder (Jon Weber MD) performs the song with marvelous, pop-inflected phrasing, eliciting empathy. Sager was then offered her own album. The record label hadn’t heard her sing and the writer was concerned. Still, she was nothing if not proactive. One recording became two. The first gave us “Come In From the Rain” (written with Melissa Manchester). “We were writing about two different things,” Sager muses. “Melissa, about a man and me about myself.”
Cheryl Segall performs the song. The vocalist puts her whole self into emphatically communicating. She follows with “Between the Moon and New York City” (written with Peter Allen for the score of Arthur). When you get caught between the moon and New York City/I know it’s crazy/But it’s true/If you get caught between the moon and New York City/The best that you can do/The best that you can do is fall in love…
When Hamlisch was scoring the film Ice Castles, Sager contributed lyrics for title song, “In the Eyes of Love.” Mulder imbues this with an ingénue quality. She’s absolutely still (not stiff), so taken with emotion we feel every nuance. Weber is soulful. “If you’re doing a film project,” Granat asks Sager, “do you read the script?” “Not often,” comes the surprising reply, “Mostly I meet with the director and ask what they’re looking for. Sometimes I see a rough cut. You don’t want to reveal anything about what hasn’t been seen in the movie yet.”
Hamlisch was starting to collaborate with Neil Simon on the musicalization of The Gingerbread Lady when the two men got into a conversation about the composer’s personal relationship with the lyricist. Thinking that a good idea for a musical, the playwright took Sager to lunch and pelted her with questions. He then asked how she felt about his writing what became the charming They’re Playing Our Song. She was to say the least, enthusiastic. So many years later, one can sense her excitement at the time.
Early on Sager had failed with a show based on Georgy Girl that closed in three days. This was such a pleasurable and easy experience she found herself wondering whether it could be any good. They opened in California. “It was such a small cast that by the time we transferred to New York, we’d made our money back. The show ran on Broadway 3 ½ years,” Sager relates.
From it, Mulder performs one of Hamlisch’s favorite songs, “If He Really Knew Me.” She’s tender and plaintive. The composer would often sing it himself in concert as “If You Really Knew Me.” Sager acknowledges writing the lyric as much for him as for the character.
Segall returns with “I’d Rather Leave While I’m in Love” (written with Peter Allen) once again making full investment. There’s the catch of a sob in her voice. Granat then brings our attention to Sager’s memoir, They’re Playing Our Song. “Was it therapeutic to write?” he inquires. The book covers both private and professional life. “I thought there’s no sense in doing it if it’s just going to be glossy,” Sager replies. “I think the key is, you don’t marry another songwriter. I’ve been married 30 years now. I finally got it right.”
We close with a Global Citizen video of “The Prayer” (written with David Foster). It’s just beautiful.
Caveat: Performers in this series, including the host himself, are often out of sync with accompanists. This is technically unnecessary, thoroughly distracting and should be corrected by next season. Otherwise, as always, a good time was had by all.
All photos courtesy of Harvey Granat
Harvey Granat 2021 www.92y.org
March 4th On Frank Loesser with Susan Loesser April 22nd On Marilyn and Alan Bergman with special guest Alan Bergman May 13 On Johnny Mercer with Robert Kimball and Stephanie Blythe June 17 On Jule Styne with Barry Kleinbort
Other guests will be announced as confirmed
