Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. You can't Stop.
Speaker 2: And races down hilt.
Speaker 1: You can try to stop this season stir, but you
Speaker 1: know you naw win. It is a skill that feels
Speaker 1: like a gift from the divine. To write an unforgettable song,
Speaker 1: one that gets stuck in your head or makes you
Speaker 1: want to dance is a talent that should be exalted.
Speaker 1: Now imagine it's your life's work for fifty years. That's
Speaker 1: you Can't Stop the Beat from the two thousand and
Speaker 1: two Broadway cast recording of Hairspray, written by my Guest
Speaker 1: Today composer and lyricist Mark Shaman. Shaman is a two
Speaker 1: time Emmy, Grammy, and BAFTA winner, as well as a
Speaker 1: Tony Award recipient. He's also been nominated for seven Academy Awards.
Speaker 1: His five decade career began at just sixteen years of age.
Speaker 1: His work as a composer, lyricist, arranger, and producer spans film, television,
Speaker 1: and theater. In addition to the hit musical Hairspray, Shaman
Speaker 1: is known for co creating the musicals Catch Me If
Speaker 1: You Can, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory and Some Like
Speaker 1: It Hot. His film scores include smash hits like The
Speaker 1: Adams Family, City Slickers, Sister Act, Sleepless in Seattle, and
Speaker 1: the first South Park Movie. Perhaps most famously, Mark Shaman
Speaker 1: was also a frequent collaborator with the late Rob Reiner.
Speaker 1: For Reiner, he penned the scores of classic films like
Speaker 1: When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, The
Speaker 1: American President, and many others. As someone who set out
Speaker 1: to work in the theater, I was curious how Shaman
Speaker 1: and Ryner's paths crossed between New York and.
Speaker 2: La I was lucky enough to work up at Saturday
Speaker 2: Night Live freelance for you know, after the original cast
Speaker 2: left and Paul Schaeffer was, you know, the funny Jewish
Speaker 2: guy at the piano, and then he wasn't there for
Speaker 2: a few years, and so I started getting that call
Speaker 2: to go up there, and so I met Billy Crystal
Speaker 2: and Martin Short, Christopher Guest. I worked their previous years,
Speaker 2: but I worked there a lot that year that they
Speaker 2: came on that one year and really hit it off
Speaker 2: with them all, and Billy Crystal asked me to go
Speaker 2: out on the road with him, and I would play
Speaker 2: for his act, even though it was a comic act.
Speaker 2: He would sing a Sammy Davis Junior, he would sing
Speaker 2: his other things. And also I would underscore some of
Speaker 2: his monologues. And so Rob Reiner came to see that
Speaker 2: kind of heard me underscoring even though there's comedic, but
Speaker 2: he heard that. And then Billy was making when Harry
Speaker 2: met Sally and asked Rob, what are you going to
Speaker 2: do for the music?
Speaker 1: And Rob said, I need.
Speaker 2: A guy who knows like every song from the American Songbook.
Speaker 2: And Billy was like, have I got a guy for you?
Speaker 2: Because Billy is a real mens like that. And I
Speaker 2: went and met Rob and I brought him my Rogers
Speaker 2: and Heart's Songbook because after reading the script, I knew
Speaker 2: that the song if they asked me, I could write
Speaker 2: a book ends with the lyric. Then the world discovers
Speaker 2: as my book ends how to make two Lovers from Friends,
Speaker 2: which seemed perfect for When Harry met Sally and Rob
Speaker 2: said you're hired, and that began a lifelong relationship.
Speaker 1: What did you like about what did you prefer about
Speaker 1: working with him?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I often think about the fact that
Speaker 2: once you've established that you have the talent to do that.
Speaker 2: I know that Rob would say the same thing. It's
Speaker 2: about the hang. I'm sure you understand and know that.
Speaker 2: You know, once everyone knows that, you know you got
Speaker 2: the job and you can do what you can do.
Speaker 2: It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that
Speaker 2: you're with and so you know, Rob and I was
Speaker 2: always a great hang. When he would come over to
Speaker 2: listen to what I was doing, we would sit in
Speaker 2: kibbets for hours and then eventually get around to the music.
Speaker 2: That's what I mostly think of when I think of
Speaker 2: him is just the time together, laughing.
Speaker 1: When you were producing music with him and scoring music
Speaker 1: for his films, was a lot of that worked un
Speaker 1: at Warners. Is that where Castle Rock had their equipment,
Speaker 1: so to speak, where would you go? We went everywhere.
Speaker 2: You know, that's about just whatever recording studio is available
Speaker 2: at the time you're recording. When Harry met Sally was
Speaker 2: the first one, and that one I was just arranging
Speaker 2: and orchestrating existing music, helping to choose the records or
Speaker 2: the songs, and deciding whether to use the recordings or
Speaker 2: create our own. At the same time, Rob's friend Bobby Columbia,
Speaker 2: who used to be the drummer for Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Speaker 2: Bobby Columbia had become an executive at CBS at Columbia Records,
Speaker 2: and he said, I've got this kid named Harry Connick
Speaker 2: Junior who sounds like he'd be perfect for this. So
Speaker 2: I was sent up to Seattle where Harry was doing
Speaker 2: a gig with just this trio. This was before he
Speaker 2: was blew up, you know, because the movie is what
Speaker 2: made that happen, and I think we both kind of
Speaker 2: felt this probably the same with like, well, who's this
Speaker 2: guy who needs Like we both thought I'm the young
Speaker 2: whipper snapper at the piano and figuring it out. And
Speaker 2: the first session when he came down to LA with
Speaker 2: his trio, I had worked it out with Rob. You
Speaker 2: know what song, what tempo, what key it had to
Speaker 2: be in because it had to segue into another record
Speaker 2: or whatever. And that first meeting, that first session, Harry
Speaker 2: was a little like, don't tell me how to you know,
Speaker 2: play or what to play. I'm not just coloring in
Speaker 2: the lines that you've drawn. I mean it was just
Speaker 2: a subtext all day. Arthur Murray, Yeah, yeah, so I
Speaker 2: remember driving home and I think I even called Rob
Speaker 2: and said, see Mondays with the orchestra, it's we can't
Speaker 2: have that kind of like big discussions about everything with
Speaker 2: an orchestra sitting there, you know the clock, you just
Speaker 2: can't have that. I was petrified of what was going
Speaker 2: to happen. Meanwhile, it was that song I could write
Speaker 2: a book, was going to be the first thing we
Speaker 2: were going to record. They had filmed the scene. This
Speaker 2: is where Harry and Sally are at a New Year's
Speaker 2: Eve celebration and they start dancing and they kind of
Speaker 2: realize there's a chemistry there. And so I had said,
Speaker 2: this is a perfect spot for that song, and let's
Speaker 2: make sure that lyric about make two lovers of friends
Speaker 2: falls right at that perfect moment. And I had orchestrated
Speaker 2: and I had, you know, adored Nelson Riddle's orchestrations for
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra. You know that was my you know, the king,
Speaker 2: and so I created a Frank Sinatra Nelson Riddle style
Speaker 2: orchestration for this one moment. And then Harry was behind me.
Speaker 2: I can't see him, but I counted the orchestra and
Speaker 2: he starts singing and whatever had happened the previous Friday
Speaker 2: between us dissipated immediately. We were just fell in love.
Speaker 2: It was like he was singing like Frank Sinatra and
Speaker 2: I was doing my best Nelson riddle and it was.
Speaker 1: Just, you know, it was just together again for the
Speaker 1: first yes.
Speaker 2: So then we made that record. So then Bobby Columbia said, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: a lot of the records that we used in the movie,
Speaker 2: thank god for us, they couldn't get the rights to
Speaker 2: use for soundtrack. It's actually mostly el Fitzgerald, whoever negotiated
Speaker 2: her deals back in the day, made it very different
Speaker 2: about using in a movie and using it on a record.
Speaker 2: So he said, how about you guys just make your
Speaker 2: own record, kind of inspired by the music from when
Speaker 2: Harry met Sally, here's a couple of dollars. So Harry
Speaker 2: and I went off to New York and we recorded
Speaker 2: that album, which blew up.
Speaker 1: All Sinatra standards.
Speaker 2: No, it was just all the songs that were in
Speaker 2: the movie, some of them Sinatra, one of the biggest
Speaker 2: one being It Had to Be You. And that made
Speaker 2: Harry connic Junior a star, and it made both of
Speaker 2: us suddenly the co producers of a of a platinum
Speaker 2: plus album, and it just that's how it all started.
Speaker 2: And at the same time I was working with Bette Midler,
Speaker 2: so that was Beaches, and the same kind of thing
Speaker 2: happened there. An album where I was arranging and orchestrating
Speaker 2: blew up and I suddenly had these two albums and
Speaker 2: these two movies, and then damn, it just started one
Speaker 2: after another.
Speaker 1: I'm shooting Goes to Mississippi with Rob and Rob was
Speaker 1: you know, the actress director, as people mentioned all the time,
Speaker 1: and on the refaget he says to me, you mind
Speaker 1: if I put the camera in the back of the church,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put the in the court room. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put a way in the back, big master of all
Speaker 1: you guys doing. And you got your big speech, would
Speaker 1: you do it one more time for me? May maybe
Speaker 1: do it twice? It was like a three page or
Speaker 1: two in page monologue court summation. You're gonna put the
Speaker 1: camera in the back of shoot you might we do that.
Speaker 1: We'll do like maybe two takes. I go, yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds great to be You see what I mean? You
Speaker 1: got a great piece of dialogue speech. You do it
Speaker 1: over and over again because you know your next movie,
Speaker 1: you're gonna say one line the whole day. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be get down, everybody, get down. So when you're a
Speaker 1: real dialogue, you know you really like it. And then
Speaker 1: he says to Diane lad comes to work one day,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget that's gonna be worshiped. Her worship She
Speaker 1: has a dog. And she says, and she goes, now, Rob, wow,
Speaker 1: would I give him the gun? It makes no sense, Rob,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't just hand him the wrath of this piece
Speaker 1: of evidence that her husband had hidden. He was the
Speaker 1: judge in the case. So Rob sits down with Diane
Speaker 1: Ladd on a piece of furniture on this set and
Speaker 1: talks to her for like forty five minutes. He trys
Speaker 1: to be goes, would you give me a minute? And
Speaker 1: I leave? And he talks to her and he and
Speaker 1: when it's over, he looks, he goes, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to do this sooner or later. Might as well get
Speaker 1: it out of the way. Sooner, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: She had to go through her process, regardless of how
Speaker 1: many gears she was grinding to a halt. And I
Speaker 1: was amazed how patient he was. I didn't expect him
Speaker 1: to be that patient because he seems so.
Speaker 2: That actually surprises me because the one thing I would
Speaker 2: never say.
Speaker 1: That he was patient.
Speaker 2: He was with Diane Love when you say he was
Speaker 2: an actors director, so I know when he would come
Speaker 2: over to me, Misery was the next movie, and now
Speaker 2: I was really composing my own music, and he would
Speaker 2: always like what he heard, but sometimes he would say
Speaker 2: can I go here?
Speaker 1: And then he would sing a note.
Speaker 2: And it took a few movies for me to finally
Speaker 2: say to him, Rob, if you're going to keep singing
Speaker 2: giving me line readings with notes, I'm going to send
Speaker 2: you to a voice teacher to exactly span your reign.
Speaker 1: Now, when you did Misery was I told you had
Speaker 1: some doubts about that because it was kind of a
Speaker 1: dark movie.
Speaker 2: Or well, so I had done when Harry met Sally.
Speaker 2: I had learned how music gets put in a movie.
Speaker 2: And then Rob came to see an HBO special that
Speaker 2: Billy Crystal made where I got to score like five
Speaker 2: minutes of it in a real cinematic fashion, and he
Speaker 2: called me the next morning and said, hey, buddy, you
Speaker 2: want to do my next movie. It's a psychological thriller.
Speaker 2: Called misery, and of course I want to say yes.
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to say no, but I was petrified.
Speaker 2: I was like, why would he? I don't know that
Speaker 2: I can do that, especially a psychological thriller. I mean
Speaker 2: I would understain if someone thought, hey, you want to
Speaker 2: do a burlesque, a movie about Vaudeville, I would get.
Speaker 2: And I had just gotten with an agent, and even
Speaker 2: my agent, Richard said to Rob, Rob, are you sure
Speaker 2: he can do this? What makes you think he can
Speaker 2: do this? And Rob said, Richard, talent is talent. And
Speaker 2: that became Richard, my agent's mantra on all these other
Speaker 2: jobs he started getting me where no one had heard
Speaker 2: anything I'd ever written. He would just give them the
Speaker 2: Rob Reiner talent is talent. So I've robbed the thank
Speaker 2: for that, and then I also have robbed the thank
Speaker 2: for that. I used to smoke dope constantly.
Speaker 1: Why I met reference to this?
Speaker 2: I read this, Yeah, so I you know I smoked
Speaker 2: ope before a movie, before a meal, before sex.
Speaker 1: I think I just smoked up while you were composing always.
Speaker 1: So what were you the most stoned on? What's the
Speaker 1: music that is unearthed from your deepest level.
Speaker 2: Of stone, No nothing, nothing that's on in a movie,
Speaker 2: because I just thought I had to get stone before
Speaker 2: I could write or arrange music. And by the second
Speaker 2: or third day of trying to write misery, and I
Speaker 2: was so petrified. Anyway, I couldn't wake up at ten
Speaker 2: in the morning and take a few tokes. I'd want
Speaker 2: to go to sleep by noon, and I had to
Speaker 2: work until ten at night. I mean, writing a movie
Speaker 2: score is a big time stop. So I thought, let
Speaker 2: me try one day, can I write music without getting stoned?
Speaker 2: And I did? And then it was another day and another,
Speaker 2: and then I thought, let me get through the end
Speaker 2: of the week, and so Rob Reiner helped me quit
Speaker 2: pot cold turkey.
Speaker 1: God did you find that when you were stone? Sometimes?
Speaker 1: And then you would come back and revisit and you
Speaker 1: weren't stone. Was the music not what it might have been? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think it was Hemingway maybe who said write drunk
Speaker 2: and edit sober.
Speaker 1: Talk about Ben Midler, because you have collaborations with people
Speaker 1: where they're doing shows. One thing was like Billy Crystal
Speaker 1: does his farewell on Leno and you came in. That's
Speaker 1: that's on Leno shows.
Speaker 2: Both of Leno's farewells. Okay, there were many of them.
Speaker 1: You're going on there and what are you doing to
Speaker 1: help contribute to the.
Speaker 2: Show writing the special lyrics. I mean, that's something I've
Speaker 2: done with Billy. You know, we did all those Oscar medleys,
Speaker 2: the medleys, so for both those Leno appearances. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: second one, the one that was the actual farewell, that
Speaker 2: was we wrote for Carol Burnett and Oprah and Kim
Speaker 2: Kardashian and it was quite a group of people who
Speaker 2: sang so long farewell. We wrote new lyrics the sound
Speaker 2: of Yeah. So that's just something Billy and I do
Speaker 2: all the constantly. You know. The greatest one was with
Speaker 2: Bette Midler on the final Johnny Carson. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: a memory of mine. Will it's just you.
Speaker 1: Never thought you'd cry from Johnny Carson. Yeah, what do
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: You know that the song again one for my Baby
Speaker 2: went for the Road. And that's the kind of other
Speaker 2: kind of gig that I do a lot, or did
Speaker 2: a lot where Bet called and said they asked me
Speaker 2: to be the last guest.
Speaker 1: What song should I sing?
Speaker 2: And I remember I was taking a shower after getting
Speaker 2: off the phone with her, and I thought it's quarter
Speaker 2: to three, there's no one in the place. It's about
Speaker 2: your singing to a bartender who's been listening to you
Speaker 2: talk and talk and he just wants to go home.
Speaker 1: And I thought it's perfect. Now you're in a bar
Speaker 1: with him, you know.
Speaker 2: So I called Bet dripping wet, I've got it the
Speaker 2: perfect song, and she always says, yeah, what else she got?
Speaker 2: But she came over and we worked it out.
Speaker 1: Quarter to three, there's no one in the place, six
Speaker 1: cent you and me, so set them up.
Speaker 2: Joe got a little story I think you should know.
Speaker 2: And we did change a few of the lyrics at
Speaker 2: the end, which was rather ballsy of us to change
Speaker 2: Johnny Mercer lyrics, But we addressed Johnny Carson specifically in
Speaker 2: the last verse, for all of the years, for the last,
Speaker 2: for the tears for the class that you showed, tears.
Speaker 1: For the class that you showed.
Speaker 3: Make it one for my baby and one.
Speaker 1: For the road.
Speaker 2: Had long.
Speaker 1: Road.
Speaker 2: And you know that moment was just I'll never ever
Speaker 2: forget it.
Speaker 1: The most compelling thing about that, because I've seen that
Speaker 1: many many times, is how attentive he has. Meaning here's
Speaker 1: a guy who had the attention span sometimes not every show.
Speaker 1: If he liked you when you were an old pal
Speaker 1: and he's right there with Dean Martin and those kinds
Speaker 1: of icons, but at other times he had the attention
Speaker 1: span of a TITSI flock and you'd sit there, but
Speaker 1: he's locked into her eyes. He doesn't move. He thinks
Speaker 1: he's you'd think he's carry Grant with ingrad Bergman, and
Speaker 1: that the director kind of knew that that was maybe
Speaker 1: going to happen, because that angle that had never been
Speaker 1: used before over Bett's shoulder of Carson watching and listening.
Speaker 2: It's so you're just mesmerized by it and exactly what
Speaker 2: you're saying.
Speaker 1: He's so locked in. Composer and lyricist Mark Shaman. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy conversations with composers whose careers began at a
Speaker 1: young age, check out my episode with Paul Williams.
Speaker 3: Most pop songwriters writing for a film or a stage play.
Speaker 3: When I have a hit, of course, we all want
Speaker 3: to have a hit. But because I come from an
Speaker 3: acting background, I want to advance this story and I
Speaker 3: want to expose something of the inner life of the
Speaker 3: character I'm writing for. That was the whole point with Kermlin.
Speaker 3: There is that he has a spiritual life. You know,
Speaker 3: I was never a kid that within a gang that
Speaker 3: had a tree house. When I walked on the set
Speaker 3: of The Muppet Show, I was with a gang that
Speaker 3: had a treehouse.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Paul Williams, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Mark
Speaker 1: Shaman talks about how he wound up living in Bette
Speaker 1: Midler's guest room at age seventeen. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: this is Here's the Thing. Sixteen years old, Mark Shaman
Speaker 1: decided to leave school and begin working in the New
Speaker 1: York theater scene. This bold decision paid off handsomely. It
Speaker 1: wasn't long before Mark found himself playing at Downtown theaters
Speaker 1: and eventually the stages of Saturday Night Live. Incredibly, before
Speaker 1: he'd even turned eighteen, Shaman would find himself arranging music
Speaker 1: for his childhood idol. I wanted to know how he
Speaker 1: managed to kickstart his career at such a tender age.
Speaker 2: I went to New York with a friend, I Witman,
Speaker 2: I met Well, I met Scott Whitman there, which was
Speaker 2: amazing because I just went to see a musical that
Speaker 2: was at the Actors playhouse that used to be there
Speaker 2: in Sheridan Square called Boy Meets Boy. It was like
Speaker 2: a nineteen thirty style musical, but about two guys. This
Speaker 2: is back in like nineteen oh exactly nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: and we ran into some other friends from New Jersey
Speaker 2: on the street and we said, oh, let's let's step
Speaker 2: into this little place here and catch up. And there
Speaker 2: was a piano in there, and so I was sixteen
Speaker 2: and full of you know, vim and vigor, and I
Speaker 2: went to the piano and started playing, and just like
Speaker 2: out of an old black and white movie, the bartender
Speaker 2: was sweeping up and he stopped and he went, hey, kid,
Speaker 2: you're good, wait right here. And he went down to
Speaker 2: the duplex two doors down where there was a comedy
Speaker 2: group that was looking for a funnier piano player than
Speaker 2: who they had. And they came in and said, can
Speaker 2: you play together wherever we go from Gypsy? And I
Speaker 2: played it like it is in the musical. They said no, no, no,
Speaker 2: can you play it cheesy? I said, oh, you mean
Speaker 2: like out of bar Mitzvah, like or how Steve and
Speaker 2: Edie would do it on a merv Griffin where we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They were like, that's it, You're hired. And John Michelle,
Speaker 2: the guy who was sweeping up behind the bar, he
Speaker 2: also hired me that very afternoon to play at Maurice's
Speaker 2: Crisis because of I guess, the way I played piano.
Speaker 2: No one could imagine that I was only sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: Oh so your talent that the piano obscured your age,
Speaker 1: you believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you see pictures of me, I'm.
Speaker 1: A very boyish face when you were younger, and imagine
Speaker 1: you were very boyish. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: I was like I was a pimple on two legs.
Speaker 2: I remember that cli so. But John Michelle hired me,
Speaker 2: never asked me how old I was. And when I
Speaker 2: turned seventeen that October, I lied and said, it's my
Speaker 2: birthday and I'm turning eighteen, so I have been here.
Speaker 2: Well I shouldn't have been. They didn't seem to care,
Speaker 2: but I was lying. I was only turning seventeen. That
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve, they lowered me from the balcony in
Speaker 2: a diaper, and that's when I thought, maybe it's time
Speaker 2: to move on to another job. But that was my
Speaker 2: start at Maurice Crisis.
Speaker 1: Where'd you go from there.
Speaker 2: I was very lucky my fairy tale. I just adored
Speaker 2: Bet Midler. When Boogie Woogie Biggle Boy came on the
Speaker 2: radio when I was like thirteen and a kid in
Speaker 2: New Jersey, I became obsessed with her, truly obsessed, like
Speaker 2: posters on the wall, lifting money from my father's wallet
Speaker 2: and cutting school to go see her in concert on Broadway.
Speaker 2: And then Scott whit who was the director of that
Speaker 2: comedy act, I started staying at his apartment to play
Speaker 2: for the act on the weekends. And he lived across
Speaker 2: the hall from one of Bette Midler's backup singers who
Speaker 2: were called the Harlettes, and they wanted to do their
Speaker 2: own act. And there I was across the hall, and
Speaker 2: I was at seventeen at that point, and I would
Speaker 2: work for free, and I was right there, and I
Speaker 2: knew the kind of harmonies they wanted from my no no, no, no,
Speaker 2: These are you know, beyond it, beyond yeah, legit. So
Speaker 2: I became their musical director. Then Bett said, girls, I'm
Speaker 2: doing another tour. I'll let you do a whole opening
Speaker 2: act if you come back, and also be my backup singers.
Speaker 2: So I was flowing to La and after having the
Speaker 2: fantasy of running down a n aisle to Bette Midler,
Speaker 2: when I went to see her in concert, saying oh,
Speaker 2: miss Midler, I knew every note of every song, of
Speaker 2: every arrangement on every record, Please let me play for you.
Speaker 2: I was flowing to La I taught Bett's band the
Speaker 2: Harlett's material, and then in walks Bette Midler and I'm
Speaker 2: just like a year and a half away from having
Speaker 2: her posters on the wall, and I'm watching her rehearse,
Speaker 2: and she calls out a song to the band that
Speaker 2: she wants to do from her third album, but the
Speaker 2: music is in on their music stands, and one of
Speaker 2: the hard lets goes over to Bet and says, you
Speaker 2: see him back, and Steve Harrington moment very and Bet
Speaker 2: said do you know how to play? No gesturing, And
Speaker 2: I got to actually walk up to a stage and say, oh,
Speaker 2: miss Midler, I know every note of every song of
Speaker 2: every arrangement on every record, Please let me play for you.
Speaker 2: So my dream came true. I hadn't even turned eighteen
Speaker 2: and you're seventeen. Yeah. And because she's a frugal gal,
Speaker 2: she said, you know, stick around. I could use you,
Speaker 2: but instead of putting me in a hotel, she put
Speaker 2: me in her guest room of her rented house that
Speaker 2: she was staying at. So and it wasn't even it
Speaker 2: wasn't even a guest house in the backyard.
Speaker 1: La.
Speaker 2: I was living with Bete Midler suddenly for the Maize.
Speaker 1: Crisis to Bette Miller's house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which was was sort of the same material, only
Speaker 2: only the right person was singing at her piano. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What is about her that you sustained? I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: people have these batteries, these linkages between people, and you
Speaker 1: have this profound relationship with her. What was it about
Speaker 1: her that you admire the most?
Speaker 2: Well, I just love the way she performs, as anyone
Speaker 2: who's seen her does. You know the fact that she
Speaker 2: does it all, that she can be so funny and
Speaker 2: then heartbreaking, and how she can turn it on a dime,
Speaker 2: how she can change you know, she's just so in
Speaker 2: command and she's just the greatest.
Speaker 1: She's the opposite of what my friend said about Chicago.
Speaker 1: My friend said that a famous actress came in she
Speaker 1: did the piece to play Roxy in Chicago, and in
Speaker 1: that cycle of famous dames that came into the show,
Speaker 1: and he said, she walks in and she leaves, and
Speaker 1: everyone's sitting there quietly, and he turns to me and goes,
Speaker 1: she can't sing, she can't dance, she can't act. She's
Speaker 1: a star. Well that can awesome, which as bad as
Speaker 1: the opposite. She can sing and dance and act.
Speaker 2: Yes, And we have a similar personality of you know,
Speaker 2: like the title of my book, never mind the Happy
Speaker 2: that comes from my mother. One New Year's Day, my
Speaker 2: sister said, ma, I want to be the first to
Speaker 2: wish you a happy and healthy New Year. And my
Speaker 2: mother defined judaism when she said, never mind that happy.
Speaker 2: So that's in.
Speaker 1: My where'd you grow up again?
Speaker 2: Jersey in New Jersey?
Speaker 1: Right over there? Yeah, over there?
Speaker 2: And so Bet had had her father was a similar
Speaker 2: kind of personality, and we both just clicked that way
Speaker 2: and argue that way. You know, we have a real
Speaker 2: brother sister relationship.
Speaker 1: Was she right a lot of the time? What did
Speaker 1: she be alone on you being by most of the time?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, her taste is impeccable, but like I
Speaker 2: mentioned before, she's always saying what else you got? She's
Speaker 2: just always second guessing? Was a cover every best Even
Speaker 2: that night on the Johnny Carson show. On the final one,
Speaker 2: she asked the band that afternoon, what's his favorite song?
Speaker 2: And they all said, Here's that Rainy Day? And I
Speaker 2: could see the wheels turning in her. Even then, she
Speaker 2: was still doubting, should we really do one for my baby?
Speaker 2: And sure enough, during that show, she starts singing Here's
Speaker 2: that Rainy Day with him, and he starts singing with her,
Speaker 2: which is a whole other magical moment. But I'm backstage
Speaker 2: at the piano because the next thing that's gonna happen
Speaker 2: is one for my baby, and I have a little
Speaker 2: TV monitor on the piano, and I'm having this schizoid
Speaker 2: conversation in my head. On the one hand, I'm going,
Speaker 2: this is magical. What's happening between Bett and Johnny Carson?
Speaker 2: And he's singing, and he's singing in key and she
Speaker 2: the piano players not coming in. Should I join in?
Speaker 2: The other part of my brain is coming She's spoiling.
Speaker 2: She knows if this moment happens, she's not gonna have
Speaker 2: to sing the song that we've planned. And I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I should I should start banging away to make it
Speaker 2: stop or something. But I'm a piano player, I'm a companist.
Speaker 2: I start joining and so I actually got to play
Speaker 2: for Johnny Cartson singing Here's that Rainy Day. And luckily
Speaker 2: they came back and said, okay, we're still set for
Speaker 2: the big ballad at the end. So it all worked out.
Speaker 2: But she's always wondering, what else, what else.
Speaker 1: Could it be? You did a piece with Peter I
Speaker 1: did how We're going to describe it in a minute.
Speaker 1: But when I was in college in gw in Washington
Speaker 1: for the first three years, one woman I dated, she
Speaker 1: really got me turned onto a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: what would be pretty eclectic music for somebody from my
Speaker 1: background who was smoking pot in the woods and massive
Speaker 1: people were listening to Beatles, Zeppelin, Stones, who you know,
Speaker 1: British Invasion, rock and roller in my mind know Clapton
Speaker 1: and Moody Blues and so forth. And she turned me
Speaker 1: on too, Peter Allen and it's Live with Peter rolland
Speaker 1: and Boss Skags I never heard of, and they turned
Speaker 1: me on him, who I love. And it always takes
Speaker 1: me back to Hugh Jackman and here he's playing Wolverine
Speaker 1: and all the psychotic craziness and murderers and superheroes, and
Speaker 1: he plays Peter Allen on broad I find that rain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is breathtaking. Describe how you met him and how
Speaker 1: you we were involved with him.
Speaker 2: That was another out of the blue. I got a
Speaker 2: phone call from Craig Zayden and Neil Meren. Craig was
Speaker 2: going to direct Peter Allen was doing a Broadway concert
Speaker 2: called Up and One that was basically just a concert,
Speaker 2: but it had a kind of a story of his
Speaker 2: life through line. And they had heard about me from
Speaker 2: this cabaret and Bette Midler's circuit and they called me
Speaker 2: out of the blue and said, you want to be
Speaker 2: Peter Allen's musical director for the show. I was that time.
Speaker 2: I was ripe old age of nineteen and I was
Speaker 2: was my first Broadway gig. You mentioned Clapton. I have
Speaker 2: to tell you I have a Rob Reiner Clapton story
Speaker 2: on the movie The Story of Us with Bruce Willis
Speaker 2: and Michelle Pfeiffer. Rob said, buddy, Eric Clapton's going to
Speaker 2: write songs for the movie, but would you still help
Speaker 2: figure out how to turn those songs into the underscore?
Speaker 1: And I was like work with Clapton Okay, let me
Speaker 1: get back to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but when you talked about Rob patients in patients
Speaker 2: at the one scoring session, there's a song that Clapton
Speaker 2: wrote that runs throughout the movie, but in the end titles.
Speaker 2: We did like a full record version of it. So
Speaker 2: I had a string section and I had this one
Speaker 2: evocative chord, a very film noir chord over. It seemed
Speaker 2: to fit the lyric and the chord that Clapton had written.
Speaker 2: But it's what we call a C minor major seventh chorded.
Speaker 2: But the first time the strings played it, it sounded
Speaker 2: a little odd because it can be almost discordant.
Speaker 1: Let's say yes.
Speaker 2: And Rob immediately went what's that? And you know, he
Speaker 2: starts rubbing that one side of his head and that
Speaker 2: would only like one side of his head would sweat.
Speaker 2: He said, what's that? I said, just let me work
Speaker 2: with the strings for just a minute to get the
Speaker 2: right balance. And so I'm working for a few ten
Speaker 2: twenty seconds morning He's still like, what is that?
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 2: And I'm still trying to get my nice chord in there.
Speaker 2: And then Eric clapped and strolled out to the conductor's
Speaker 2: stand and said, you know, Mark those chords at measure
Speaker 2: thirty three. I think they're just too attractive. And I
Speaker 2: had to tell the whole orchestra, I said. I was
Speaker 2: just told to get over it, and the nicest way
Speaker 2: I've ever possibly heard, the classiest way.
Speaker 1: To they're just too attractive.
Speaker 2: Which was true. It just meant it's calling your ear
Speaker 2: too much to it. You're calling too much attention.
Speaker 1: To sleeping out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, they him and Rob came over that house once
Speaker 2: to work out stuff. I was also working on the
Speaker 2: South Park movie at the same time, and I need
Speaker 2: to talk about in tense deadlines. I had to finish
Speaker 2: what I was writing to get to the orchestrator and
Speaker 2: Rob and Eric Clapton were just talking, and then Eric
Speaker 2: Clapton had his guitar out and I could tell he
Speaker 2: kind of wanted to just sit and jam with me,
Speaker 2: but I had to get back to the South Park
Speaker 2: and I actually had to tell them both to get lost.
Speaker 2: So my big chance to jam with Eric Clapton, I
Speaker 2: threw it away.
Speaker 1: Well. Speaking of the South Park movie, which I am
Speaker 1: the president of the Film Actors Guild, bag big banner.
Speaker 2: Of that was the second movie.
Speaker 1: Yesaid was that that was the.
Speaker 2: Team America, which I got I got.
Speaker 1: Fired from you got fired?
Speaker 2: Why Well, I'd done South Park bigger, longer, and uncut
Speaker 2: and had the greatest, greatest experience.
Speaker 1: Of my life with the two of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and Trey Parker is you know that
Speaker 2: word that gets thrown around genius.
Speaker 1: He is a genius.
Speaker 2: He can do it all right, music, lyrics, act right,
Speaker 2: wrecked and extremely open and collaborative. So when I got
Speaker 2: involved through Scott Rudin on this on the South Park movie,
Speaker 2: I suddenly was the oldert like professor who would help
Speaker 2: Trey realize his vision of creating a musical and that
Speaker 2: that was just the greatest year maybe I'd ever had
Speaker 2: it in the movies. And then so they know, a
Speaker 2: few years later, he asked me to do Team America
Speaker 2: and in the same way, never came to listen to
Speaker 2: what I was writing, didn't even come through the orchestra sessions.
Speaker 2: He just trusted me. But then like on the third
Speaker 2: after the third day of the recording sessions, the music
Speaker 2: editor played him what I'd been recording and he didn't
Speaker 2: like it. He said, oh, it's too specific to the movie.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be like wallpaper music that they he
Speaker 2: felt like those top Gun movies just kind of got
Speaker 2: library music, you know, that was just being like rolled
Speaker 2: out that it wasn't specific enough to the movie. And
Speaker 2: so I had the most awkward meeting of my life
Speaker 2: where they were like, we want you to start over,
Speaker 2: but we need it in ten days. Do you think
Speaker 2: you can do it? And not only did I not
Speaker 2: know if I could physically do it, but emotionally I
Speaker 2: was so devastated. I was like, if I have to, okay,
Speaker 2: but I think I'd rather just crawl into a hole
Speaker 2: and maybe you get someone else to do it, which
Speaker 2: they did, which didn't make Scott Ruden very happy. And
Speaker 2: Scott Ruden put me under house arrest and I had
Speaker 2: to stay in my house in LA for a full
Speaker 2: month until other people came in, wrote new music, It
Speaker 2: got recorded in case I was needed to be brought
Speaker 2: back in. I wasn't allowed to leave Los Angeles and
Speaker 2: I was prisoner of the house. So that was devastating
Speaker 2: having just had the most glorious experience with them. But
Speaker 2: that's you know, show business. That's the a lot of
Speaker 2: the points into yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like they say you got ten days and he writes
Speaker 1: the score one of the most legendaries.
Speaker 2: In ten days only, I was the guy who they
Speaker 2: fired and got. I wasn't Harry Goldsmith. He wrote it
Speaker 2: in ten days. Yeah, maybe I could have pulled it off,
Speaker 2: but I was just devastated and I just didn't think
Speaker 2: I could.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this because I've made films, and
Speaker 1: I made, you know, bigger studio films and starred in
Speaker 1: those films. I haven't seen them. Well, I don't assume
Speaker 1: that at all. But music can make such a profound
Speaker 1: of course, what I want to go is, fellas, if
Speaker 1: the music isn't anything cut it, Yeah, no music.
Speaker 2: Jerry Goldsmith had a quote that he used to say
Speaker 2: to them, Fellas, I could put makeup on the corpse,
Speaker 2: but I can't make it breathe, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, And don't you do you feel that sometimes people
Speaker 1: are saying to you, I want more music here, you
Speaker 1: know whatever?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I had all sorts of experiences like that.
Speaker 2: But yes, you know, the music. A movie without music,
Speaker 2: it's just it's even the greatest movies you could watch.
Speaker 2: And if you're watch without music, there's just it's naked.
Speaker 2: It's naked. Yeah, it's dry. And then they art is
Speaker 2: knowing where and when not to put music and you
Speaker 2: know how much.
Speaker 1: Are you usually right about that? Or the director of
Speaker 1: both with the editor. It's a collaboration.
Speaker 2: I talk in the book about how on Sleepless in
Speaker 2: Seattle there were two spots that I thought really should
Speaker 2: have music, and Nora Efron was like, I don't think so,
Speaker 2: but you know, go with your instinct and write it.
Speaker 2: And when we went to record the music at that point,
Speaker 2: she her personality had changed over a few weeks and
Speaker 2: I was seeing another side of her and at the
Speaker 2: recording sessions when I recorded those two pieces of music.
Speaker 2: When we were finished, she said, it's very nice music. Mark.
Speaker 2: I just wish I had somewhere in the movie to
Speaker 2: use it.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Demi once said to me we were shooting him, but
Speaker 1: he goes, that's a great idea, he said, just not
Speaker 1: for this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there you go.
Speaker 1: Thank you, telemen.
Speaker 2: So those are two spots in that movie that doesn't
Speaker 2: have music that my agent says sometimes he teaches film
Speaker 2: score classes and he uses those two moments to give
Speaker 2: to the students to say, here are two moments that
Speaker 2: really could use music, but don't have it, so write music.
Speaker 2: There and that way when you send it off to
Speaker 2: a producer and all they get to see a movie,
Speaker 2: they know that, you know, they already seeing movie stars
Speaker 2: and they're hearing music on here. So I'm very happy
Speaker 2: for those students who are getting to write the music
Speaker 2: that I wanted.
Speaker 1: Are you someone who your proximity to the film business
Speaker 1: and your intimate relationship with the film business on this deep,
Speaker 1: deep level of writing this music? And then when you're
Speaker 1: away from that, you don't watch movies, You don't watch
Speaker 1: TV or do you watch programming?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I watch what do you watch?
Speaker 2: Well? I married an avid sports man, so now I
Speaker 2: watch football and is an avid sportsman. What would you
Speaker 2: call an avid sports fan?
Speaker 1: Fan fan not man fan?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I watched sports. If my father was alive, he
Speaker 2: wouldn't believe that when I think of when I used
Speaker 2: to walk into the house and you'd be watching football
Speaker 2: with his friends, and I would just quickly go into
Speaker 2: my little room and my piano. I had no interest
Speaker 2: in football or anything. But now I go to Knicks games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a sports nut. Yes? What is he like everything?
Speaker 2: Anything that involves a sphere being thrown or kicked?
Speaker 1: Violence?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, he loves it all. It's a real odd couple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I take one and look at him.
Speaker 1: He's like a villain in a Bond film. This guy,
Speaker 1: he's so good looking and so built, and I've really
Speaker 1: learned to love it. I really do love watching it all.
Speaker 1: Composer and lyricist Mark Shaman. If you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. When we come back, Mark Shaman tells us
Speaker 1: which of Rob Reiner's films he will always stop to
Speaker 1: watch on TV and why it's the most meaningful of
Speaker 1: his fourteen scores for the late director. I'm Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and this is Here's the Thing. Mark Shaman has written
Speaker 1: and arranged music for countless artists such as Mariah Carey,
Speaker 1: Bette Midler, Harry Connock Junior, and Billy Crystal. Whether for
Speaker 1: late night TV, award shows, concerts, or a Christmas album,
Speaker 1: Shaman adapts to the task at hand. I was curious
Speaker 1: as a musician what differences he found between working with actors,
Speaker 1: singers and comedians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing that makes me think of is I
Speaker 2: did Sister act and Whoopy Goldberg, you would maybe say that, well,
Speaker 2: you're saying about Billy, you know. And when and then
Speaker 2: when we got together this sing it turns out she
Speaker 2: started singing like a white folk singer.
Speaker 1: She was singing like that. I was like, really, yus.
Speaker 2: Not what you would expect to come out of Whoopi Goldberg.
Speaker 2: But I put together two friends, Charlotte Crossley and Jennifer
Speaker 2: leewe Us, who are very funny girls, who were both
Speaker 2: harlets with Bette Midler and our gregarious, funny, great girls,
Speaker 2: and I knew, well, I kind of figured if I
Speaker 2: put them together with Whoope and we rehearse the songs
Speaker 2: for Sister Rac with her, we'll just laugh and we'll
Speaker 2: laugh and we'll have a good time and then she'll
Speaker 2: just forget about being nervous about singing. And that's exactly
Speaker 2: what happened. We had a great time, and when by
Speaker 2: the time it was time to record and film, well,
Speaker 2: we didn't give a fuck anymore about like all the
Speaker 2: other things that she might have been thinking of. We
Speaker 2: were just laughing. We were just had such a good time.
Speaker 2: And of course you've record a lot of takes, and
Speaker 2: you take a note from track one, and you take
Speaker 2: a note from track four. But that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's really a matter of yeah, coaxing sometimes,
Speaker 2: So whoever you work without thean sonia, Ah, now.
Speaker 1: Your first sociore and into Broadbay was what.
Speaker 2: Well. I wanted to write Broadway shows when I was
Speaker 2: in my twenties and but couldn't get a break. And
Speaker 2: me my colyricist and at that time life partner Scott Whitman,
Speaker 2: we were trying to write shows but we just couldn't
Speaker 2: get in there. And it was the time of the
Speaker 2: big British musicals and and then my movie career fell
Speaker 2: on my lap and we were suddenly living in la
Speaker 2: for a year. But then luckily, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: wanted to be Broadway, and then the movies fell on
Speaker 2: my lap, and then the entire nineties I was scoring
Speaker 2: one movie after another. And that was the other reason
Speaker 2: why the South Park movie was the greatest gig ever,
Speaker 2: because not only was it onto itself the greatest gig,
Speaker 2: it suddenly put my name back in the mouths of
Speaker 2: the Broadway crowd. And a woman named Margot Lyon had
Speaker 2: just gotten the rights to Hairspray, the John Waters film,
Speaker 2: and everyone she went to the said, who do you
Speaker 2: think should I should get to do the score for Hairspray?
Speaker 2: And everyone had just come from the South Park movie
Speaker 2: and said, you got to.
Speaker 1: Get Mark Shaman.
Speaker 2: You got to get Mark Shaman. So that movie led
Speaker 2: me to the absolute dream come true, which was writing Hairspray.
Speaker 2: And because Scott had moved to LA with me, and
Speaker 2: I had really torn him away from the theatrical community
Speaker 2: of New York, and I was scoring one movie after
Speaker 2: another and Scott didn't have much to do. Scott is
Speaker 2: quoted as saying in La he learned how to drink
Speaker 2: and drive. Uh. So, when Margo said, you know, I
Speaker 2: would you like to write the music for Hairspray's like yes,
Speaker 2: And she said who would you like to write the lyrics?
Speaker 2: I said, well, me and my partner Scott, and I
Speaker 2: won't do it unless it's me and my partner Scott.
Speaker 1: And they acquiesced.
Speaker 2: Well, she said, well, I don't know you guys. As
Speaker 2: a lyricist, I don't know. And I said, well, the
Speaker 2: South Park movie it says additional music and lyrics, but
Speaker 2: you know, music by was what most people have ever seen,
Speaker 2: and she didn't, and also she was scared of it.
Speaker 2: I think of hiring a couple, you know, like what
Speaker 2: happens if they fight? But yeah, So luckily she said,
Speaker 2: you know, would you write some songs on spec for
Speaker 2: me to hear? And I was like sure, and so
Speaker 2: Scott and I immediately started working and we The four
Speaker 2: songs we wrote are a Good Morning Baltimore, Welcome to
Speaker 2: the Sixties, big Blonde, and Beautiful and I Know Where
Speaker 2: I've Been, which are still now kind of the four
Speaker 2: tent poles of that musical, which is shows you what
Speaker 2: a fairy tale it was in that Usually the first
Speaker 2: songs you write for show get discarded along the way
Speaker 2: as you start to discover what's needed. But the first
Speaker 2: four songs we wrote are still like those strong Snakes ones. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then that just became just the greatest dream come true. Well,
Speaker 2: we wrote a musical with Marty Short Marty Short, Fame
Speaker 2: Becomes Me, which was a one man show but with
Speaker 2: a cast, and I was on stage within and that
Speaker 2: was a thrill, although it was tough because it was
Speaker 2: the kind of inside baseball kind of thing about how
Speaker 2: Broadway was full of all these one person shows, and
Speaker 2: so Marty was spoofing the idea that he had a
Speaker 2: one person showing him for all the trials and tribulations
Speaker 2: of his life, because he's the happiest man on earth,
Speaker 2: so it's not really true. And then catch Me if
Speaker 2: you Can was the next one Scott and I did,
Speaker 2: which you know.
Speaker 1: Was based on the film Yeah who Comes Ringing Your
Speaker 1: doorbit of Spielberg ring the bell or.
Speaker 2: Something, and that in this case, Scott and I we
Speaker 2: went to the drama bookstore to get a copy of
Speaker 2: Stage Door. Someone had asked us this if we would
Speaker 2: be interested in writing musical stage Door, which is the
Speaker 2: old Katherine Heppern movie The Catada Lizar and Bloom. I
Speaker 2: hope all your readers and listeners will now you now
Speaker 2: did as far as I'm coogle stage Door and you
Speaker 2: just can do anything. So so we went to get
Speaker 2: that play, but there was a coffee table book out
Speaker 2: elsewhere in the drama bookstore of Catch Me if you Can,
Speaker 2: about the making of it. And Scott looked at that
Speaker 2: and the pictures of pan Am stewardesses and Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 2: and all the different disguises, and he said, I'd rather
Speaker 2: write a musical of that. And because I knew Steven
Speaker 2: Spieople only through Marty short Christmas parties. One year, he
Speaker 2: brought his clarinet and I played hanakkah ohonnakah while him
Speaker 2: and Cape capp Shaw he played the clarinet and she danced.
Speaker 2: So I felt like I had worked with him. So
Speaker 2: I asked Marty to give me like a phone number
Speaker 2: or email or whatever, and I just wrote Steven Spierberg directly.
Speaker 2: I said, we have this idea to do a musical
Speaker 2: of Castrini if you can. So I completely didn't go
Speaker 2: through agents or lawyers. I just went straight to the
Speaker 2: man and we got the rights. And how did that go?
Speaker 2: It didn't have a long run. It gets done all
Speaker 2: the time now and I go to see it. We
Speaker 2: had this idea that it was Frank Junior was putting
Speaker 2: on his life as if it was a television variety
Speaker 2: show from like nineteen sixty four, which was still the
Speaker 2: peak time of like Show Business on TV where Sinatra
Speaker 2: and Judy Garland, where it wasn't cheesy yet it wasn't
Speaker 2: like you know the bad seventies, you know Brady Bunch
Speaker 2: variety kind of shows. But we couldn't transplant it on stage.
Speaker 2: We never quite figured it out with our collaborators. So
Speaker 2: we all adore, but we just didn't quite this flay
Speaker 2: didn't completely rise. I mean, I'm very proud of the score.
Speaker 2: I love it very much, and it gets done all
Speaker 2: the time now, and I do go to see it,
Speaker 2: Scott says. When we go to see it, sometimes it's
Speaker 2: like a football coach bringing us into the locker room
Speaker 2: after the game and showing us footage of the game
Speaker 2: with a laser point, or going that's where you went wrong.
Speaker 2: If we got a chance to do it again, I
Speaker 2: think I would know how to like fix it, make
Speaker 2: it or even better. But it's still good. Who directed
Speaker 2: Jack O'Brien right.
Speaker 1: But the question also is what I'm told I don't
Speaker 1: know this is intimately maybe as you do. But my friends,
Speaker 1: I think said to somebody said to me that there's
Speaker 1: only four new musicals on Broadbay this year. What's you know,
Speaker 1: whither the Broadway Musical the New Broadway Musical, because they're
Speaker 1: going to have four in that every show that's on
Speaker 1: is going to get nominated. They got four slots.
Speaker 2: If only I had because we did some like it
Speaker 2: hot it was three years ago and we were just
Speaker 2: at the beginning of coming out of COVID and although
Speaker 2: we smelled like a hit, everyone thought we were this
Speaker 2: big hit and we ran for a year, but it
Speaker 2: should have run for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: But it's so expensive. Now, yeah, that's your critique of
Speaker 1: because I would ask you, what's your critique of brought
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: Well, the last two shows I've done, people were really
Speaker 2: enjoying them, but we couldn't make enough money to pay
Speaker 2: what it cost the weekly. The money is just the
Speaker 2: math as.
Speaker 1: I wonder why they can't find a way to bring
Speaker 1: that down.
Speaker 2: I don't know, And it's only going to keep getting
Speaker 2: worse because if you talk to the actors or the
Speaker 2: stage crew, they're like, you know, and the orchestra, and
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, you understand why they're fighting for what
Speaker 2: they want in the next deal. But somehow it's just
Speaker 2: just blown up out of proportion that there is no
Speaker 2: kind of middle. You know, if you look at classic musicals,
Speaker 2: they only ran for like a year and a half,
Speaker 2: like The Music Man or whatever.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like now where.
Speaker 2: They have to if they don't run for ten years,
Speaker 2: it's considered a flop.
Speaker 1: Everyone's chasing it.
Speaker 2: It's just impossible. So not many get to grabbed that
Speaker 2: brass ring the way that you could back in the day.
Speaker 1: Who are people out there that you admire? Alfred Newman,
Speaker 1: you know, John Williams, any contemporaries. I mean, who's somebody
Speaker 1: now that you like? You think there's work is good.
Speaker 2: There's a great guy. The last time I was nominated
Speaker 2: for an Oscar, I lost to Ludwig Gorenson for what
Speaker 2: he had written for Black Panther, and I had written
Speaker 2: for Mary Poppins' Returns, and I kind of thought maybe.
Speaker 1: Black Panther, Mary Poppins.
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, it was my, it was my.
Speaker 2: It was my seventh nomination. I thought this might be
Speaker 2: like my Susan Lucci moment. But Ludwig one. But he's
Speaker 2: a sweet guy and he's brilliant. He just did Sinners
Speaker 2: he so he's someone I very much admire. And he's
Speaker 2: also so sweet and so nice and just such a
Speaker 2: great guy.
Speaker 1: So there were pieces in the classical repertoire that I
Speaker 1: just weep. Saw Organ Symphony, whatever, there's the alot of
Speaker 1: thing a Dvoreshoch, New World whatever. I'm a classical nut
Speaker 1: are the pieces you've written or the pieces you've been
Speaker 1: involved the movies and scenes with the picture in the
Speaker 1: move music match which brings you to tears like they're
Speaker 1: really powerful to you.
Speaker 2: The one that and obviously now more than ever is
Speaker 2: the American President with Rob Reiner, and god knows, because
Speaker 2: of what's happened in America, all these things converge to
Speaker 2: make that piece of music. I got to write for
Speaker 2: that movie very very meaningful to me, and I'll.
Speaker 1: Try not to start weeping, but.
Speaker 2: It was a beautiful movie and I got to write
Speaker 2: music that was just full of the respect that one
Speaker 2: used to have for the American President. Yeah, exactly, And
Speaker 2: it works so well. And it's one movie of mine
Speaker 2: that I could if I channel hop up across it,
Speaker 2: I'll stick with it.
Speaker 1: Michael Douglas was phenomenally phenomena.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So the music for that one is meaningful
Speaker 2: to me on so many levels. So and I did
Speaker 2: you know, I did a concert last year and see
Speaker 2: and Diego and I'm at the piano and kibbitzing with
Speaker 2: the audience. But for that one piece, I did get
Speaker 2: up and conduct the orchestra, which is a very hard thing.
Speaker 2: To do conducting an orchestra and making them go at
Speaker 2: the speed that you want. That's a real talent that
Speaker 2: I don't really have because I'm in a companist. So
Speaker 2: I let them lead, which you can't do because suddenly
Speaker 2: it gets much slower. But I was conducting it to
Speaker 2: the film the main title, so I had to keep
Speaker 2: them going. And now, of course, I mean, I'm lucky
Speaker 2: that I had this moment with Rob in a Sedona.
Speaker 2: There's a Sedona Film Festival and I was an honoree
Speaker 2: one night, and Rob was the honoree the next night.
Speaker 2: And for the Rob night, they showed this beautiful pristine
Speaker 2: print of the American President, which I had seen on
Speaker 2: TV a lot, but I'd never seen it up on
Speaker 2: the screen again. It had been maybe twenty years. So
Speaker 2: I just watched this beautiful movie and got to hear
Speaker 2: this music. I got to write for it, and it
Speaker 2: was so grateful to Rob Reiner for everything, and especially
Speaker 2: this movie and especially what it's about and what had
Speaker 2: just started happening with Trump, and it just all bubbled up.
Speaker 2: And so my job was to then go to the
Speaker 2: mic and introduce Rob. The audience knew me from the
Speaker 2: night before, and it was my job to introduce Rob,
Speaker 2: and I was, you know, I had a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of jokes. I was going to crack. And I got
Speaker 2: up there at the mic and just started sobbing, just
Speaker 2: absolute couldn't get a word out, just stamping my feet.
Speaker 2: All I tried to say was I'm so grateful to
Speaker 2: Rob Reiner and and so the tears had to just
Speaker 2: completely speak for me.
Speaker 1: My thanks to composer Mark Shanmon. I'll leave you with
Speaker 1: a piece of Shaman's score from Rob Reiner's The American President.
Speaker 1: I'm alec One. Here's the thing that's brought to you
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