SO WHAT’S ON MY iPOD THIS WEEK?
Well, this week I reloaded my iPod to celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest singers of the 20th and 21st Centuries. I’m talking about the one and only Barbara Cook who made her Broadway debut in 1951 in a show called Flahooley. It didn’t last very long, but she became a star. She starred in a lot of Broadway and TV shows during the 50s and won the Tony Award for playing Marian The Librarian in THE MUSIC MAN in 1957. They made a movie of that show, but she wasn’t cast in the role she had created. The part went to Shirley Jones who is now probably best remembered for playing the mother of the Partridge Family. Ok, she was also the go-to singer for Rodgers and Hammerstein film musicals in the 50′s.
Cook continued to work in both musicals (she’s on about 20 cast recordings) and plays on Broadway, and in the 70′s she re-ignited her career as a concert, cabaret and recording star.
Barbara Cook celebrated her 84th birthday on Tuesday, October 24 and she’s still going strong. To prove it here’s a mash-up of two versions of a song she recorded 50-years apart.
And she’s still singing the song in the same key she sang it in 50-years ago.
In 2010 she was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway musical SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM.
Her concert and cabaret appearances are SRO.
This year she released two new CD’s recorded live at Feinstein’s in NYC.
And later this year she will be one of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Awards.
And no one can interpret a song with the emotion and feeling that she does.
Posted on October 27, 2011, in Listening To Bob's iPod and tagged 84th birthday, Barbara Cook, Bob's iPod. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
... a somewhat unknown or perhaps imaginary actor, writer, director, producer, photographer, friend, brother, uncle and all round good fellow that you really should get to know because he lives with that most glamorous fourpaw Mademoiselle Renee. (Mlle. Renee for short)
Amazing!
(I refer to her double rendition of one of those songs that always makes me get a lump in my throat when I hear it–as does “I’ll Be Seeing You.”)
I think the songs written in the late 30s and early 40s were a perfect combination of words and music that captured the emotions and feelings of the listener. Also the vocalists of the era (and Barbara Cook today) knew how to capture that emotion in their singing. It’s comfort music.