Month: October 2021

The American Popular Song Society, October 10, 2021: Skylark: Remembering Susannah at Don’t Tell Mama

At long last, a LIVE, in-person American Popular Song Society event! Celebrating the late Susannah McCorkle, gone now 20 years.

Excellent production by Jerry Osterberg, with performances by Danny Bacher, Gabrielle Stravelli, Mark Nadler, Aisha de Haas and Lucy Wijnands, with Susannah’s pianist and musical director Allen Farnham providing the accompaniment for all but Mark.

This was meant to be a livestreamed and videotaped performance, in addition to the live audience at Don’t Tell Mama for the monthly event. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, there’s no video and no photos available. So you had to be there.

Here’s my write-up:

I only encountered Susannah McCorkle once, well before I even knew about the cabaret scene, at an event at the 42nd Street Automat produced by WNEW-1130 radio sometime in the early 1980s. Jonathan Schwartz played her regularly. Her rendition at the event was the first time I’d ever heard anyone sing “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year.”

It was quite a coup for Jerry Osterberg to get Allen Farnham, who is currently in the pit for The Lion King on Broadway, as the musical director and accompanist today. He had to leave early for that show.

Danny Bacher is a funny and talented singer and master of the soprano sax (or as Jerry called it, a flute). Danny likes to throw in funny little asides in the songs. He started the verse to Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “Accentuate the Positive”, singing “Gather ‘round me, everybody…. But not too close.” On “You Go To My Head,” with a bossa beat, he sang, “So I say to myself…. Self?” He brought up Lucy Wijnand for a duet on Johnny Mercer’s “At the Jazz Band Ball,” then finished with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “How Insensitive,” with Lucy on vocal. Lucy is a fresh-faced young woman whose voice is reminiscent of Sarah Vaughn when she uses her lower register. I learned later that, to no surprise, Vaughn is a big influence on Lucy. A lovely “I’ll Take Romance” (Ben Oakland/Oscar Hammerstein II) had a light swinging rhythm with a bridge played as a waltz. Lucy introduced Rodgers & Hart’s humorous “I Wish I Were In Love Again” with the rarely sung verse, and finished big.

Gabrielle Stravelli is always a delight. She sings with a twinkle in her eyes, radiating joy as she masterfully sings and swings. Gabrielle sang the verse to Gershwin’s “They All Laughed,” which I’d never heard before, then taking us on a fun adventure with her versatile voice.

Gabrielle shared that the first jazz standard she’d ever been introduced to was “Skylark” (Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer), and sang the ballad beautifully. She ended her set with the funny Dave Frishberg song “My Attorney Bernie.”

Broadway and jazz artist Aisha de Haas was another great get by Jerry. She sang a sultry “Lover Man” (Jimmy Davis/Roger Ramirez/James Sherman). She sang a song she first learned from the record her aunt (Geraldine Bey) made with her group, the Bey Sisters, “Every Time We Say Goodbye” (Cole Porter), with the verse. The line “How great the change from major to minor,” one of my favorite phrases from any song, felt especially poignant in her hands.

Aisha finished her set with the jazziest song of the show, Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.”

Danny and Lucy returned for a great old-school duet on “Thanks For The Memory” (Ralph Rainger/Leo Robin), after which Farnham had to dash off to The Lion King.

The final artist was Mark Nadler, who shared with us that Susannah was one of his closest friends. He became visibly choked up speaking about her. He made it clear how fun she was to be with, and that in their first encounter, Susannah, then writing an article about Irving Berlin for American Heritage, found Mark at a show and asked him, “Why is Irving Berlin indispensable to you?”

Mark is a great showman with considerable ability. For Irving Berlin’s “Isn’t This A Lovely Day,” he made the piano sound like it was raining while singing “Let the rain pitter-patter.” He brought back Gabrielle Stravelli for an adorable duet of “Two Sleepy People,” infusing great humor through their bon mots, phrasing and body language, turning the lovely couple of the song into what might be described as “two creepy people” who smile at one another through clenched teeth.

Mark played Billy Strayhorn’s “Something to Live For,” which had erroneously been credited to Ervin Drake in the program. “How thrilled would Edith have been to know she was married to a short, black, gay man?”

For the final number of the program, Mark recreated Susannah McCorkle’s arrangement of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (Irving Berlin). Normally a fast, happy tune that glamorizes even the hard parts of show business, here it is a tour de force of tragedy and irony, pathos and tears, with the song becoming a metaphor for surviving failure. From its rubato opening to the big finish that let us know it’s going to be okay, and let’s go on with the show, Mark’s stunning, dramatic interpretation of Susannah’s arrangement was simply spectacular.

Bravo, brava, bravissimo, bravissima…. Fini!


The American Popular Song Society
Skylark: Remembering Susannah
Don’t Tell Mama
343 West 46th Street, NYC

Marissa Mulder: Souvenirs, A Tribute to the Songs of John Prine

October 3, 2021

Marissa Mulder returned to Birdland Theater for her in-person show since February 2020. With Jon Weber as her pianist and musical director, and Mike Rosengarten on guitar, Marissa presented the music and story of John Prine, the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter who was an early victim of COVID-19 in 2020. Marissa, a luminous strawberry blonde who radiates her joy in her singing as with everything she does, was in fine voice, interpreting Prine’s songs with great skill and feeling. Marissa, whose specialty is theme shows written around the deep-dive material of heralded singer-songwriters whose names are more well-known than their catalog, like Tom Waits, and new interpretations of Lennon and McCartney songs, brought that same approach to giving a virtual Master Class in John Prine, who had a knack for writing deep and whimsical songs that were especially acclaimed by other songwriters, such Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan and the late Nancy Griffith. Marissa has a gentle, nearly girlish sound that is often compared to that of the late Blossom Dearie, and is perfect for the material. The arrangements of these deceptively simple songs were terrific, with Weber and Rosengarten creating just the right melodic lines and tension for the material while allowing Marissa to shine.

Marissa opened with “Paradise,” the first song he sang to his father. Her own father was in the house.

𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑡𝑜 𝑀𝑢ℎ𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑔 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑦
𝐷𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑦
𝑊𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝐼’𝑚 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑦 𝑚𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑜 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑠𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔
𝑀𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦’𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑢𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦

“Souvenirs,” the show’s title song, was a tune Prine always dedicated to his brother, even singing the song to his dying brother on his deathbed. Some of Prine’s best material was written when he was a postal carrier in Mayberry, Illinois. He made his big break after film critic Roger Ebert caught his show entirely by chance and wrote about the “Singing Mailman.” Marissa’s family was in attendance from Syracuse, and she apologized to her dad from the stage after quoting Prine’s “F bomb” before launching into his “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore.”

For “Sam Stone,” Weber and Rosengarten, using ringing harmonic tones, created a delicate backdrop for Marissa to deliver a powerful message as relevant in the aftermath of the Afghanistan conflict as it was when our troops came home from Vietnam. The question asked, really, is “For what?” We learned that Johnny Cash changed the controversial phrase that “Jesus died for nothing” when he recorded the song, something Prine said was really the entire point. On “Speed of “The Sound of Loneliness,” Marissa was at her most vulnerable. With just Rosengarten providing a fingerpicked guitar, Marissa inhabits the song and its sorrow.

When was the last time you heard a song about a boy and an elephant? “Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone,” about a former child star whose career reached its zenith with his first film, “Elephant Boy.” The song is at once poignant and funny, with lines like “𝑆𝑎𝑏𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑎𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑛𝑘. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑝ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑡’𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑘.”

Marissa followed “Sabu” with another very clever song, “Dear Abby” is a collection of letters to Dear Abby and her responses (all written by Prine). Marissa was delightful singing lyrics like “𝑆𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑, 𝐵𝑒𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑,” and informed us after the song that someone sent one of the stanzas to the actual “Dear Abby,” who wrote that the writer clearly needed a psychiatrist.

Marissa sweetly sang “Angel From Montgomery,” most famously covered by Bonnie Raitt, who said that Prine was “probably the closest thing for those of us that didn’t get the blessing of seeing Mark Twain in person.”

After telling a funny story about Prine’s goldfish that he loved so much he had it mounted, Marissa performed Prine’s uptempo song, “Please Don’t Bury Me,” about his own imagined death, recorded 20 years before. “𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑦 𝑚𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑, 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑛. 𝐼’𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑐𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑝 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑.” The humorous lyrics took on a bittersweet poignancy, now that Prine is really gone. This would have been her final song, but Marissa performed an encore on “In Spite of Ourselves,” with just Mike Rosengard on guitar. It was a terrific cap to a delightful show.

Marissa Mulder
Souvenirs, A Tribute to the Songs of John Prine 
Birdland Theater
315 West 44th Street, NYC