Baby Boomers

I Like to Be in America: ‘West Side Story’ Still Relevant After All These Years

/ Dave Price / 2 Comments

Mention the names of lovers Tony and Maria or the song titles “Somewhere” or “I Like to Be in America” to just about any Baby Boomer and they’ll immediately know you’re talking about one of the greatest defining American musicals of their era, West Side Story.

For more than six decades now, Leonard Bernstein’s compelling, tragic reworking of the classic Romeo and Juliet tale set in New York City in the 1950s has been captivating hearts and minds of audiences around the world. But in today’s America, given our bitter battling over immigration and fear of the outsider, the acclaimed musical has been given renewed significance and is just as powerful in production as it was when it debuted on Broadway 1957 and won the Academy Award for best picture in 1961.

If he were alive, famed composer and conductor Bernstein would be 100 and to celebrate his centennial legacy The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. is offering a series of his of his works, including having the National Symphony Orchestra and a talented young cast from New York recently perform a special West Side Story in Concert.

“Today, it seems incredible that Leonard Bernstein could have written West Side Story, an up-to-the-minute commentary on gang warfare then in New York City,” says Fransesco Zambello, artistic director of Washington Orchestra. “But it is timeless in that it struggles with the ideals that are at the heart of the American project: the idea that we are all created equal, and with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“In West Side Story, discord between native-born Americans and recent immigrants leads to tragedy, but its most famous song is an anthem to true optimism, a belief in a world “Somewhere” where each person has a place, each person has a home,” Zambello added.

Zambello contends that while we should enjoy Bernstein’s music, we should never neglect his message. “If we simply enjoy the tunes we are missing the point,” he says. “Bernstein devoted his life not only to art, but also to advocacy, education, and the responsibilities of citizenship. May his legacy always inspire us to do the same.”

National Symphony Orchestra Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke, who led the musicians and even changed costume to portray the infamous Officer Kruppke in one scene, has often contemplated why West Side Storyis so enduring.

Reineke acknowledges that part of the musical’s popularity comes from Bernstein’s infectious melodies, complex rhythms, and jazz-infused harmonies. But it is the fact Bernstein’s music and Stephen Sonheim’s sometimes witty, sometimes heart-breaking lyrics, touches so many of us so deeply, he contends, that gives West Side Storyits staying power.

“It shines a mirror on each and every one of us to make us think about how we treat each other as fellow human beings. It exposes our prejudices and preconceived ideas about one race or one class versus another,” Reineke said. “Somehow, someday, somewhere – that was the issue Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim contemplated decades ago. To honor Bernstein’s centennial, I implore each of us as individuals to begin answering ‘Here, now, and compassionately.’”

10 Facts About West Side Story You May Not Have Known, But Will Now Thanks to Mental Floss and Writer Mark Mancini

1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE ABOUT A CATHOLIC BOY & A JEWISH GIRL.

Religion and national identity would’ve driven the drama of East Side Story, which is what choreographer Jerome Robbins & composer Leonard Bernstein called the project they started working on in 1949. But eventually they decided that “the whole Jewish-Catholic premise [was] not very fresh” when they were having a poolside meeting in Beverly Hills six years later. Under the California sun, they decided to instead focus on—in Bernstein’s words — “two teenage gangs … one of them newly-arrived Puerto Ricans, the other self-styled ‘Americans.’” Because Manhattan’s eastern neighborhoods had been largely gentrified by then, their production was soon given its present title.

2. THE DIRECTOR INSISTED ON AN UNUSUALLY LONG REHEARSAL PERIOD.

Before opening night, your average 1957 musical cast was only given four or five weeks’ worth of practice. Robbins (who also sat in the director’s chair) demanded eight. “We had a lot of work to do,” he recalled, with the show’s intricate dance sequences requiring extra attention.

3. THE JETS & THE SHARKS WERE PROHIBITED FROM INTERACTING OFFSTAGE.

Robbins tried generating real hostility between these fictitious gangs. According to producer Hal Prince, the Broadway veteran kept both groups of actors as far away from each other as possible. “They were not allowed to socialize out of the theater, [and] they were not allowed to take their lunches together.” Obviously, this was an extreme approach. But over time, it started working.

4. FOUR-LETTER WORDS WERE REPLACED WITH INOFFENSIVE JIBBERISH.

Through West Side Story, lyricist Stephen Sondheim wanted the F-bomb to make its musical theater debut. Initially, this choice word appeared in “Gee, Officer Krupke,” but Columbia Records (which released their original cast recording) noted that using such language would violate obscenity laws and—hence—prevent the show from touring across state lines. Defeated, they went with “Krup you!” instead.

5. SPOILER ALERT: MARIA HAD A DELETED DEATH SCENE.

Shakespeare may have killed off both title characters in Romeo & Juliet, but one of West Side Story’s star-crossed lovers lives to see the final curtain drop. Things almost ended much differently. Maria’s untimely suicide was part of an early draft—until composer Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame) offered his two cents. “She’s dead already, after this all happens to her,” he told Robbins.

6. BERNSTEIN PLUCKED “ONE HAND, ONE HEART” FROM A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MUSICAL.

At the time, he was scoring West Side Story and Candide—which was based on Voltaire’s 1759 novella of the same name—simultaneously. Though Bernstein crafted “One Hand, One Heart” for that production, he repurposed it as a romantic duet between Tony and Maria. In exchange, “O Happy We,” which was originally a duet for West Side Story, moved to the first act of Candide.

7. “SOMETHING’S COMING” WAS WRITTEN LAST-MINUTE.

Just 12 days before West Side Story premiered in D.C. (it’d debut in New York later), Bernstein and Sondheim wrote Tony’s hopeful ballad. Their inspiration came from a piece of dialogue that the character was to deliver during his first scene. The line, as penned by playwright Arthur Laurents, went like this: “Something’s coming, it may be around the corner, whistling down the river, twitching at the dance—who knows?” When asked if he’d mind letting the sentence get turned into a number, he enthusiastically replied “Yes, take it, take it, make it a song.” This late arrival had to be re-orchestrated several times, making it a bit of a headache for the pit band.

8. AUDREY HEPBURN WAS TAPPED TO PLAY MARIA FOR THE FILM VERSION.

In 1959, the screen legend was pregnant—and because she’d already suffered two miscarriages, Hepburn wasn’t about to over-exert herself this time. So, when she was offered the lead role in what would arguably become the most celebrated movie musical ever shot, she declined. Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood got the part instead, with Marni Nixon dubbing over her singing voice.

9. WEST SIDE STORY’S 1961 CINEMATIC ADAPTATION SET AN ACADEMY AWARDS RECORD.

Seven months after its release, the flick brought home 10 Oscars, including Best Director, Best Cinematography, and even Best Picture. Thus, it won more than any other musical ever had in Academy Award history. As of this writing, the distinction still stands.

10. A BILINGUAL REVIVAL OPENED ON BROADWAY IN 2009.

Laurents joined forces with producers Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller, and James L. Nederlander to retell the story he’d helped craft over 50 years earlier. This time, he leveled the playing field. “I thought it would be terrific if we could equalize the gangs somehow,” he explained. By letting the Sharks speak and sing in their native language during large chunks of the musical, Laurents hoped to do exactly that. Like the original, after a run in Washington, D.C. the show moved to New York, where it ran for 748 performances.

Film Director Oliver Stone Talks JFK, Conspiracy

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment
Oliver Stone makes a point with Newseum Vice Chairman Shelby Coffey III.

When film director Oliver Stone speaks about his controversial film JFK, he wants it understood that he was not depicting absolute truth. Instead, he was making what he calls a countermyth to contrast with what he calls the myth of the Warren Commission Report, a voluminous compendium of information that maintains Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago.

This article 1st appeared in The Prices Do DC – 11.05.2013

“We were not making a documentary, we were dramatizing,” Stone says. “I thought the Warren Commission was fiction and I still do today.”

Stone appeared at the Newseum in Washington, DC to discuss his film, which was released 22 years ago and is enjoying a resurgence because of the timeliness of the 50th anniversary this month of that dark day in Dallas.

“The (Kennedy) investigation was badly handled from the beginning,” Stone said as he detailed his belief in both a conspiracy and a cover-up. “A major medical fraud took place. He should have been autopsied in Parkland (the Dallas hospital where Kennedy died). A doctor there says for 18 minutes he saw brains emerging from the back of President Kennedy’s head. A shot from the front was the kill shot and that is a shot that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t have made.”

Of course, if the Warren Commission is wrong and Oswald didn’t act alone, the question becomes – who is responsible for killing JFK?  “Look at the people who had the power,” Stone contends.

In Stones’ view, the military/industrial/intelligence complex was highly disturbed about Kennedy actions that they believed were wrong for an America which, at the time, was engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union and the idea of Communism.  “Kennedy was moving toward detente and the end of the Cold War. The generals wanted to blow up the Soviet Union because they could. They wanted a war because they knew they could win it. But Kennedy realized we were facing the end of the world as we knew it and he said no. They were furious and didn’t want him to win re-election in 1964. Kennedy took them head-on and paid a price for it ,” Stone said.

The director said he began to question the Oswald-only position after reading On The Trail of the Assassin by New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison in 1989. Garrison’s book detailed his investigation of a Kennedy conspiracy. Kevin Costner portrayed Garrison in Stone’s film.

Stone said he had always admired the 1969 film Z, by Greek director Costa-Gavras, a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of a Greek politician and the outrage at the military dictatorship which hatched the killing plot. “I wanted to do something similar on an American level,” Stone said. “I wanted to give a reason why he (Kennedy) must be removed from office.”

“In drama, you have the right to interpret history as you want. Shakespeare proved that,” Stone said. “Even documentaries aren’t objective. But I think the facts of JFK hold up to me.”

Am I the Only One Using Bar Soap? Well Maybe Then I Am Getting Old

/ Dave Price / 1 Comment

They told me one day I would feel old, but I just refused to believe them. Age 30. Then 40, 50, 60, now 68. Nope, not old. Grey hair. White hair. Thinning hair. Definitely more hair in my ears and my nose than on the growing bald spot on the back of my head. Still didn’t feel old. Besides, wild ear and nose hair … that’s what small scissors are for.

An expanding stomach. Creaking bones. Getting up at night to pee. Still no significant difference. Hey, I thought, maybe I’m impervious to aging and its supposed incapacitating side effects.

The Decline of the Humble Bar of Soap

But all that changed recently. I had to face the fact that maybe I really am old. What happened, you ask? Well, I still use bar soap. And, according to research from the market firm Mintel, younger adults think a dispenser of liquid soap is easier to use, less messy with no slimy soap dish to clean, and more hygienic. Not only are they thinking that, they’re showing their anti-soap-bar feelings as consumers.

Bar soap sales were down 2.2 percent from 2014 to 2015, even though overall sales for soap, bath and shower products increased by nearly 3 percent during the same period. Usage of bar soap is also slipping and sliding, with the percentage of households using the traditional bar dropping from 89 percent to 84 percent between 2010 and 2015.

Generational and Gender Findings are Clear

It turns out that older men made up the only group clinging to their bars of soap. Women and younger body washers of both sexes were abandoning their old bars for new fancy plastic bottles of liquid soap.

The study reported that while 60 percent of those age 65 plus were happy to keep using bar soap to wash their face, hands, and other body parts, just 33 percent of those ages 25 to 34 were still grabbing the bar.

It also showed that men are also more willing to use bar soap than women. The survey found that 53 percent of men were willing to wash their face with bar soap, compared with 36 percent of women.

I first heard the findings on a my car stereo. Shaken, I rushed home to my apartment to check out their veracity on my computer. The internet did supply more detail. For example, the younger people were using the liquid soap because they were convinced that it had fewer germs in it. But soon I found a buried paragraph that showed I didn’t really have to abandon my green Irish Spring Soap – the only soap for really virile, really manly men.

An epidemiologist told The Huffington Post that while germs likely do live in the damp “slime” of bar soap, they’re unlikely to make you sick. And, since one of my former students Kate Sheppard is an editor there, I know the HP would never print a falsehood. And, my new favorite scientist added, rinsing the soap under running water before lathering with it should solve any problems.

Immediately, my aging fears melted like a tiny bar of my beloved Irish Spring left too long in a running shower. Not only was I not old, I was still smarter than those young whippersnappers with their dubious soap safety claims. Exclusive liquid soap use was simply like arranged playdates and bone-marrow appetizers so popular with Millennials today. So let the young have their ways. But for us Boomers, we’re not going too take it. I’m not going to let the youngsters pry my beloved bar of Irish Spring soap from my cold, wrinkly, but immaculately clean fingers

Smithsonian Celebrates The First Ford Mustangs

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment

1964. The Beatles had kicked off the musical British Invasion. LBJ was president. The Cold War was heating up in places like Vietnam. A World’s Fair in New York City was promising a new tomorrow of technology and wonder.  And on January 23 of that year the Smithsonian opened the Museum of American History.

Today, all of the above are gone with the exception of the History Museum. To celebrate its founding year, in 2014 the renown facility showcased 3 exhibits dealing with the time of its early 1960s establishment.

In April of 1964, the Ford Motor Company debuted its Ford Mustang at its pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, 6 months before it normally would. The company promised that this was a new type of car for a new generation.

It had a sporty look, a compact size, and, for the time, a low price. It evoked the spirit and the excitement of the open road. Unlike Ford’s actual sports car. the T-Bird, it could seat 4 people.

Immediately the 1964 car seen in the picture above did live up to its trendsetting pledge. By 1966, more than 1 million Mustangs had been sold. It had even become the subject of a top-selling record by Wilson Pickett.

The Mustang was shepherded through production by a young man who himself would become quiet a name in the auto industry. That man was Lee Iacocca.

You Can Have Real Fun, Fun, Fun in the Presence of Genius

/ Dave Price / Leave a comment
The one and only Brian Wilson

Imagine you were celebrating your birthday in 2020 and you could go back to 1962 when you were an elementary school student. Or 1965 when you were in 9th grade. Or 1966, 1967, 1968 when you walked the hallways of your high school. Or 1969 when you started college. Or 1973 when you graduated college, got married, and had a son.

Well, of course, there are no time machines, but last night, on the date of my wife’s 69th birthday, Judy and I vicariously had a chance to do the next best thing as we listened to Brian Wilson and his 11-member band perform many of the greatest hits he composed for his Hall of Fame California surf-sound group The Beach Boys at the MGM Casino just outside Washington, DC.

It’s been said that each song we hear from our past is like a tiny time capsule that unlocks to let us vividly recall all the places we were and all the people we were with when we first heard the tune.

And few songwriters have the ability to transport us back to our past better than Brian Wilson and the exquisite harmonies and sense of time and place he incorporated into the string of smash hits, ground-breaking albums, and B-sides he created for the Beach Boys. 

The story of Wilson’s rise to become one of the best of rock & roll music’s greatest songwriters and his subsequent descent into depression and mental illness has been thoroughly documented in print and film. Indeed, Wilson still periodically struggles with mental issues. For example, he had to cancel a portion of his tour last year, saying he felt mentally insecure. In a letter to his fans Wilson wrote: “It is no secret that I have been living with mental illness for many decades. I’ve been struggling with stuff in my head. I’m going to rest, recover, and work with my doctors on this. The music and my fans keep me going and I know this will be something I can AGAIN overcome”.

And on a chilly Wednesday night, Wilson’s fans, ecstatic that he was well enough to resume touring, showered their idol with applause after each song, even those few obscure enough only to be familiar to fervent Beach Boys enthusiasts.

And while Wilson, who will turn 80 in June, today struggles to hit some notes and is forced to rely on a teleprompter for the words to some songs, these were minor setbacks that the audience was willing to ignore as they danced in the aisles and rose as one for a heartfelt standing ovation when the 90-minute, 27-song concert ended. The night had clearly demonstrated they were in the presence of a genius who had created an entire genre (surf music), wrote two dozen Top 40 hits for the Beach Boys, composed a tune – “God Only Knows” – which no less of an expert than Paul McCartney has called the best song ever written, and has had his creations compared favorably with those of such legendary classical composers Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

Earlier, Wilson had been interviewed by Jason Fraley of WTOP. Wilson told the reporter that although he hasn’t written any songs for a few years, he has some new ideas which he would like to record soon.

But for now, while new Wilson material would be great, his audience, which spans multiple generations, is quite content to enjoy the hits, the oldest of which would now be qualified to be members of AARP.

Asked why he thinks the Beach Boys and their music have remained so popular, Wilson told Fraley “It’s evergreen. It’s forever”.

And many of his rock contemporaries agree. Here’s a sample of what some of rock’s s best have said about Brian Wilson, his tunes, and his prodigious talent.

Bob Dylan

            Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to the Smithsonian. Brian Wilson, he made all his records with four tracks, but you couldn’t make his records if you had a hundred tracks today.    

Beatles Producer George Martin

            If there is one person that I have to select as a living genius of pop music, I would choose Brian Wilson. Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn’t have happened. Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.

David Crosby of CSNY

            Brian was the most highly regarded pop musician in America, hands down. “In My Room” was the defining point for me. When I heard it, I thought “I give up – I can’t do that – I’ll never be able to do that.”

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd

            Even in those very early days of the Beach Boys, songs like “In My Room” and “Don’t Worry Baby” were giving the indication that Brian Wilson wanted to paint with a much more colorful palette than was offered by surf music he was so adapt at. His brilliance leapt from strength to strength over a very short period and, in a little over four years, he mastered the art of songwriting, record production, orchestral arrangements and every form of studio trickery to culminate with the wonderful songs on Pet Sounds.

Tom Petty

            I think I would put him up there with any composer – especially Pet Sounds. I don’t think there’s anything better than that, necessarily. I don’t think you’d be out of line comparing him to Beethoven – to any composer. The word genius is used a lot with Brian. I don’t know if he’s a genius or not, but I know his music is probably as good a music as you can make.

From “California Girls” to “Love and Mercy” Brian’s band was hot.

MGM Set List

  1. California Girls (1965)
  2. Dance, Dance, Dance (1964)
  3. I Get Around (1965)
  4. Shut Down (1963)
  5. Little Deuce Coupe (1963)
  6. Little Honda (1964)
  7. Salt Lake City (1965)
  8. Surfer Girl (1962)
  9. Don’t Worry Baby (1964)
  10. California Saga: California (1973) – written by Al Jardine
  11. Do It Again (1968)
  12. Let Him Run Wild (1965)
  13. Darlin’ (1967)
  14. Heroes and Villains (1967)
  15. Feel Flows* (1971) –written by Carl Wilson
  16. Wild Honey * (1967) 
  17. Sail On, Sailor* (1973)
  18. I Can Hear Music (1969) – Ronettes cover
  19. Wouldn’t It Be Nice (1966)
  20. Sloop John B (1966)
  21. God Only Knows (1966)
  22. Good Vibrations (1967)
  23. Help Me, Rhonda (1965)
  24. Barbara Ann (1965)
  25. Surfin’ USA (1963)
  26. Fun, Fun, Fun (1964)
  27. Love and Mercy (1968)

*Sung by Blondie Chaplain

Notes and Noise from the Show

  • There were many highlights during the night, but my personal concert capstone was the three-song mini-set song by Sonny Chaplain. Chaplain, a South African musician who has toured extensively with the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, also played lead guitar on the three numbers – “Feel Flows,” “Wild Honey” and “Sail On, Sailor.” Chaplain brought both psychedelic guitar effects and an invigorated feel to the show. It was clearly evident that he was enjoying playing with Wilson again, whom he called “the maestro.”
  • When the Beach Boys began, they were known as a family band since Wilson was joined by his two brothers, Carl and Dennis, both of whom are dead. But the family concept is being continued on this tour as Matt Jardine, the son of Beach Boys Al Jardine, who is co-featured on this tour with Wilson, sings high harmony and even some lead vocals.
  •  Wilson was one of the first rock songwriters to use a theremin (a musical instrument with high, outer-space like sounds that is played not by touch, but by running your hands over the instrument to control frequency and volume). It was extremely cool to hear the theremin live on a few songs, especially Wilson’s classic “Good Vibrations”. 
  • Of course, with a catalog as extensive as Wilson’s, not all of his hits can be performed in every show. The one I missed most tonight was “In My Room,” one of the greatest songs about loneliness ever composed.
  • How many artists could close a show with this many super hits in a row – “God Only Knows,” “Good Vibrations,” “Help Me Rhonda,” “Barabara Ann,” “Surfin’ USA,” and “Fun, Fun, Fun?”  Well, Brian Wilson can and did.
  • The last song was an extremely poignant, powerful, and, given the current divisiveness in Washington, DC and the country, appropriate “Love and Mercy,” which gave its title to the recent critically acclaimed biographical movie about the head Beach Boy. Wilson played the song alone on his piano, while the other 11 band members joined in on harmony vocals. Here are the first stanzas of Wilson’s moving message we all need to hear in these troubled times:

I was sittin’ in a crummy movie with my hands on my chin
Oh the violence that occurs seems like we never win

Love and mercy that’s what you need tonight
So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

I was lyin’ in my room and the news came on T.V.
A lotta people out there hurtin’ and it really scares me

Love and mercy that’s what you need tonight
So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

Encore

If you would like to discover more about Wilson and the Beach Boys, you can read my book Come Together: How the Baby Boomers, the Beatles, and a Youth Counterculture Combined to Create the Music of the Woodstock Generation. Come Together contains a relatively in-depth look at two Brian Wilson songs – “The Warmth of the Sun” and “Surfin’ USA”. It can be purchased at the Politics and Prose book store in Washington, DC. or by clicking here.