Theme Song

If you ever get a chance to know a musician really really well, make sure he gives you "walk on music".  Whenever you enter that venue, someone will take up the theme just to say "HELLO"  You may never become a star in your own right, but for a few minutes, you will feel as if you have.   Here are two versions of my "walk on music" from two great stars.

Audra McDonald



And The Man Himself:  Sammy Davis, Jr.

Tuesday Noise

Sammy Davis, Jr. showing how tap dancing is done.

Manic Monday - Shadow

Now were you really expecting me to put up something else?

"Me and My Shadow" was written in 1927. It is credited to Al Jolson, Billy Rose, and Dave Dreyer, but was probably music by Dreyer and lyrics by Rose. In the Sinatra/Davis version above, the lyrics "as close as Bobby to JFK" were added for the famous Summit at the Sands with the Rat Pack who were in Vegas filming the original "Oceans Eleven".

From the same era, one of the most beautiful songs ever written for a soap opera of a movie whose only redeeming virtue was the scenery both natural and human: The Shadow of Your Smile

Something Like a Contest

It is absolutely no mystery among my friends that I am addicted to musical theater. Nor is anyone in the dark about my admiration for Sammy Davis, Jr. In the following clip, Sammy and Carol Burnett say they are going to sing "every song from every show". This was a teeny tiny exaggeration, but I counted 21 songs from 15 shows.

Your mission should you choose to accept it is to see how many of the shows you can name. I'll have to think of a prize for the winner. For now, off to do the grocery shopping. With the grandson off to visit his mother and the son on a business trip to Alaska, I'm being lazy and will try to come up with something interesting and relevant in the next day or so.