Miracle of the Music Man

Mark Cabaniss’s Miracle of the Music Man does a fine job of stitching interviews and research into the  story of Meredith Willson’s life and career on the Broadway stage. There is no doubt that Willson (with two L's) has become--America’s classic Music Man, but Cabaniss admits in the last pages of the book that his career “started at the top and went progressively downhill.” Unfortunately, this makes for a book that follows the same pattern.  

The material on the making of the iconic musical is filled with drama and inside bits about the struggle to get the show mounted. Right off the bat we learn that one big turning point was when the title was changed from Music Man to The Music Man.  We also learn a lot about Mason City, Iowa, Willson’s family and musical training, his radio career, his stint with the John Philip Sousa band, and finally about performing in the NBC orchestra of Arturo Toscanini.

Like most musicals, The Music Man went through years of re-writes and multiple producers before achieving even the status of a potential Broadway Show. Especially interesting to me was the evolution of the character of Winthrop from a character in a wheelchair to a boy with a lisp, and the story of how Robert Preston got the part of Harold Hill.  Preston is quoted as saying until he got the part, he had been playing “the lead in all the B pictures and the villain in all the epics.”  The story of how the barbershop quartette, The Buffalo Bills, got the job is another intriguing inside bit.  

I must admit to never hearing or seeing the term “gypsy run-through” before. It is apparently the name given to the final run-through of a show in front of an invited audience before it goes on the road to try out before hopefully returning to New York and opening on Broadway. I also learned that composers have songs in what is called their “trunk.”  They have been written and not used or have been discarded from a show and await repurposing. Willson admits taking two or three from the trunk to use in the score for The Music Man. Till There Was You” was from the trunk, as were many versions of what turned out that most compelling rhythmic talk song “Ya Got Trouble”.

As implied from my comment in the first paragraph, the reader in a hurry can probably stop two-thirds of the way through the book and not miss much other than the reasonably successful run of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, the disappointing Here’s Love, and the failure of 1491, which closed before ever reaching Broadway. However, if you have a soft spot in your heart for River City, you can certainly take a quick dip into this readable biography of a man and a musical that continues to hold thousands of theatre goers in its grip through its professional revivals and amateur productions around the globe. Three and a half stars.

 

 

THE SWEET REMNANTS OF SUMMER by Alexander McCall Smith

Mr. McCall Smith has written over 70 books. “His No 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series runs to 22 entries and his “Isabel Dalhousie” Series runs a close second with 14 books.  The most recent Dalhousie novel is titled The Sweet Remnants of Summer and it is a pleasant read.    

The heroine, Isabel Dalhousie, lives in Edinburgh with her husband, Jamie, a musician, and their two young sons. Isabel is a philosopher by trade and edits a publication called “The Journal of Applied Ethics.” She has often tried to make up for being independently wealthy by being a helper. As such, she has attracted a reputation for solving other people’s personal problems, but that does not keep her  bassoon playing husband from believing that she may be a bit too aggressive in her willingness to “get involved” in the lives of others.

If you are getting tired of books about serial killers or politicians who insist that all of their opponents are evil, lying, monsters who eat babies in their spare time, a McCall Smith book is an answer to your prayers. It comes with the fresh breeze of a Scottish summer and a love for the sights, sounds, and architecture of Edinburgh. The book is short enough to not demand a commitment of six weeks of hard labor to finish.  It also brings a gentleness, a sense of humor, and an approach to life that fills each of his characters with a sense of what might be if we all could just get along better with each other.

Ms. Dalhousie is the very model of a modern major woman, and as a philosopher, she sees moral dilemmas everywhere. Jamie, her husband, thinks she should stay out of helping people with family disruptions. This occurs even though, at the same time,  he would like to do something about the fact that he believes the conductor of his orchestra will be appointing an unqualified person to a position of importance. A third plot line begins with Isabel’s son’s teacher reporting that her son has bitten a classmate.  All three of the threads combine to make for philosophical considerations of motive, guilt, lying, and penchants toward solving problems with violence or revenge.   

I like these characters. I like this kind of story and I like the thought that we need poetry, kindness, and love to guide our lives. With the winter’s snow descending, we need more of all of those virtues, while we await the coming of spring.

Jim De Young  11/15/2022