Concert Review: "Celebrating David Bowie"

Graphic for the "Celebrating David Bowie" tour.

The musicians at the "Celebrating David Bowie" concert at the Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis, February 21, 2018. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Last week I saw the David Bowie tribute show “Celebrating David Bowie” at the Pantages Theatre. Organized by Bowie’s longtime piano player Mike Garson, the show gathered lots of musicians who played with Bowie at different stages of his career to play some of his best songs. Garson was a member of Bowie’s band at various points from 1972 to 2004, and he played on some of Bowie’s most famous records, like Aladdin Sane and Young Americans. 

Bernard Fowler was the lead singer for most of the songs. He’s sung backing vocals for the Rolling Stones since 1989. His voice is superb, and his style is different enough from Bowie that I wasn’t constantly reminded of Bowie, or comparing him to Bowie. Other band members included guitarist Earl Slick, who first played with Bowie on one track on the Diamond Dogs album, and was the lead guitarist for the Diamond Dogs/Philly Dogs tour in 1974. He then went on to play on the Young Americans and Station to Station albums. Slick also did the Serious Moonlight tour in 1983, supporting Bowie’s Let’s Dance album. Slick returned to the Bowie fold for the 2002 album Heathen, 2003’s Reality, 2013’s The Next Day, and the 2003-4 Reality tour, which proved to be Bowie’s last. Other guitarists were Gerry Leonard and Mark Plati, who both played with Bowie in the 1990’s and 2000’s. The bassist was Carmine Rojas, who played on Let’s Dance, Tonight, and Never Let Me Down. Drums were handled by Lee John Madeloni, one of the only band members who didn’t play with Bowie. Gaby Moreno handled lead vocals superbly on songs like “Space Oddity,” “Aladdin Sane,” and “Five Years.”

It was very cool to see so many people who were very closely connected with Bowie. It wasn’t like, oh, this guy played tambourine on one song in 1973. These were musicians who worked and collaborated with Bowie over extended periods of time. 

Joe Sumner, the son of Sting, sang lead on a few songs, like “Let’s Dance,” “All the Young Dudes,” “Life on Mars,” “Ziggy Stardust,” and “Lady Grinning Soul,” one of my own personal favorite Bowie songs. I also saw Joe Sumner when he toured with his dad in 2017. (I reviewed that show here.) Sumner has an excellent voice, and he held some notes for a very long time. 

The band did a fantastic job of playing Bowie’s greatest songs live. If you’re a Bowie fan and you have the chance to see “Celebrating David Bowie,” go see it, it’s a great chance to relive some of Bowie’s magic again.

Theater Review: Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, at Theater Latte Da

Program cover for Assassins at Theater Latte Da, 2018.

Last weekend I saw Theater Latte Da’s excellent production of the musical Assassins, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by John Weidman. Assassins is a fascinating look at the four successful Presidential assassins, and five others who failed in their assassination attempts. The assassins depicted in the musical are: John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln, Charles Guiteau, assassin of James A. Garfield, Leon Czolgosz, assassin of William McKinley, Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy (Assassins presents Oswald as acting alone, and not part of any larger conspiracy) Giuseppe Zangara, who attempted to shoot Franklin Roosevelt, but missed and instead killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, Samuel Byck, who planned to hijack an airplane and crash it into the White House in order to kill Richard Nixon, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, who each tried to kill Gerald Ford in California three weeks apart from each other in September of 1975, and John Hinckley, who wounded Ronald Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to impress actress Jodie Foster. (Zangara presents perhaps the most intriguing “what if,” as his attempt on FDR’s life occurred after Roosevelt was elected, but before he was sworn in—what would the future of the Republic have been if FDR had not been there to lead us through the Great Depression and World War II?)

The cast of Assassins is superb—standouts include Dieter Bierbrauer, whose John Wilkes Booth becomes the engine for much of the play’s action, Sara Ochs, who offers us a portrait of Sara Jane Moore as a bizarrely incompetent housewife, Shinah Brashears, whose seeming sweetness as Squeaky Fromme is quickly offset by her unwavering belief in Charles Manson’s prophecies, the always excellent Tyler Michaels as Lee Harvey Oswald, and Benjamin Dutcher as the unflappably optimistic Charles Guiteau, who seems all too happy to ascend the gallows. Assassins is ably directed by Peter Rothstein, who has directed 71 shows for Latte Da, and who created All is Calm, about the 1914 Christmas truce, which I reviewed here. There’s a funny moment as James Detmar’s unhinged Samuel Byck is dictating a tape to Leonard Bernstein and starts singing “Tonight” and “America,” which Sondheim wrote the lyrics for. (You can read more about Charles Guiteau here, in my review of Candace Millard’s book about Garfield’s assassination, Destiny of the Republic.) 

Assassins might seem like an odd idea for a musical—I’m sure the idea didn’t send financial backers running for their checkbooks—but it works. Sondheim wrote an excellent score, and he had already written a successful musical about a mass murderer—Sweeney Todd—so why not a show about Presidential assassins?

I thought about Assassins a lot, both before the show, and afterwards. I’m a history buff and a musical theater fan, so I’m probably the ideal audience member for Assassins. Historically, I think the show does a very good job of summarizing these characters. Of course, for most of the assassins, I can’t say I know much more than what’s presented in the show. How pathetic they all seem to me, these lonely souls, unable to connect with anyone else, thinking that assassination would be their ticket to fame and fortune. A recurring joke is that the assassin, or would be assassin, is telling the audience their troubles and someone else on stage says, “Well, why don’t you shoot the President?” As though that will solve all of their problems. The characters all want what they cannot have: Squeaky Fromme, pining after Charles Manson, John Hinckley, pining after Jodie Foster, John Wilkes Booth, pining for the fame and reputation of his brother Edwin, Charles Guiteau, hopelessly seeking the ambassadorship to France, Lee Harvey Oswald, craving the spotlight that had evaded him ever since he defected to Russia. As Sondheim said in a 2014 interview, “These are all people who feel they’ve been cheated of their happiness, each one in a different way.” Sondheim gives these people their moment in the sun, so to speak, so they can explain their actions, even if their reasons remain vague and opaque to rational people. I thought one of the most memorable songs was “Unworthy of Your Love,” a beautiful ballad sung by Hinckley and Fromme, all about their respective obsessions with Jodie Foster and Charles Manson. 

Does the show glorify the assassins too much? Possibly, although it certainly doesn’t cast them in a positive light. I would argue that any artistic depiction of “bad” people runs the risk of glorifying them too much. Whether it’s a play, film, or novel, we’re so strongly taught as audience members to empathize with the main character that any depiction could be taken as glorification, even if it’s not meant to be. I suppose that’s the problem with art—it asks you to step inside someone else’s mind for a while, and while you’re there, you might find them a little more human. Martin Scorsese wasn’t endorsing the behavior of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, but the twisted mind of John Hinckley transformed Travis into a figure worth emulating.

Assassins is a superb show that takes a hard look at America, and it asks the audience difficult questions about violence in America, questions that are sadly all too relevant in 2018. If you’re interested in pondering those questions, go see Assassins.

Concert Review: Peter Asher-"A Musical Memoir of the 60's and Beyond" at the Dakota Jazz Club

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller in the 1960's.

Me with Peter Asher at the Dakota, December 12, 2017.

In December, I saw Peter Asher perform at the Dakota Jazz Club. Asher’s show is titled “A Musical Memoir of the 60’s and Beyond,” and it tells the story of his life and career. I saw the show with my wife and my Mom, and even though we saw Asher perform the show back in 2012, we all really enjoyed it again.

To give a brief recap of Peter Asher’s remarkable career, he was half of the British Invasion duo Peter & Gordon, comprised of him and his schoolmate Gordon Waller. When Peter & Gordon were signed to a record deal, a family connection of Asher’s proved fortuitous in his musical career. Peter’s sister is Jane Asher, an actress who also happened to date Paul McCartney from 1963 to 1968. Paul also lived at the Asher family home during part of this time, which meant that Peter had access to songs Paul had written that weren’t quite right for the Beatles. Peter & Gordon’s first three singles, “A World Without Love,” “Nobody I Know,” and “I Don’t Want to See You Again,” were all Lennon-McCartney songs, and provided Peter & Gordon with worldwide hits. 

After Peter & Gordon went their separate ways in 1968, Asher was asked by McCartney to become the A&R man for the Beatles’ new record label, Apple. Asher accepted the job, and one of the demo tapes he discovered was by a young American singer-songwriter named James Taylor. Apple issued Taylor’s debut album in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the US, but it didn’t make much of a dent in the charts. Asher then quit Apple Records and became Taylor’s manager and producer, embarking on a highly successful career as a record producer. 

Asher’s show is packed with a lot more talking than singing, which was fine with me, as I soaked up stories about the Beatles. In addition to his pop stardom during the Swinging Sixties, Asher was also involved with Paul McCartney in running the Indica Bookshop and Gallery, where John Lennon first met Yoko Ono in 1966. 

Asher is full of good-natured charm, and he even riffed about how Austin Powers’ glasses and haircut may have been based on Asher’s appearance during the 1960’s. (I’ve long thought the same thing.)

After the show, Asher stuck around to sign autographs for fans, although he warned us that he was losing his voice and couldn’t really talk. I told him that I was a big Peter & Gordon fan, especially their later albums like In London for Tea and Hot, Cold & Custard. Asher said “Wow!” Like I did the first time I met him, I also told him how much I enjoyed Peter & Gordon’s version of “The Flower Lady,” written by the great Phil Ochs. For any fan of the Beatles or the British Invasion, Asher’s show is a superb trip down memory lane.

Vic Damone, 1928-2018

Vic Damone, 1928-2018.

Singer Vic Damone died on February 11^th at the age of 89. The sweet-voiced crooner was one of the many Italian-American pop singers who flourished in the 1940’s and 1950’s, like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Al Martino, Jerry Vale, and Bobby Darin. Damone’s hallmark as a singer was his beautiful, pure tone. I’ve always felt that Damone was somewhat underrated compared to the other great pop singers of his era, as he made a number of excellent recordings. 

Damone was probably the first male singer to be strongly influenced by Frank Sinatra. After leaving Tommy Dorsey in 1942 to begin a solo career, Sinatra popularized a strikingly intimate way of singing and phrasing in his recordings for the Columbia label. Damone was just 19 years old when he made his first record in 1947, “I Have but One Heart,” and his vocal sound was very similar to Sinatra’s. Frank famously said that Damone “has the best pipes in the business.” What’s also remarkable about “I Have but One Heart” is how good Damone was, even at such a young age. He brings a pure yearning to this love song. The song peaked at number 7 on the charts. Damone had numerous other hits during the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Most of them are very good, although there are some clunkers—“Cincinnati Dancing Pig” is just as silly a song as you would think. 

In 1956, the year of Elvis Presley’s ascendance, Damone scored his last Top Ten pop hit, a beautiful version of “On the Street Where You Live,” from Lerner and Loewe’s then-recent hit Broadway show, My Fair Lady. “On the Street Where You Live” is probably the song most associated with Damone now. The arrangement of the song is unusual—it begins with the orchestra building to a crescendo, and then Damone starts singing, “Oh, the towering feeling, just to know somehow you are near,” which is from the middle of the song, before going into the beginning of the song, “I have often walked on this street before.” It’s a bold choice, and it works. Damone’s control of his vocal dynamics throughout the song is amazing. Damone goes from almost a whisper as he sings, “People stop and stare, they don’t bother me,” to full throated belting at the end. It’s a wonderful performance.

After his commercial peak came to an end, Damone continued to record excellent albums like Linger Awhile, and Stay with Me, his bossa nova album from 1966. While he had something of a stormy personal life and was married five times, Damone’s legacy as a great pop singer is what will be remembered by his fans.