The Alternative Music Man

Considering how The Beatles pointed a lot of people towards this particular show, I’ve always been surprised at how few pop-music acts have exploited The Music Man. The relatively few contemporary acts who’ve dipped into The Music Man’s score have done so far too timidly. This is a show that mocks parents’ consternation at the threat of a teen revolution. The opening number replicates the thunder of a steam locomotive. Why is this not grist for gritty rock covers?

Maybe punk bands figure Buddy Hackett’s slurring, drooling, pogoing interpretation of “Shipoopi” (replete with simulated-fart dance moves) has already taken the song as far as it could ever go.

Music Man multi-threat Meredith Willson (who wrote the show’s book, lyrics and score) deserves to have more of his tunes hit the rock trail. Beyond wrote the University of Iowa football team fight son and such radio pop hits as “You and I,” “I See the Moon” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chrstmas.” Willson’s mentioned in the current issue of Nostalgia Digest, a magazine devoted to the golden age of radio, as an early Music Director at the major West Coast radio station KFRC in the late 1920s and early ‘30s.

Here are some of the wilder interpretations of Music Man songs I’ve uncovered. Which, unfortunately, are about as wild as a straitlaced River City librarian.

Iowa Stubborn: Jimmy Guiffre. The jazz clarinetist (who died in 2008) did an entire album of freewheeling instrumental interpretations of Music Man tunes. He gets honors here for even bothering with the rangy, misshapen melody of “Iowa Stubborn.”

Trouble: Spanky and Our Gang, the pristine ‘60s harmony pop group beloved by those who thought the Mamas & the Papas needed one less Mama and more Papas, include Harold Hill’s pool-hall rabble-rouser on their debut album, sticking it on side one right before their pure pop singles “Sunday Will Never Be the Same.” (On side two, Spanky & Our Gang cover “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?). “Trouble” is done in a disarmingly straightforward, low-key fashion eschewing the overproduced sweetness the group became known for. It’s a solo male voice backed with the usual chorus of “townsfolk” muttering “Trouble!” The musical backing could be called unorthodox, since it’s a banjo and not an orchestra, but you do feel that an opportunity has been missed here in claiming the song more firmly for a Summer of Love rock audience. (Runners-up: Tyne Daly with Boston Pops; Seth MacFarlane’s blistering parody done for the Writers Guild of America Awards.

Goodnight My Someone: Les Paul and Mary Ford. The guitar icon plays the country-porch lament with bite, while his wife sweetens the vocals. (Runner-up: Jessica Molaskey’s contemporary pop rendition, which gives the tune more of a lonely-in-the-big-city vibe.)

76 Trombones: Dan Zanes did this and several other Music Man songs on one of his kid-friendly Dan Zanes & Friends. I interviewed Zanes about the project last year when he played the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, for which trombonists (and other brass-players) from across the state were invited to march about the Green in a “76 Trombones” finale; far fewer than 76 showed up.
In my interview with Zanes, the former Del Fuegos frontman was refreshingly candid about where he felt the project had failed. He’d been offered unusual freedom to rearrange a slew of Broadway standards, hoping that the showtunes fit with the populist folk attitude he’d been pushing for all his family-friendly projects. Many of the songs frustrated his aims, either because they were so character- or plot-connected or because their complex arrangements didn’t strip down easily enough. It’s clear that Zanes felt comfortable with The Music Man; besides making “76 Trombones” the title track of his showtune showcase, he also covers “Goodnight, My Someone” and (as a medley) “Gary, Indiana” and “Wells Fargo Wagon.”

Pick a Little Talk a Little: Title of a Sex and the City episode.

Sadder But Wiser Girl: Again, Seth MacFarlane’s done it (on his forthcoming Music is Better Than Words big-band album).

Good Night Ladies: An arrangement for the Baby Genius series (one of those spurious attempts to stimulate intelligence through cheesy music) puts something of a disco beat to the shouty lullabye.

Shipoopi: There’s a weird, plaintive rendition by Gregg Nestor & Tommy Morgan on their eclectic album Classic Musicals for Harmonica and Guitar. Runner-up: Peter Griffin’s “This calls for a victory tune” rendition on the Patriot Games episode of Seth McFarlane’s series Family Guy, which resurfaced on the live-action Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show special in 2009.

Lida Rose: The only challenge in covering this barbershop quartet standard, apparently, is in upping the number of voices in it. Andy Williams performs it with four young Osmond Brothers (and, once the tune merges into “Sweet and Low”, their then-3-year-old sister Marie) on his variety show 1962. Jerold Ottley does it (and “Will I Ever Tell You”) with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Gary Indiana: Janet Planet makes a cabaret patter song out of it, like The Waters of March flowed through there or something.

Till There Was You: Beatles, yes, but also Rod Stewart (on one of his insufferable American Songbooks), The Smithereens (on their Meet The Beatles remake Meet The Smithereens), Ray Charles…