"Sing for your Supper" is perhaps the most electric I've seen on stage, but that has a lot to do with the arrangement of the female trio.
I also very much like "The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Mountain Greenery", "Where's That Rainbow", "You Took Advantage of Me", "Little Girl Blue" , "I Wish I Were in Love Again" and even "Johnny One Note".
And "Zip" contains the funniest couplet ever written:
"Zip! I was reading Schopenhauer last night. Zip! And I think that Schopenhauer was right."
broadwaysfguy said: "Watched the Thou Swell, Thou Witty Great Performances 1999 special on Rodgers & Hart and ready for a deep dive on Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart.
Where did you find that Great Performances? Now I've got to see it.
How can you pick a favorite? "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" is very poignant. "With a Song in My Heart" sounds too grandly and sincerely romantic to have been written by Hart. "Little Girl Blue" in the hands of a vocalist like Judy Garland is heartbreaking. Mama Cass Elliot recorded "Sing for Your Supper" on the last Mamas and Papas album when I think it was not that well known. The Encores' recording I think really put that song on the map again.
Featured song: Rodgers wrote a bunch of world class waltzes during his Hammerstein years, starting with the "Carousel Waltz." Like Kelli O'Hara, I could listen to it over and over at one sitting. Also "Wonderful Guy," "Out of My Dreams," "Clambake," "Grand Night for Singing," "Hello, Young Lovers."
But with Hart not so much. I guess their best known waltz is "Falling in Love With Love" and it's a grand one. I think that Rebecca Luker borrowed that song and made it her own in the Encores' Boys from Syracuse. She repeated her signature performance in one of those My Favorite Broadway PBS revues hosted by Julie Andrews.
Hmmm, top of my list is probably ST. LOUIS WOMAN which they did 1998. And BOYS FROM SYRACUSE of course, though its always a debate if I prefer the Encores or the '60s revival.
Also really love the recent discs of PIPE DREAM and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. Stunning casts with the full original scores.
ZIEGFELD FOLLIES OF 1936 is a great previously unheard score by Vernon Duke who I love.
"Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" is still part of the repertoire of many orchestras and ballet companies, including the New York City Ballet.
I wanted to see Encores' Pipe Dream, but couldn't make it. Had to settle for the recording, which was a recording of one of the live performances. Very curious to see if it was possible that an R&H flop had no songs worth remembering, while almost every song in the big hits were well known. "Sweet Thursday" as sung by Leslie Uggams was hummable after two listens. Should have been a hit, I thought. But I listened to the original on the cast album and "Sweet Thursday" as sung by the opera singer was slower, more dignified and totally uninteresting.
I wonder if songs from that show that quickly grew on me - "The Man I Used to Be" - "The Next Time It Happens" - would have been as highly regarded as songs from South Pacific if the show had been a hit.
I still have Ella's double vinyl disc Rodgers and Hart Songbook, That version of "Bewitched" was not only pretty remarkable because it was Ella, but also because it was about seven and a half minutes long and contained verses that had probably been heard nowhere except inside the theater.
"The Lady is a Tramp" must have been one of the top ten sung and/or recorded songs of the 50s and 60s. My favorite version (so far) is from Ol' Blue Eyes 60s TV special A Man and his Music. there were three of these in the 60s and I think this was the second, available on DVD. The guest stars were Antonio Carlos Jobim and Ella.
Frank and Ella closed the show a super swinging rendition of "Tramp." That whole show was pretty memorable. Ella and Frank were in great voice and I wish the segment with Jobim had been longer. Only the jokes fell flat.
Not actually a Rodgers and HART because Larry had nothing to do with it, but "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up the first time I heard it. Nothing has ever been more evocative of the 1930s for me. I was instantly transported.