Meredith Willson from Sousa to Swing – Phantom Dancer 18 Jan 22

RADIO

During World War II, Willson worked for the United States’ Armed Forces Radio Service. His work with the AFRS teamed him with George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Bill Goodwin. He worked with all three as the bandleader, and a regular character, on the Burns and Allen radio program. He played a shy man always trying to get advice on women. His character was ditzy as well, basically a male version of Allen’s.

In 1942, Willson had his own program on NBC. Meredith Willson’s Music was a summer replacement for Fibber McGee and Molly. Sparkle Time, which ran on CBS in 1946–47, was Willson’s first full-season radio program.

Returning to network radio after WWII, Willson created the Talking People, a choral group that spoke in unison while delivering radio commercials. In 1950 he became the musical director for The Big Show, a 90-minute comedy-variety program hosted by actress Tallulah Bankhead and featuring some of the world’s best-known entertainers.

Willson became part of one of the show’s very few running gags, beginning replies to Bankhead’s comments or questions with “well, sir, Miss Bankhead”. He wrote the song “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” for the show. Bankhead spoke the lyrics over the music at the end of each show. He also worked on Jack Benny‘s radio program, and hosted his own program in 1949. For a few years in the early 1950s, Willson was a regular panelist on the Goodson-Todman game show The Name’s the Same; he recalled later that he did the show for the steady Goodson-Todman salary, which he was saving toward his Broadway musical project.

In 1950, Willson served as musical director for The California Story, California’s centennial production at the Hollywood Bowl. Working on this production, Willson met writer Franklin Lacey, who proved instrumental in developing the storyline for a musical Willson had been working on, soon to become The Music Man. The California Story was followed by two more state centennial collaborations with stage director Vladimir Rosing: The Oregon Story in 1959 and The Kansas Story in 1961.

BROADWAY

Willson’s most famous work, The Music Man, premiered on Broadway in 1957, and was adapted twice for film (in 1962 and 2003). He called it “an Iowan’s attempt to pay tribute to his home state”. It took Willson eight years and 30 revisions to complete the musical, for which he wrote more than 40 songs.

The show was a resounding success, running on Broadway for 1,375 performances over three and a half years. The cast recording won the first Grammy Award for Best Original Cast Album (Broadway or TV). In 1959, Willson and his second wife Ralina “Rini” Zarova recorded an album, … and Then I Wrote The Music Man, in which they review the history of, and sing songs from, the show. In 2010, Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara played Willson and Rini in an off-Broadway entertainment based on this album.

Willson’s second musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, ran on Broadway for 532 performances from 1960 to 1962 and was made into a 1964 motion picture starring Debbie Reynolds. His third Broadway musical was an adaptation of the film Miracle on 34th Street, called Here’s Love. Some theater buffs recall it as a quick failure, but it actually enjoyed an eight-month run on Broadway in 1963-64 (334 performances). His fourth, last, and least successful musical was 1491, which told the story of Columbus’s attempts to finance his famous voyage. It was produced by the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1969, but not on Broadway.

CLASSICAL

Willson’s Symphony No. 1 in F minor: A Symphony of San Francisco and his Symphony No. 2 in E minor: Missions of California were recorded in 1999 by William T. Stromberg conducting the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. Other symphonic works include the O.O. McIntyre Suite, Symphonic Variations on an American Theme and Anthem, the symphonic poem Jervis Bay, and Ask Not, which incorporates quotations from John F. Kennedy‘s inaugural address. In tribute to the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA), Willson composed In Idyllwild for orchestra, choir, vocal solo and Alphorn. Willson’s chamber music includes A Suite for Flute.

TV

In 1964, Willson produced three original summer variety specials for CBS under the title Texaco Star Parade. The first premiered on June 5, 1964, and starred Willson and his wife Rini. It featured guest stars Caterina Valente and Sergio Franchi, and a production number with Willson leading four military bands composed of 500 California high school band members.

The second special starred Debbie Reynolds singing selections she had introduced in Willson’s production The Unsinkable Molly Brown. On July 28, Willson and Rini hosted the third special, which featured a Willson production number with 1,000 Marine Corps volunteers from Camp Pendelton. Guest stars were Vikki Carr, Jack Jones, Frederick Hemke, and Joe and Eddie.

POP SONGS

Meredith Willson wrote a number of well-known songs, such as “You and I”, a No. 1 hit for Glenn Miller in 1941 on the Billboard charts. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby, and by Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra on vocals.

Three songs from The Music Man have become American standards: “Seventy-Six Trombones“, “Gary, Indiana”, and “Till There Was You“, originally titled “Till I Met You” (1950).

Other popular songs by Willson include “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (published as “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”), “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You“, and “I See the Moon“. He wrote the University of Iowa‘s fight song, “Iowa Fight Song“, as well as Iowa State University‘s “For I for S Forever”. He also wrote the fight song for his hometown high school “Mason City, Go!” He honored The Salvation Army with a musical tribute, “Banners and Bonnets”.

An oddity in Willson’s body of work is “Chicken Fat“, written in 1962. In school gymnasiums across the nation, this was the theme song for President John F. Kennedy’s youth fitness program.

In 2014, a re-recording of “Chicken Fat” was used in a television commercial for the iPhone 5S.^[19]

In 1974, Willson offered another marching song, “Whip Inflation Now”, to the Ford Administration, but it was not used.

BOOKS

Willson wrote three memoirs: And There I Stood With My Piccolo (1948), Eggs I Have Laid (1955), and But He Doesn’t Know the Territory (1959).

Here’s ’76 Trombones’ from the 1962 movie, ‘The Music Man’

18 JANUARY PLAY LIST