Ellen's Mandy Patinkin Page |
PULSE! May 1989 |
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No Biz Like Showbiz |
Mandy Patinkin adds “recording artist” to his impressive stage and screen resume Mandy Patinkin, versatile actor of stage and screen, intends to conquer the world of music, albeit step by step. While he's little-known among pop music fans, Patinkin is a star on Broadway, on the strength of musicals like "Evita," "Sunday in the Park With George," "Follies," and most certainly "South Pacific." Patinkin has also been featured on the silver screen, in films like "Alien Nation," "Yentl" and "The Princess Bride." Now he emerges as a dramatic interpreter of song lyrics on a smashingly inventive CBS recording, Mandy Patinkin. The repertoire is as distinct and diverse as the roles this 36-year-old Chicago-born actor chooses to play. Instead of recording a collection of modern songs, Patinkin has chosen the works of some of America's greatest songwriters for his formal recording debut. Although he's been heard on original cast LPs, launching his career in 1979 with "Evita," this is Patinkin in the spotlight, center stage. Surrounding him are tunesmiths Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, Al Jolson, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim, to name a few. There are 24 songs on the album, songs, Patinkin says, "that mattered and affected me. What Stephen Sondheim writes speaks to me. If I could live what he writes about, I'd be very happy." Not that Patinkin isn't happy. He was selected to go to Los Angeles in April to play the role of 88 Keys in the film "Dick Tracy" with Warren Beatty and Madonna. Sondheim wrote four songs for "Dick Tracy," Patinkin says. "I'm going to sing in the movie for the first time to Madonna, who plays Breathless Mahoney. I think she and I might even do 'What Can You Lose' together." Patinkin brings a sense of theater to whatever he does; it's one of the first things you notice about the new recording. He doesn't just sing these evergreens, he acts them out in a way that seems natural and quite overpowering. ForPatinkin, singing is acting. "I find it a coincidence that the words I'm singing happen to be on musical notes," he explains. "It's the notes I'm saying. I rehearse the same way as I rehearse a play. I'll talk it first. With words, I'll say them until they make sense to me, and then I'll sing them. I'm amazed that music is so powerful." This LP is the direct result of two other music projects that Patinkin recorded. He'd done a concert recording for RCA Red Seal with the New York Philharmonic in 1984 under the banner "Follies," which resulted in an invitation to join the cast of a CBS Masterworks recreation of the play "South Pacific" several years later. "South Pacific" made label brass think about giving Patinkin his own, exclusive musical platform. So the actor started thinking about the kinds of songs he's like to record. Along with pianist Paul Ford and musical director Paul Gemignani, he began to consider songs. "They should be about love and Broadway," he thought. Ford gave Patinkin direction. "He said, 'Let's pull songs out.' He had a sense of my tastes. So we made lists. I don't read music or play an instrument. Paul would play the songs and work out notes for me to say. I listened to the songs as I pushed my kids around New York in strollers. Those songs I couldn't learn, I put in one pile; those I didn't like or wasn't sure about went into another pile. Two years after we started this weeding out process, we did the recording in June of 1988." But first Patinkin filmed "Alien Nation," then returned to New York to record. "What I found interesting was that the songs that surfaced had to do with my feelings, my visions, hopes for the present and the future," he recalls on a Sunday evening during a break from a six-concert appearance in Manhattan - his first solo engagement as a vocalist, alone in the spotlight with just a piano for 90 minutes. "The songs are like chapters, stories or titles or tales that spoke to me. They were like lessons, like 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow,' which is a great dream to one day put the clouds behind me in my mind. If I could live like these songs, it'd be great." In sifting through material for the recording, Patinkin ran into one hurdle. Some songs, while enjoyable, didn't work for him individually. The answer came in stringing them together in two medleys, what he calls the "Casey" medley and the "Happy" medley. "Casey" consists of "And the Band Played On" (written in 1895 by John Palmer and Charles Ward); "Marie" (Randy Newman, 1974) and "Once Upon a Time" (Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, 1962). "Happy" includes "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder (1928), "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" (1935), "Puttin' On the Ritz" (1928), "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911), "Swanee" (1918), "My Mammy" (1918), "Handfulof Keys" (1930, lyrics in 1978) and "Pennies From Heaven" (1936). With this medley, Patinkin pays tribute to Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and AI Jolson and their works from films and stage plays. "There's a feeling of timelessness to this music," Patinkin says, explaining why so many songs date from earlier decades. The only contemporary work is by Randy Newman, which Patinkin says he included because he loved the song. Patinkin believes the timeless quality of his album will appeal to people of differing backgrounds and ages. "Although I grew up on the south side of Chicago with the music of the Beatles, it's these old songs that click with me. I have a feeling that if I continue with music I'm going to investigate the Beatles songs, which are a lot calmer than other rock 'n' roll songs to me." Patinkin isn't afraid to show his sensitive, tender side on his album. He sings "Sonny Boy" (from the 1928 film "The Singing Fool") a cappella in honor of a friend, Alan Buchsbaum, who died of AIDS. "I first sang it at his memorial service. It was a song I learned for him. He wanted me to sing." Between the ages of nine and 14, Patinkin sang in the choir of the Rodfi Zedek Jewish temple in Chicago. So there is a hint of cantorial singing in his style. "There is a certain cry I like in cantorial singing that I can give to certain songs. That cry comes from what I learned from being in the choir." The "cry" he refers to is used for dramatic impact in Hebrew liturgical music; in his hands it becomes a supple musical ingredient. Patinkin has discovered that music allows him a freedom he cannot find in speaking parts. "I find music is more freeing; it's company in a certain way. It's like I'm singing within a character I'm portraying. A song like 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime' is terrifyingly timeless." He was surprised to find that he had chosen six songs from the movies for his LP. "I hadn't a clue until after they were selected," he admits. This sense of adventure permeates Patinkin's professional life. He likes playing different roles in films to avoid being typecast. "After 'Yentl,' I got 50 Yentl parts," he says with a chuckle. "I like to wait between roles and do a variety of things." Once Patinkin finishes "Dick Tracy," he says he'd like to do an LP of pop tunes. "I'd love imitating those singers doing songs like 'Rock Around the Clock.' Whatever I do is in some way an imitation of a style at first. If you do it long enough, the imitation fades and you emerge." By Eliot Tiegel |
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