About “Are You Havin’ Any Fun?”
May 14, 2011
A while ago, we were searching for some new repertoire to add some spark to our shows. We have long been a fan of barbershop arrangements by Ruby Rhea, the tenor of 1965 SAI Queens of Harmony Shalimars. While reading through her extensive arrangement list, this title popped out. “Are You Havin’ Any Fun?”
What came to my mind first was a TV commercial showing frazzled Christmas shoppers with Tony Bennett singing “Are ya havin’ any fun? Whatcha gettin’ outta livin’?” in the background. The tune is catchy, the beat is swingy, and the lyric sounded upbeat and, shall I say, fun.
For those of you who know us, you know that we like to laugh and have fun. So this seemed like a good candidate for us. I did a quick browse on YouTube and iTunes to find some sample recordings by other artists, and looked up the lyrics. (This is my fairly standard method for checking things out when considering new quartet songs.) So far so good!
A quick email exchange with Ruby, and a few days later we were the proud owners of a new song!
The piece was written by Sammy Fain (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics) for a Broadway production called “George White’s Scandals of 1939.” The most popular recordings are by Tony Bennett and Count Basie. There are a lot of other covers as well, including a light-hearted ukulele version by Cali Rose, and a samba version by Elaine Stritch a la Carmen Miranda “Chiquita Banana” style.
As for Lustre, we have found our inner polka on this song – when we perform it, we do a “mash up” with another popular “fun” song that has the same melody as the first line “Are You Having Any Fun”… can you guess what it is? You’ll have to come out to one of our performances to hear it!
An Interview with Nancy Bergman
February 13, 2010
Here in Lustre-land it is competition season. We are gearing up for our sixth SAI Regional Quartet Competition in April. That means hours and hours of rehearsal and coaching on two songs in particular. Our contest ballad this year is “Bandstand in Central Park”, written and arranged by Nancy Bergman. Our contest uptune is “Flirty Eyes”, written by Marcia Hill and also arranged by Nancy Bergman.
Nancy Bergman is an international treasure of the Sweet Adelines world. She has given 50+ years of service to SAI as a quartet singer (Queen of Harmony), chorus director, judge, international faculty, international board of directors, and managing director of the SAI headquarters office. She was honored with the SAI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002. She is an SAI Master Arranger, and her barbershop arrangements have been sung by hundreds of quartets and choruses around the world.
Because we are taking an “all Bergman” set into contest, we thought it would be fun to chat with Nancy about these songs. Thanks, Nancy, for spending time with us!
You are known in the Barbershop world as an extraordinary arranger of music for the Barbershop style, but “Bandstand in Central Park” is an original composition. What other songs have you written? Are they all in the Barbershop style?
Barbershop harmony is my ONLY style….and yes, I’ve written a number of songs you may have heard: HARMONIZE THE WORLD, OPENING NIGHT ON BROADWAY, WORLD, HERE I AM!, DIXIE SUNSHINE, RED HOT!, HE WAS THERE…..and everyone will be singing a little-known composition of mine at the upcoming IES series of educational classes called BRING ON THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS.
We’ve been told that ”Bandstand in Central Park” has a very special meaning to you – can you describe for us the way this song came about and what the story is about?
I was asked to write a ballad for a band theme, and I thought of the bandstand in Central Park in my hometown of Fort Madison, Iowa. The park was located enroute to downtown, and its sidewalks and benches frequented by many citizens, especially dating couples who went on foot to the movies, bowling, soda parlors and other places of entertainment in the downtown area. My future husband and I were one of those dating couples, and we especially enjoyed the park benches on the way home. As the song describes, the band played concerts there every Sunday night during the summer — and still does. This seemed a perfect setting for a ballad with a band theme, and you just can’t have a ballad without a love story, can you? Poetic license is also available to songwriters, so the true love story isn’t quite as capsuled in the song, but close enough to call it mine.
Was your transition from arranging into song writing a natural, easy one? Or did you find it to be challenging?
I find songwriting easy, once I find a topic I want to write about. THAT is the hard part! Most of my songs came about because I needed a song for competition, either for my quartet or my chorus, and I couldn’t find the right one. Actually, arrangers write pieces of songs every time they write an arrangement….we write intros, interludes, tags, sometimes original verses. And we fix the problems other songwriters make!
“Flirty Eyes” is another of your arrangements. Marcia Hill wrote the song specifically for Barbershop. What can you tell us about this song’s origins?
Marcia Hill is my good friend, and for many years the bass of my quartet and my associate chorus director. Being the creative lady she is, she came up with MANY good ideas when we were searching for music for chorus and quartet. Her original songs came already arranged in barbershop harmony (she’s SMART!), but I usually added something here and there to give it a finishing touch….enough to get my name on it!
“Flirty Eyes” is a fun, sassy uptune, with lots of key changes and opportunities for rhythmic play. It is a lot of fun to sing – was it fun to arrange? Did it present any particular challenges or opportunities?
We had to find a way to make it PEAK by adding the stomp part and building the “pa-rize” chord. We had to extend the tag to give it interest and a chance to build to a grand climax!
By pairing “Bandstand in Central Park” and “Flirty Eyes” as our competition set, we are imagining that the “pretty miss” in the first song must have had “flirty eyes”. Are we close to the truth? ;-)
Are you asking if I was a FLIRTY GIRL??? Absolutely YES! Now I’m just a flirty Old Lady, but I still BLINK good!
We are always on the lookout for new songs to sing, and we find that the search for new music is one of the toughest things we have to do. How do you choose music to arrange? Do you actively seek songs to arrange? Do you arrange songs by request?
Yes, finding the RIGHT song is probably the most difficult part of arranging. I look for songs that our members would be attracted to — lots of FUN, or with a wonderful MESSAGE. Then they must call for the chords we like to sing – lots of RINGERS. Often a member will suggest a song that interests them….some have the right ingredients, some don’t. Yes, I do custom arranging, but I have to LIKE the song and believe it has the “right stuff”. I recently did a song I’VE wanted to arrange (I don’t often get time to do something just for ME) ….a real accomplishment! There is only time to arrange a few new ones each year. As soon as my new website is completed, with all arrangements FINALLY on computer, maybe I can do more. The good news is that the old ones are getting updated while getting to be more readable and PRETTY!
You have been involved at the heart of Sweet Adelines International for over 50 years. How has the music in SAI changed over the years? What excites you the most about the future of music in the Barbershop style?
Our members are now able to successfully sing music that calls for a wider range, so more songs are available to consider. But the chords are the same, and should always be….for that’s what make us what we are….singers of barbershop harmony. Some of the arrangements I wrote in the 1950′s and 1960′s are still being sung today. I have probably made them a little fancier…..a little more “show-off” than the original version, but they are still good. I hope we still keep singing those same RINGING CHORDS….for another 50 years at least!
Thank you so much for spending time with us on our website. Do you have any general words of advice for SAI quartet competitors this spring?
Our competitors are becoming so skilled that they probably don’t need any advice from me! Most know that it’s the song…..the message…..the story….the music ….that counts. When you walk on stage push your actress button….you ARE the person in the song, living it in real time. Tell it with all the emotion you can muster! Make your audience FEEL your emotion….be it happiness, joy, or sadness. Every contestant who reaches the audience with their emotion has reached the peak of performance. Go for it!
About “You Turned the Tables On Me”
September 2, 2009
Doesn’t every new quartet wish to emulate a great quartet? To sing great arrangements…to pick up a new song a make it just as wonderful as the original artist? Well, as a brand new quartet in 2005 we were (and still are) very ambitious. We had heard “the Buzz” – SAI 2005 Quartet Champions – sing “You Turned the Tables on Me”. Not only was it a great song, but also one I knew. Being relatively new to barbershop at that time it was good to know that songs I knew outside of the barbershop world would translate to the harmonies we all know and love.
“You Turned the Tables on Me” is a popular song with music by Louis Alter and lyrics by Sidney D. Mitchell, published in 1936. It was introduced in the musical film Sing, Baby, Sing. The most popular recording was by Helen Ward with the Benny Goodman orchestra.
So, we picked up a copy of this fun and challenging Nancy Bergman arrangement and began learning. In Spring of 2006 we competed in our first Regional competition. On Saturday night, after the contest is over, you find yourself singing in the hospitality rooms at the hotel for many appreciative audiences. As a newer quartet we didn’t have a lot in our repertoire so what did we sing? You guessed it, “Tables” as we call it. By the end of the night, after singing in a dozen or more rooms, I think, we had finally ‘learned’ it. We still work on this piece today and are making it better every year and will continue to “perfect” it as we forge ahead on our journey.
About “I Look At You”
August 9, 2009
We have lately been working on a new song: ”I Look At You”, as recorded by Johnny Mathis in 1958 on his album “Certain Smile”. The song was later re-released on two different “greatest hits” compilation albums in 1958 and in 1994. This lovely, haunting ballad about “love that might never be” was written by Jessie Mae Robinson. As the story goes, Jessie Mae had completed most of the song, but got stuck with writer’s block on one line. Johnny proposed the lyric for that one line, earning him a rare song writing co-credit on the song’s publication.
“I Look At You” was arranged for us by our dear friend and HCMC chorus director, Michael Gellert. Michael’s ballad arrangements are known throughout the barbershop world for their lush harmonies and beautiful chord structures that make the listener melt. Michael’s arrangement of “I Look At You” is another of these songs. In classic Gellert style, the arrangement lifts and soars to beautiful heights. We’re still learning this new song, but we know already that this Gellert arrangement is a new favorite of ours, and will soon be a favorite of audiences as well.
About “Nobody Does It Like Me”
July 19, 2009
So in college I auditioned for many different musicals. I found myself singing the same old popular numbers from broadway – Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera, Cats, you get the idea. Everybody was using these songs and I wanted to stand out. I know, me??? Want to stand out??? Go figure. Anyway, my piano instructor came to me and said he had the “perfect” number for me. As Michael would say, it’s in my “fach”. So I picked it up, learned it, loved it and got the lead in the next musical for which I auditioned.
A few months back I was singing this song for my quartet who said they’d never seen me so excited about a song. I brought it to Michael Gellert (director of HCMC) and he arranged this fun piece for us.
“Nobody Does It Like Me,” from Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ last Broadway musical Seesaw (1973), is an upbeat song about a woman who can’t seem to do anything right, especially fall in love.
In April, 2009 we competed at the Mid-Atlantic Harmony Sweepstakes A Cappella Festival and performed this number where we decided to put a new twist on it. Rather than just standing and performing – we added some choreo – “Temptations” style. This was very well received and helped secure our 4h place finish.