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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the first of a three-part series featuring noted musical theater historian Alfred Simon, paying tribute to composer Vincent Youmans. This program originally aired in 1981 and featured many Youmans' songs from shows like Wildflower, Hit the Deck, and No, No Nanette.

[0:49] Paul Lazarus: Good afternoon, and welcome to Anything Goes. I'm your host, Paul Lazarus. September seems to be a month for birthdays in the world of the musical theater, and particularly notable are the birthdays of Vincent Youmans and George Gershwin. And together with my guest today on Anything Goes, noted musical theater historian Alfred Simon, we're going to explore primarily the work of composer Vincent Youmans, but as a treat, just a short tribute to George Gershwin.

[1:20] Paul Lazarus: Youmans would have been 83 today, September 27th. He was born in 1898. Mr. Simon, my guest, as well as being a musical theater historian, was also the director of light music for WQXR for over 20 years, and rehearsal pianist for such shows as George Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing, and we'll be talking about that a little later on. Al, it's always a pleasure to have you on the program. We've done so many things together, the Kern Tribute, the look at the 1920s on musical theater. Welcome.

[1:53] Alfred Simon: Thank you. I love being here with you.

[1:57] Paul Lazarus: George Gershwin was born the day before Vincent Youmans, isn't that right?

[2:02] Alfred Simon: That's right, yeah. September 26, 1898. He was born in Brooklyn on Snedeker Avenue. I think the number was 242.

[2:11] Paul Lazarus: Have you ever been there?

[2:13] Alfred Simon: No. ASCAP placed a plaque on the building, and it was promptly vandalized and stolen.

[2:20] Paul Lazarus: Oh no. Did you ever see a Vincent Youmans show, Al, when you were growing up?

[2:25] Alfred Simon: I saw quite a few of them, yeah. The first one I saw, I think, was Lollipop. But when I saw it, it was during the tryout. It was then called The Leftover.

[2:37] Paul Lazarus: What did you think of the Mr. Youmans in those days?

[2:39] Alfred Simon: I liked them. I always liked his songs.

[2:41] Paul Lazarus: You saw the original No, No, Nanette, didn't you?

[2:43] Alfred Simon: Yeah, I did.

[2:44] Paul Lazarus: Did that make a ... I mean, we look back on it now as having such a huge impact. At the time, was it as notable?

[2:52] Alfred Simon: I don't think so, no. I loved the show, but it was a typical 20s show.

[3:00] Alfred Simon: Certainly in plot, especially. One wonders without the two main hits, T for Two and I want to be happy, if that would be as durable as it turned out to be.

[3:12] Alfred Simon: Of course, it had played in Chicago for a long time before it came to New York. And so everybody knew T for Two and I want to be happy. It also played in London. So by the time it came to New York, at the old Globe Theatre, now the London Frontine Theatre ...

[3:28] Paul Lazarus: People were coming in humming to it.

[3:30] Alfred Simon: Very familiar with it, yeah.

[3:32] Paul Lazarus: Sometimes as a kind of show that people walk in humming to it.

[3:36] Alfred Simon: That's right.

[3:37] Paul Lazarus: We have some wonderful things to share with you today by Vincent Youmans and George Gershwin, who was, as we said, born the day before, on September 26th. Two very auspicious days in September, wouldn't you say?

[3:50] Alfred Simon: Yeah.

[3:51] Paul Lazarus: But the first thing we'd like to play is a very rare recording of Vincent Youmans at the piano himself. A piano roll, I believe.

[3:59] Alfred Simon: It is, yeah.

[4:00] Paul Lazarus: It's a medley of the songs from No, No, Nanette.

[4:30] ♪ Musical number: "Medley from No, No, Nanette" — performed by Vincent Youmans ♪

[10:00] Paul Lazarus: Vincent Youmans himself playing a medley of songs from his score to No, No, Nanette, and you're listening to Anything Goes with an 83rd birthday tribute to the composers Vincent Youmans and George Gershwin. Youmans was born into a well-to-do family, hat store owners. He was educated at private schools and given piano lessons from boyhood. He rejected an engineering career to do what he really liked, which was compose.

[10:32] Alfred Simon: He's won a very fashionable part of New York and Central Park West and 61st Street. At the time it was a private house, Brownstone. So he sort of breaks that mold of coming from the poor Lower East Side, doesn't he?

[10:45] Alfred Simon: That's right. That place is now a hotel, Mayflower Hotel. I think the story of how Youmans first started to work in the musical theater is one worth telling now. Gershwin was very much impressed by Youmans' music. A producer who was doing a show called Two Little Girls in Blue wanted Gershwin to do the music and Ira Gershwin to do the lyrics. At that time Ira was not using his real name. He called himself Arthur Francis.

[11:19] Alfred Simon: Right, which was a construction of his brother and sister's names. But Gershwin said he was too busy with other commitments and he suggested Youmans to this producer. So that's really how he got his first job. He didn't write the entire score for that show. It really wasn't until Wildflower in 1923 that he did his first score.

[11:38] ♪ Musical number: "Wildflower" — performed by the original London cast ♪

[12:43] Alfred Simon: How it Worcester from the original London cast singing the title song from Wildflower. Music by the subject of today's edition of Anything Goes, Vincent Youmans. When Wildflower first came out in '23, the Times critic regretted the book was never funny and now and then a little dull. But he lost his head over the music and approached good old fashioned raving. The most tuneful score that Rudolf Frimmel has written, he began, following with a whole paragraph of ardent praise in which Bambolina was singled out, which was the other hit from the show. He opened his next paragraph reiterating his kudos for Frimmel. His embarrassment must have been acute when he learned Frimmel wrote not one note of the score. The error was not entirely absurd. Half the music was written by Herbert Stothart, who worked with Frimmel and whose compositions had an operettish flavour. Furthermore, Bambolina could remind a hearer of, say, Something Seems Tinglingling. Or Rosemary.

[13:37] Alfred Simon: But, of course, the songs from Wildflower were by Vincent Youmans, who established himself with this score as a composer to be reckoned with. The years 1923 and 1924 were unquestionably Vincent Youmans' most active period. He worked on shows like Mary Jane McCain, which had lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein and William Carey Duncan. Lollipop was unveiled in those years. And, of course, his most successful piece, No, No, Nanette, opened in those years as well.

[14:10] Paul Lazarus: Didn't start off all that well, No, No, Nanette, did it, Al?

[14:13] Alfred Simon: Yeah, lots of trouble on the road, but it's not unfamiliar to many shows. It started very shakily out of town. It really had a disastrous tryout, and they really made pretty drastic changes. They threw out five of the original fourteen songs. Irving Caesar and Youmans wrote four new ones during the rewrites, and came up with, really, the two big hits from the show, Tea for Two and I Want to Be Happy. They kept changing the casts also. By the time it reached New York, the songs were pretty familiar. That, I think, is one reason why it didn't run as long in New York as it did in London and Chicago.

[14:51] Paul Lazarus: Right. It really didn't even run a full year in New York.

[14:54] Alfred Simon: No, it ran a full season, which is from September to, I guess, about June or so. It was revived in 1971, a very successful revival, and probably that show is responsible for Vincent Youmans being remembered today.

[15:10] Paul Lazarus: I'm sure that's responsible for lots of other revivals.

[15:15] Alfred Simon: Yeah, it was a tremendously successful revival of what had been an international hit in the 20s, but really had not been done since the 20s. This is Anything Goes with special guest Al Simon discussing composer Vincent Youmans, best known for his songs in No No Nanette. We are very fortunate to have, along with the recordings of the revival, two recordings that were made for this cast album that never made it onto WAX. Thomas Shepard of RCA provided Peach on the Beach and A Moment Ago, which were actually recorded in the recording session of the revival of No No Nanette cast album, but I guess for lack of space on the album were never released.

[16:04] ♪ Musical number: "I Want to Be Happy" — performed by the cast of No, No, Nanette ♪

[17:00] ♪ Musical number: "Peach on the Beach" — performed by the cast of No, No, Nanette ♪

[20:12] ♪ Musical number: "A Moment Ago" — performed by the cast of No, No, Nanette ♪

[21:05] Alfred Simon: And they were good times were only a moment ago.

[21:12] Paul Lazarus: Say, who invited you to that picnic?

[21:14] Alfred Simon: You know, I can't remember.

[21:16] Paul Lazarus: Neither can I. You were wearing a shirt waist that very color.

[21:20] Alfred Simon: And you were wearing a sweater with a lot of red and green and purple and orange in it.

[21:28] Alfred Simon: We played tennis.

[21:29] Paul Lazarus: And we sang.

[21:31] Alfred Simon: Old time music was nice and new.

[21:35] Paul Lazarus: Automobiles were precious few.

[21:39] Alfred Simon: Things were slower and hand lines lower.

[21:43] Paul Lazarus: And only a moment ago.

[21:47] Alfred Simon: Motion pictures were flickering flicks.

[21:50] Paul Lazarus: 59th Street was in the sticks.

[21:54] Alfred Simon: No suspicion of prohibition.

[21:58] Paul Lazarus: And only a moment ago.

[22:02] Alfred Simon: Years may fly by.

[22:05] Paul Lazarus: We shall stand here waving bye bye.

[22:09] Alfred Simon: You're so cuter.

[22:13] Paul Lazarus: What I'm counting on for the future.

[22:17] Alfred Simon: Let's keep dancing my pride and joy.

[22:20] Paul Lazarus: Lord and master but still my boy.

[22:24] Alfred Simon: Every moment until this moment was only a moment ago.

[22:37] Alfred Simon: Three songs used at various times for the 1971 revival of No No Nanette.

[22:42] Alfred Simon: You heard the classic I Want to Be Happy.

[22:45] Alfred Simon: Followed by two lesser known Youmans songs.

[22:48] Alfred Simon: Peach on the Beach and A Moment Ago.

[22:51] Alfred Simon: Which was sung by Ruby Keillor and Jack Guilford.

[22:54] Alfred Simon: Youmans next show was Oh Please in 1926.

[22:58] Alfred Simon: A show that critic Alexander Wolcott just totally dismissed as uncommonly stale and witless.

[23:05] Alfred Simon: But it was not a bad Youmans score I would say.

[23:09] Alfred Simon: Pretty good Youmans score.

[23:11] Alfred Simon: And we're going to play two songs from it.

[23:14] Alfred Simon: Featuring Beatrice Lilly singing Like He Loves Me from the original cast.

[23:19] Alfred Simon: These are accompanied by Vincent Youmans on the piano.

[23:22] Alfred Simon: We're trying to feature as many recordings that exist of Vincent Youmans playing his own songs.

[23:27] Alfred Simon: And following that with I Know That You Know, one of the real Youmans standards.

[23:31] Alfred Simon: I Know That You Know had a particularly wonderful verse.

[23:35] Alfred Simon: Youmans often, in fact other composers, often did their best work in the verse of a song because they realized they didn't have to make it a 32-bar verse or make it popular.

[23:48] Alfred Simon: Gershwin was also known for that too, wasn't he?

[23:51] Paul Lazarus: Yes, and Kern too.

[23:52] Alfred Simon: So here are two songs from the Vincent Youmans score Oh Please.

[23:57] Alfred Simon: Beatrice Lilly singing Like He Loves Me.

[24:00] Alfred Simon: And Jane Powell and Vic de Mone singing I Know That You Know.

[24:04] ♪ Musical number: "Like He Loves Me" — performed by Beatrice Lilly with Vincent Youmans at the piano ♪

[24:35] ♪ Musical number: "I Know That You Know" — performed by Jane Powell and Vic de Mone ♪

[29:39] Alfred Simon: Two songs from Oh Please written in 1926 and you're listening to Anything Goes with an 83rd birthday tribute to Vincent Youmans and George Gershwin. Beatrice Lilly sang Like He Loves Me with Vincent Youmans at the piano, one of the rare times that Vincent Youmans was recorded. That show marked Beatrice Lilly's first appearance in an American musical. At the same time, down the street on Broadway, Gertrude Lawrence was performing in the Gershwin show OK and Al, you told me a funny story that Beatrice Lilly used to say something during her performance each night.

[30:12] Paul Lazarus: Yes, when she sang do-do-do in the verse, she would say, oop, wrong show, referring, of course, to Gertrude Lawrence singing the Gershwin song down the street.

[30:28] Alfred Simon: Exactly. I'm sure there was quite a fun rivalry between the two of them.

[30:33] Paul Lazarus: They were very good friends, though.

[30:35] Alfred Simon: And the second song was I Know That You Know performed by Jane Powell and Vic Dumon from the film version of Hit the Deck.

[30:51] Paul Lazarus: You've been listening to Albert Simon on composer Vincent Youmans Part 1. Anything Goes! Backstage with Broadway's Best is produced and hosted by Paul Lazarus. For more information, visit anythinggoespl.com. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.