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[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "My Favorite Things" ♪

[0:17] Robert W. Schneider: Happy Throwback Thursday, everybody. It's that time of the week again, friends.

[0:21] Kevin David Thomas: Welcome back. I'm doing great, Kevin. How are you doing?

[0:24] Robert W. Schneider: I'm so good. Tomorrow I'm going on vacation. Where are you going? Where are you going?

[0:28] Kevin David Thomas: It's our yearly vacation. Listeners, you guys definitely know Sutton and I in Crawford, my son, my 14-month-old, we are going to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair. We are dressing up and we are going to be living our lives in Pennsylvania, very socially distanced, very safe, masks on the entire time. It's all outdoors and we're going to have a really good time.

[0:48] Robert W. Schneider: Do you curate a travel playlist before you hit the road?

[0:55] Kevin David Thomas: She doesn't listen, but if she was, she would say so. We will definitely listen to some Ren Faire music, some medieval type, some fife and a little doo-doo-doo-doo. It's like Camelot on a loop.

[1:05] Robert W. Schneider: A little bit. We can listen to Camelot, listen to a little Spitfire Grill. I don't know, something folky and weird. Us chatting today is my last thing and then I'm done until Tuesday.

[1:16] Kevin David Thomas: Amazing. Well, that sounds like a very exciting time for everybody.

[1:22] Robert W. Schneider: Hey, and listeners, thank you all so much for the wonderful, nice compliments you've been giving us based on our interview with David Yazbek, which dropped on Monday. So, we thank you so much for that. He was really fascinating. I thought he had some great advice for aspiring songwriters. Take a year and don't listen to any Broadway recording for a year, which is totally the opposite of what we're going to tell you today on Our Favorite Thing.

[1:42] Kevin David Thomas: Exactly. Today's Favorite Thing is a very special episode. Before we get to that, we do want to shout out our Broadway Trivia Night is not this Saturday, but it is the following Saturday because I'm gone this weekend. And so, friends, we are doing our regular old Broadway Trivia Night on Saturday. Rob, I hope you have the date in front of you.

[2:02] Robert W. Schneider: I do. It's Saturday, September 19th at 8 o'clock PM Eastern Standard Time. Unfortunately, folks, it is Rosh Hashanah, so if you can't join us, we totally understand.

[2:12] Kevin David Thomas: The theme this week or next week, I should say, the theme for next week will be divas, celebrating the divas of Broadway, which we're very, very excited about. And all of the proceeds, as you know, we don't keep a cent of this. It all gets donated to the Deborah Hospital Foundation, which is a fantastic organization that's doing a lot of good in this world. And that's where the charity will be for next weekend. So, please join us once again. You know how to do this. We'll post instructions on Instagram and Facebook, but if not, you Venmo me $5 or you can Venmo me more, if you so wish, or you can go on to PayPal and all the information will be on social media.

[2:47] Robert W. Schneider: So, that's it. Join us for some divas. I love it. Alright. Well, let's get to our favorite thing. So, as I said, today's favorite thing listeners is a little special episode because we're able to talk to the founder and creator of our favorite thing. And I said, Rob, we're just gonna make it one favorite thing today because it's my favorite thing and I'm in charge today. So, thank you, Rob. Kevin's the leader.

[3:08] Kevin David Thomas: I know. So, I discovered this podcast. I discovered this radio. It's a radio station. It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I discovered it like before pre-COVID. And I say that only because it's been since COVID that I have just absolutely needed it. Because sometimes I don't want to just put on Goldilocks the record. Sometimes I don't have time, especially with a child. And I just want someone to just tell me what to listen to. And with this radio station, I can listen to it on my phone, on the app, or I can listen to it on Alexa. I just started putting it through there. So, this is I'm talking about Sounds of Broadway. And we are lucky enough today to be talking to the founder and creator of that, Stuart Brown. Please welcome Stu. Stu, you're here with us. How you doing? Welcome.

[3:51] Stuart Brown: Great. Well, thank you so much for having me on.

[3:56] Kevin David Thomas: Yes. Did I explain? I feel like Rachel Maddow when she interviews people. Did I explain it correctly in describing what? Because you have a big umbrella, but mainly it is the 24-hour radio station, correct?

[4:07] Stuart Brown: You did so well that I'm hiring you as my PR agent.

[4:13] Robert W. Schneider: Look at that. Kevin got a job. Booked and blessed, Kevin.

[4:21] Stuart Brown: Yeah. So, it's a 24-7 online station. And sort of what you were saying that like Goldilocks and some listeners might be going, what is he talking about? So, what I try and do is play well-known, popular, obscure shows, Broadway, London flops, because there is, as you know, there is great music from shows that lasted a nanosecond on Off-Broadway, Broadway, the London stage. So, that's what it is. It's 24-7. And like you said, your computer, your phone, Alexa, Google Player, all these things that you can listen in your car. So, it's a great alternative to, let's just say, other Broadway radio programs that you can get.

[5:02] Kevin David Thomas: And you're not just, to clarify for our listeners, you're not just, you know, plussing, you know, shuffle on your playlist and putting this out there. You know, you're curating these. I mean, I enjoy the fact that you come on after a couple songs sometimes that you'll say, oh, this was, you know, and you give some anecdotes. You will sprinkle a little fun in there, too, a little bit. It's not just, you know, a playlist.

[5:22] Stuart Brown: Correct. Yeah, I curate, not the whole thing, because I actually do sleep a few hours.

[5:27] Robert W. Schneider: That's what Rob said. We were talking about it beforehand. We're like, what does he do at night?

[5:32] Stuart Brown: The state secret. But, you know, I do curate about 18 hours a week, and then I replay some of the playlists. So, you know, if you listen at 7 a.m. on Monday, I might replay that playlist like 5 p.m. Sunday. But yeah, I go in and I have almost, I have over 600 shows and just about 5,000 songs. So I try to rotate them. And I know, you know, trying to please everyone is difficult, because I'll get some emails from people that say, hey, and they want the popular songs. And it's like, well, that's true, but there's so much good stuff. And I really hope, especially those individuals, let's say the younger listeners, that they don't really know Broadway history. And, you know, everything is post-2000 or maybe post-2010. And there's a great wide world out there. Just give it a listen, especially if you're in high school or college and there's productions there or revivals, you want to try and broaden yourself.

[6:35] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, definitely. I love it. Even just the last hour, I saw School of Rock, Groundhog Day, and then Redhead, you know, and I just think that's, I think that we started our podcast for that reason, because we really wanted to make sure that that history, you know, was kept alive through our interviews and such like that. But I recognize that you do the same thing. And I think that's really, really cool. Rob?

[6:57] Robert W. Schneider: Stu, when did you first fall in love with musicals?

[7:03] Stuart Brown: So back in, when I was a freshman in high school, my parents, we went to Washington, D.C. for a trip and it was a great, it was very warm. And we went to the national tour Promises Promises that starred Tony Roberts and, you know, Burt Bacharach, Hal David scored one of the best of all time. And I was, I was just blown away. And then a friend of mine and I, he, we went to New York. We had a thing called twofers. And some of your listeners might remember what twofers were, two for the price of one. So two suburban kids from central Jersey took the bus to New York, this is 72. So Times Square was not Disney, Times Square was Triple X. To this day, I have no idea why my parents let us go. And so we go to the theater to cash in, you know, exchange the tickets, the show had closed.

So after throttling my friend for dragging me to New York, we started looking around. So we're walking around Times Square, looking at marquees. And he wanted, he really wanted to go to this one show I did not want to see, I finally gave in, we paid less than, and this full price, less than $8 for Saturday matinee orchestra. And it was a show called Grease. And it was the original production of Grease. Mary Botswick was in it, Alan Paul, who then went on to form the Manhattan Transfer. He was the teen angel. And it was the funniest most tuneful, to this day, it's still probably top five. So that started and we would go into New York every couple of months. Some shows were great. We saw John Lithgow in his Broadway debut.

[8:43] Robert W. Schneider: In trivia question, since you do trivia questions.

[8:47] Kevin David Thomas: Uh-oh. Is it the changing room?

[8:51] Stuart Brown: Ooh, Rob, 10 points.

[8:53] Robert W. Schneider: I got 10 points.

[8:55] Kevin David Thomas: I love it.

[8:56] Stuart Brown: Okay, what sport?

[8:58] Robert W. Schneider: Uh, soccer?

[9:00] Stuart Brown: Okay.

[9:00] Kevin David Thomas: Rugby? Rugby? No soccer?

[9:02] Stuart Brown: Oh, soccer. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[9:06] Stuart Brown: So, you know, and we just kept going. And then in college, I started, I did a three-hour Broadway radio station. Eventually, a weekly podcast at a station in Hartford, Connecticut.

[9:19] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[9:19] Stuart Brown: And then about a year and a half ago, I started this.

[9:23] Kevin David Thomas: And so, you know, why do it on your own? I mean, at what point were you like, I need to do this. And this is something I care about so much that I just want to do this. I can do this because there's a lot of technology involved.

[9:33] Stuart Brown: Well, that's the thing. It's that technology now makes it available. It's actually, there's a company in Britain where you can do, anyone can start their own radio station. So you could do, you know, at a small level, or you could do what I've done. I was doing an hour weekly show at, like I said, at this college in Hartford.

[9:54] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[9:55] Stuart Brown: But, you know, take two hours that I have to, even though it was a 15-minute drive, if it was snowing or raining, I was still supposed to go. Well, now I am down in my basement and it's my studio. I have my microphone, computer. I have hundreds of albums, thousands CDs, but everything's loaded on the computer. So it's just so much easier. And instead of just doing an hour show, I can do, like I said, I can program. I can give you the listener more than just an hour a week.

[10:28] Kevin David Thomas: Right. You have different, you have schedules too. And you have like, you know, featuring different composers and you have, I'm looking right now, you have composer series and you've lost.

[11:07] Stuart Brown: Like, for example, there's this really, I love it, it's this 1986 sci-fi musical written by Dave Clark for the Dave Clark Five called Time, and I've had the LP for years. I digitized a bunch of songs and some people said, oh, you can go to iTunes and download it, but, you know, this way, I don't have to download it because I have the LP. And so, you know, also for the listeners, because, you know, I'm talking about different songs, you're talking about it, well, it's 24 hours a day and you're like, wow, I want to listen to that song from Time. Well, we have an all request slot every night from 8 to 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and no other radio program, radio show has that. You have to, you're at the whim of the DJ or the playlist.

So, you can go in tonight, you go to my website, soundsofbroadway.com, there's a request tab, you search the database, you could put in Time and Freddie Mercury sings on it, Cliff Richard sings on it, Julian Lennon sings on it. The song by Julian Lennon, it's like, why wasn't this a top 10 single? So, you could search for anything or you could just open it up and scroll through.

[12:30] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. So, it really does, you know, it's sort of, I'm looking to broaden, I mean, in my real job, I'm a college administrator and so that educator in me wants to sort of teach and I really want people to discover and I thoroughly enjoy emails from people like, you know, sort of what you're saying. Oh, I was listening today and I heard, I love this song or I heard this, I never heard of that show before and I love that song. So, it is, yeah.

[12:55] Stuart Brown: I was going to ask you, no, no, I was going to ask you, Stu, what song do you find to be the most requested that you've received so far?

[13:00] Stuart Brown: You know, I don't really keep track, mostly because I'm trying to do only 100 other things during the day.

[13:07] Kevin David Thomas: I was going to say, you're a one-man operation over there.

[13:13] Stuart Brown: Yeah, and it's, you know, it really, it varies and I had, like, this mother-daughter email me a while ago and, you know, they were just sort of popping songs in, again, more for what they thought was, you know, just what they're in the mood for.

[13:31] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[13:32] Stuart Brown: So, you know, we're averaging over 12,000 listeners a month. Great. And, you know, I think, you know, it still needs to get, let's say, broader to get something where with the requests, I could say, okay, the top requests of this week or potentially even doing a show, the top songs of the week.

[13:50] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. And so, it's available online, right? You can open it onto a browser and you can find soundsofbroadway.com and an app as well?

[13:59] Stuart Brown: Yes. So, you can download right on the front page. Everything's on the front page. There's a link. So, you know, to help you download the app for the iPhone, Android device. And, you know, like Kevin said, he's listening on Amazon Echo now. Ah, yeah. Google Player. So, there's really a lot of ways to listen.

[14:20] Stuart Brown: And, you know, another fun part of this is, you know, I get some very basic stats and the US is by far the biggest audience, but, you know, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Chile, like, you know, Japan. I mean, some countries, it's like, is that a country? So, it's a lot of fun to see how it really spreads around the world.

[14:45] Kevin David Thomas: I'm downloading it right now as we speak. Give me five, give me the five star, you know.

[14:50] Stuart Brown: I will.

[14:51] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. I did that today, actually.

[14:53] Kevin David Thomas: No, I, you know, it's funny because I, when I was a kid, I used to, my dream was to listen to, to have a radio station and play show tunes and do the stuff that I love to do. And it's just kind of wild to talk to you a little bit and get to know your station and that that exists still. Because I feel like radio is a little, it's hard, you know, in this, you know, the regular radio that we're used to. But I commend you for creating something like this that is open to everybody, that is free, that you just download it, I mean, and support it. And there's other ways to support it. That's on the website as well. And I just encourage our listeners to check out the website, soundsofbroadway.com. Listen to, download the app like Rob just did, listen to it on all your other devices.

[15:35] Stuart Brown: But thank you so much, Stuart, for joining us today and spending a little time sharing this because it really is, it's important. Like you said, the educator, Rob and I are both teachers, as you know. And that's why we started this podcast. We just want to spread the word to get more people listening to things they never listened to before and maybe learning something along the way.

[15:52] Stuart Brown: Just one quick thing, you had mentioned trivia. Each week I do a trivia quiz. And for this week's quiz, we started a name that tune. So I give you like four seconds. And so, you know, again, everything's on that, the front page, click on the trivia, we have 21. The latest one is there, the other 20 are sort of being reworked, and they'll be back. So you could actually, you know, do all these quizzes. We finished a what I call the bracket challenge.

[16:26] Kevin David Thomas: I saw that. Yeah.

[16:27] Stuart Brown: You know, so the best musical of the last 20 years, and this was in fun, you know, some people were like, I can't believe.

[16:34] Kevin David Thomas: Well, you started getting strong opinions here. I mean, oh, really?

[16:38] Stuart Brown: So, so Wicked beat out the producers. And, but it was so much fun that I'm probably going to do the 90s, 80s, 70s, 60s, I might go back to the 40s, and then come to like a big runoff. Okay, we have the best musical of the last, you know, 60 years, people, what is so yeah, stay tuned, get all that.

[17:00] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, it's fun. I mean, that's the bottom line. It's fun.

[17:05] Stuart Brown: Yeah, exactly. And it makes you listen to other things you might not have listened to before.

[17:09] Kevin David Thomas: Sorry, Rob.

[17:09] Robert W. Schneider: No, I was gonna say fellow theater geeks. I mean, this website, this app is your heaven. I mean, you're in good company.

[17:17] Stuart Brown: Yes, you'll never be able to escape from this. And this is a good thing. Stu, thank you so, so much. And before we go, Stu, I have to ask, I'm sure it's going to be like picking a favorite child. But do you have a favorite cast album that you find yourself?

[17:29] Stuart Brown: Other than Grease.

[17:32] Stuart Brown: You know, it's, it's funny you say that, because probably the albums I like listening to are not my let's say, top 10 shows. I mean, for example, I love the producers, but Promises Promises is up there. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman. And I love Lil Abner. You know, so it's, you know, yes, there's Grease, Anything Goes. You know, I always start tearing up when I listen to Come From Away. But you know, if I was on the desert island, it would probably be, I mean, what comes to mind right away, Promises Promises, Grease, Lil Abner. I'll stick with those three for now, because they're right at the forefront.

[18:21] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[18:22] Kevin David Thomas: Good choices.

[18:22] Stuart Brown: Yeah, totally. And you were going to see a lot of theater because you were in the New York area, right? I mean, did you see a lot of any, like, shows that were, let's say, the platinums of the era? Did you see any shows that were like, lesser known? You know, that we still listen to a little bit today, by any chance?

[18:39] Stuart Brown: Well, so there's this off-Broadway, two off-Broadway musicals, I just love. One's called Desperate Measures. And

[18:44] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, that was more recent. That was a couple of

[18:49] Stuart Brown: More recent.

[18:50] Stuart Brown: Yeah. And then a couple years ago, there was a show called Murder for Two.

[18:54] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[18:55] Stuart Brown: Which was absolutely, I mean, I've seen other productions, but the Broadway production or off-Broadway was great. I am a member of what's called the Outer Critics Circle.

[19:06] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[19:06] Stuart Brown: So, you know, I see, and I'm also the president of the Connecticut Critics Circle. So I see between 70 and 80 shows a year when there is theater. So, yeah, I mean, goodness, I'd have to really pause to see, you know, what from the last, you know, years.

[19:26] Kevin David Thomas: Totally. No, those are good ones. I like, and they have good, you know, there's a good album with Desperate Measures as well.

[19:31] Stuart Brown: Right.

[19:32] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. Well, it's super fun to chat with you and to get to know what the work, the great work that you're doing, the labor of love, and we just thank you for it. Really, Stu, I mean, it's really awesome.

[19:43] Stuart Brown: Thanks. Well, I might sneak into your trivia night, like, in disguise to see if I can.

[19:48] Kevin David Thomas: I love it.

[19:48] Stuart Brown: Great. Come, please.

[19:50] Kevin David Thomas: Please do.

[19:51] Kevin David Thomas: I'd probably bomb out and then, you know, I can embarrass myself.

[19:53] Stuart Brown: No.

[19:56] Stuart Brown: I will say one of the fun things on our trivia is a lot of people give themselves fake names. Usually relating to the theme.

[20:01] Kevin David Thomas: So, you can come up with your favorite diva.

[20:04] Stuart Brown: You want to be Susan Johnson? Great. We'll put it in there and we'll call it a day.

[20:09] Stuart Brown: Okay. If I come, I'm going to pick a real obscure diva and then you might go, I wonder if that's Stu.

[20:18] Kevin David Thomas: Amazing.

[20:18] Kevin David Thomas: Then we'll know.

[20:21] Kevin David Thomas: We'll mail you the links to come as our guest.

[20:23] Stuart Brown: Right.

[20:23] Stuart Brown: This was just great.

[20:24] Robert W. Schneider: And once again, folks.

[20:25] Stuart Brown: Thank you so much.

[20:25] Robert W. Schneider: Yep. Go ahead.

[20:26] Stuart Brown: Thank you.

[20:27] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. Soundsofbroadway.com.

[20:29] Robert W. Schneider: You can listen to it on your browser.

[20:31] Robert W. Schneider: But do what I did and download the app.

[20:33] Robert W. Schneider: And also make sure to give Stu five stars for this incredible, incredible platform that he has created for all of us geeks out there.

[20:39] Stuart Brown: So, thank you, Stu.

[20:40] Stuart Brown: Okay. Well, thank you very much.

[20:42] Stuart Brown: Take care, Stu.

[20:42] Robert W. Schneider: Thanks for joining us.

[20:43] Stuart Brown: All right. Bye-bye.

[20:44] Kevin David Thomas: See you soon, everybody.

[20:44] All: Bye.