This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:34] Ben Rimalower: Good day. I was gonna say good afternoon, but whatever time it is, wherever you are. Welcome to Ben Rimalower's Broken Records on Broadway World, Broadway Podcast Network, and Broadway on Demand. I am Ben Rimalower, and I'm here virtually with my lovely co-host Daniel Nolen.

[0:52] Daniel Nolen: Hey y'all.

[0:53] Ben Rimalower: Today we have a very special guest.

[0:55] Daniel Nolen: Yes, we do.

[0:56] Ben Rimalower: Today with us, well, first of all, I have to say that our corn stream this week, by popular demand, after the runaway success of our corn stream last week, covering Liza Minnelli's's historic 1980 concert in New Orleans, will be her possibly even more historic 1992 Radio City Music Hall concert. It's available on home video on your iTunes or Amazon Prime or what have you, or on my DVD from 2007. And we could not be more excited than to be speaking today with one of the artists responsible for this show, the amazing Grammy-winning composer, world-renowned musical director, and once-in-a-generation genius, jazz singer and pianist, Billy Stritch.

[1:43] Billy Stritch: Oh my god. I don't know if I can live up to all of that, but thank you. Hi guys. How are you?

[1:49] Ben Rimalower: Hi Billy.

[1:50] Billy Stritch: Hi. Glad to be here.

[1:52] Daniel Nolen: So excited to have you.

[1:54] Ben Rimalower: We're so psyched.

[1:55] Billy Stritch: Thank you. Me too. I mean, Billy, I think I've told you this before in the various years that we've known each other. But long before I ever met you, before I lived in New York, I was a fan of yours from these projects you did with Liza, including Radio City and the one where Daniel and I fangirled about you a few weeks ago on the pod was Sondheim at Carnegie Hall.

[2:18] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[2:19] Ben Rimalower: That's right.

[2:20] Billy Stritch: Thank you very much.

[2:21] Billy Stritch: I'm old, as you might have surmised.

[2:23] Ben Rimalower: Well, you were the twink.

[2:25] Billy Stritch: You were the twink.

[2:26] Billy Stritch: I was. I was the new kid on the block right then.

[2:29] Billy Stritch: 91. I was brand new, fresh.

[2:32] Ben Rimalower: Well, I mean, before we even get into this actual amazing concert, Liza at Radio City, which is so I think seminal. I mean, this is before Daniel's time, but Billy, I'm sure you would probably echo what I will say that like in the 90s, in the era of like when CDs were still new and things were still being like, you know, released on CD that had been out on LP for years or whatever. This was the Liza Minnelli's album. I mean, this was the most common one that I would see in every record store and everybody had.

[3:08] Billy Stritch: Yeah, I think this one and the Carnegie Hall '87 one was a big one, too.

[3:13] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, absolutely. Because Telarc released that and they were kind of on the forefront of CDs. So, yes, those two were big deals at the time, for sure.

[3:20] Daniel Nolen: Yep. Totally. Well, so okay, but so just to set it up for us, because I knew you came from Sugarland, Texas.

[3:21] Billy Stritch: And I did, yes.

[3:30] Daniel Nolen: And you moved to New York and you were playing in a piano bar. Like, give us the backup of the, I mean, the legend, the legend of you and Liza is basically like she was you were playing some like obscure song from a Vincent Minnelli movie, and she likes titled up to you at the piano and was like, let's be frank.

[3:47] Billy Stritch: That's basically, well, you just told the story basically, but I'll just elaborate a little bit. I had worked a lot in New York in the 1980s with the vocal group called Montgomery Plant and Stritch. And we had done a lot of engagements at the Algonquin Oak Room. We started at the ballroom and Don't Tell Mama's, but we built up and then we were touring a lot and we actually did a couple of appearances at Carnegie Hall. And so I had built up kind of a reputation in New York. But when the group broke up in 1990, that's when I decided, well, I just need to relocate here to be in New York full-time because up to that point I was still living in down in Houston, Texas. So I moved to New York. The group broke up at the end of 1990, and then there I was without a gig. So my dear friend Bob Nahas owned a restaurant on Theater Road called Bobo's. Prior to that, it had been called Cheetahs for a hot minute. It was Cheetahs after Chita Rivera.

[4:45] Ben Rimalower: Oh, wow.

[4:47] Billy Stritch: Then they shut it down, and then it was Bobo's named for, you know, the song from The Act.

[4:52] Ben Rimalower: I was gonna say what came first, but that answers it.

[4:55] Billy Stritch: Yeah. And it was a big space, a gorgeous space. And so he gave me two nights a week to play at the piano bar just to kind of get me going in town until I kind of realized what the next step was. And so I would go, I think I was working Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can't remember, and I would invariably go in to do my night, and Bob would say, Oh, you just missed her. She was here last night. You know, and so clearly Liza was coming in a lot to this place, and I never was there on the night, but finally, after about three weeks of this, I come in one night, and the place is really kind of deserted. But I noticed in the back corner, there are four women all dressed in black in the corner, having dinner with black, you know, and I and I didn't take me long to realize who it was.

And that big black puffy hat that she used to wear back in the, you know, there's a real famous picture of her that was taken by Steven Meisel that has that, you know, very very downtown looking. And so I thought, okay, this is the night I'm gonna meet Liza Minnelli's. And I just knew it was gonna happen. So instead of playing, What good is sitting alone or New York, New York or something, I thought, well, she gets this all the time. So I start to play. I start to kind of ease myself into it. And then I started playing this really beautiful theme from a movie called The Bad and the Beautiful. It's a gorgeous theme song written by David Raksin. And I'm sure a lot of your fans are familiar with that film and that theme.

And I start playing it, and then I realized then all of a sudden I see her get up and start walking over to me. And it's like, oh, here she comes, here she comes, here she comes. But God, it was like I was in a movie and I already knew the outcome of the movie. I just knew that we were gonna hit it off. And she comes over and she's just very warm, smiling, and she goes, You God, you're great. How do you know that song? I said, Well, it's from one of my favorite movies. And she said, Well, you know, my father directed that movie. I'm like, uh, yes, yes, I do. And she said, and she came over to me and she goes, sorry, I'm Liza. I'm like, hi, I'm Billy. And when she tells the story, she sat on the piano bench next to me.

When she tells the story, she says that I looked at her like, what are you doing sitting on my piano bench? I can't imagine that I looked at her that way, but something I guess in my demeanor made her kind of get up and take the first seat at the piano bar, right to my left, you know, and there was nobody else there. And we just started chatting, and she turns out the four women she the three women she was with was her assistant Melanie, Tara Young, who was her dance captain, and her best friend Lisa Mordente, Cheetah's daughter, who I knew, and I knew Cheetah. And like I said, I've been working in New York a lot, so I knew a lot of these people. And as the night went on, they all came to the piano bar. More friends of mine showed up. I think Cheetah showed up.

[8:05] Ben Rimalower: Wow.

[8:08] Billy Stritch: All of a sudden, it kind of turned into a party. At one point, she said, How am I the only person that doesn't know you? I'm like, Well, I guess now you know me. So, and it just kind of went from there. And the other funny part about that night is, you know, the night just went on like we were friends. I was taking requests, she was asking me about songs, just like we had been friends forever. But the funny thing, I was taking a break, all of a sudden I look out the window, and I noticed this kind of late model '80s white Lincoln Town Car. Wow, and I see this black driver, this older man get out of the car and put the hood up, and he's looking in the hood of the car, like he's trying to fix the car. It's parked around on the street outside the window. And then I noticed getting out of the car was unmistakably Katharine Hepburn.

[8:59] Billy Stritch: Wow. And Liza pokes me. She goes, Is that? And I'm like, Yes, I think it is. And we both kind of went to the window, and she's looking under the hood of the car, like, I could fix this. Maybe it's the bad bell. But I was like, clearly it was her driver and it was her car. You know, so they were very familiar with each other. And Liza looked at me and she goes, Can you believe we're both standing here and looking at Katharine, looking at this scene? Katharine Hepburn looking under the hood of the car. And I said, What I can't believe is I'm standing next to Liza Minnelli's, and we're both looking at this scene. So that was kind of a nice little capper on the night. And at one point of the night, she said, I went back to play the piano and she said, Have you ever do you sing Teach Me Tonight?

And I said, Well, I know the song, but I've never really done it. And so I kind of barreled into this kind of bluesy version of the song. And after it was over, she goes, That's it. That's what I want. That's the song I want to open the Radio City show with. But I've just been trying to find the handle on it. Wow. And she said, Will you make a recording of it? I said, Of course. So it just went from there. She invited me to come to 890 Broadway the next Monday to watch rehearsal. And boy, you just couldn't keep me away. You know, it was just, I was showing up every day. I mean, Terry White was in that show. I already knew Terry White. I think I already knew Ruth Gotchell. I knew there was a few people that I know, but Fred Ebb, I met Fred Ebb, I met Marvin Laird, Peter Howard, Don Sebesky, all these incredible, her drummer, her conductor, all of a sudden, and they all just included me and took me in.

And because there were 12 women in the show, and my background had been vocal arranging, I was asked within about a week, Fred said, you know, I think this kid should do the vocal arrangements for the show. So it moved really fast, you know, within about 10 days. I was on staff. And anyway, that's the long amazing. Kind of a long version of that, but yeah.

[10:52] Ben Rimalower: I mean, that could be the plot of an old Hollywood musical.

[10:59] Billy Stritch: Absolutely.

[11:00] Ben Rimalower: It's absolutely magical. You know, I mean, it was, I tell you, it was March 7th, 1991. And it was an it that was a date that my life absolutely changed. I have to say, it was a real turning point. And the fact that you already had this premonition that you guys were gonna forge this relationship, that's so special.

[11:20] Billy Stritch: Do you want to hear something really weird? And I've told this about it. It's absolutely true. Ten years prior to this, I was working at a piano bar in Houston, Texas. Night, it was the summer of 1981. And again, there was a little it was an afternoon happy hour gig. I took a break, and this woman who had been listening to me said, Oh my god, you're so good. She says, I'm getting such interesting vibrations from you. I'm like, who is this lady? She goes, you know, I'm a psychic. And I hadn't really heard of that. I didn't really know it that way. I thought, ooh, here we go. And she said, Do you mind? Can I just take your hand for a minute? There's a couple things I want to tell you. So she took my hand, she put her head down, she kind of went into a bit of a trance.

She came up and she started telling me all this stuff about my family, my brother, all this stuff. I mean, within five minutes, I was like, wow, my mind was blown. Yeah. And then she said, Do you know? She said, I don't know why I'm getting this vision of Liza Minnelli's. I'm like, Wow. I said, I don't know her. I'm certainly a big fan of hers. And she goes, I'm feeling I'm getting this heavy vibration of Liza Minnelli's and the number 10. And I said, What? She goes, When I get a number, it's usually a unit of time. It's days, weeks, months, years. I feel like you're gonna know her. I feel like for some reason she's gonna be in your life if she isn't already. And she goes, maybe you're gonna meet her in like ten, ten months or ten, well, it was ten years almost to the month, honestly, when I told when I met Liza.

It was one month shy of ten years. So I don't tell that part of the story very often, but it's absolutely true. So there was a little part of my mind that thought, oh, well, this was, yeah, this was gonna happen. So, you know, I don't know if a lot of people believe in that, but I certainly believed it after I after it happened.

[13:15] Ben Rimalower: I believed it for sure. I mean, I think for Liza's fate too. I mean, it's funny having just revisited this Radio City concert coming on the heels of revisiting the New Orleans slash Carnegie Hall one from Ted, or you know, a little over. Um I realized when I put this on the other night with your f starting with your absolutely sizzling arrangement of Teach Me Tonight, was that that Liza in 1980 was um there were songs that were jazz or jazzy, and songs that were more pop and songs that were more shall business, you know.

[13:58] Billy Stritch: Yeah, of course.

[13:59] Ben Rimalower: And you but you gave her a way to have all those things at the same time.

[14:05] Billy Stritch: Well, uh, uh I thank you very much. I'm not sure that was all due to me, but but certainly I think I brought in more of a jazz element a bit because you know, she loved that that's what I was performing. And so she, you know, she she's always been the type that if she heard somebody she loved, then she wanted to kind of go and do that thing. She did that with Donny Hathaway years ago at one point. I mean, way before my time, she hooked on to this great jazz, this blues musician in Houston, Texas, and she did went and did an album in Muscle Shoals called New Feeling. That was like I love that album. You know, it's like so she was always very open to different styles of music. And by the way, since you mentioned that New Orleans concert, that was the very first time I saw Liza live. She brought that show to Houston, Texas.

[14:54] Billy Stritch: I think I must have been nine, 17, maybe.

[14:56] Ben Rimalower: Wow.

[14:57] Billy Stritch: And I remember like it was yesterday. I remember that scaffolding, and I remember her just walking out without any music and singing, "What a lovely night."

[15:08] Daniel Nolen: I'm feeling so, yeah.

[15:09] Billy Stritch: That whole verse to, uh, actually said the pika. Right, Kay Thompson, uh, and Roger Eidens, and with a slight little lyric change, and the band starting slowly to come on, and she's singing, "I could cry, salty tears," and then it goes into "It's a miracle, a true blues fan." I mean, I tell you, I remember this show. And so I was a fan, well, really from "Liza with a Z," but the first time I saw her live was that show in '79, '79 or '80.

[15:38] Ben Rimalower: It's an incredible show.

[15:40] Billy Stritch: That's on video and DVD, I believe.

[15:42] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yes.

[15:43] Billy Stritch: True. Yeah, with that's what our last, our last.

[15:47] Ben Rimalower: Oh, I know.

[15:48] Billy Stritch: I know. We talk about videos they can watch, you know.

[15:50] Daniel Nolen: That's right, that's right, yes.

[15:51] Billy Stritch: And so, yes, I just that was just an aside. That was the first time I really fell in love with her as a performer. But, uh, you know, there's not really a style of music that she doesn't do well, honestly.

[16:01] Yes.

[16:02] Billy Stritch: Well, one other thing I want us to get to, we'll go through the concert in order, but I'm fascinated because I've been reading about it that the video and the album are not the entire, uh, two-hour show. So, like, you know, I read that she opened the second act, speaking of her doing different music styles with "Losing My Mind" for special results at Shop Boys collaboration.

[16:23] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yeah, she did.

[16:24] Billy Stritch: She absolutely did. It's amazing what, uh, you know, I mean, I would give anything for the complete.

[16:25] Daniel Nolen: I would too.

[16:32] Billy Stritch: Somewhere that exists because, uh, uh, Liza was very much involved in the overseeing of the production of the video. And actually, Phil Ramone, uh, did that with her. And Phil said, you know, I have there's this new technique that I want to film this in, and trust me, it's gonna be a big deal here, but it's already a big deal in Japan. It's called high definition television.

[16:56] Daniel Nolen: And so she was on board with it.

[16:59] Billy Stritch: They had maybe two of the existing cameras in New York, and so they filmed the show live, and then we went back into Radio City one afternoon and did pickup shots on the stage. And then we went to the Ed Sullivan Theater, uh, before David Letterman was there. It was just a facility, uh, and filmed a lot of pic like in seeing things where it goes close to her eyes.

[17:25] Daniel Nolen: I was wondering about that.

[17:27] Billy Stritch: That was all done after the fact in a studio. Um, and everything was edited in that facility too. I forget what the name of the facility was, but it was in that, it was in the Ed Sullivan Theater.

[17:41] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[17:41] Billy Stritch: Well, it's so great because it all that, that audio video, um, multimedia stuff plays well as opposed to so many live shows on a capture.

[17:50] Daniel Nolen: It does.

[17:51] Billy Stritch: I mean, it's still so beautiful to look at. And it was the very first concert, I believe, uh, that was filmed for high definition television. I mean, it was the forerunner of that. So that was Phil Ramone, you know.

[18:03] Daniel Nolen: Uh, always a pioneer.

[18:06] Billy Stritch: Yep. And so you were just weeks into having met her. And then were you, did you play for this show also?

[18:13] Billy Stritch: I did not play for this show. I did the vocal arrangements for the 12 women, a lot of the stuff in the second act.

[18:19] Daniel Nolen: The demon divas.

[18:20] Billy Stritch: The demon divas, yeah. Uh, and, uh, I did a few things, like I said, I did "Teach Me Tonight," although Artie Shrek did the orchestration for it.

[18:29] Daniel Nolen: And the other one on the first act that I really wrote and Don Sabeski orchestrated was the "Seeing Things," uh, which was the film.

[18:38] Billy Stritch: It's so beautiful. So she, it's what closes the first act, and it's about, uh, you know, how her father worked at the Radio City Music Hall, and it's got a beautiful film clip montage of the designs and the programs and pictures of her, and then all of a sudden at the end she goes, now here I am playing at the musical. I'm getting goosebumps, just thinking about it in my head right at this moment.

[19:03] Daniel Nolen: It really is, and that's what closed the first half.

[19:06] Billy Stritch: I mean, that would have been enough, right?

[19:08] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that would have been enough.

[19:10] Billy Stritch: And then the audience goes to that magnificent lobby at, uh, Radio City and gets their drinks and then comes back for this mind-blowing second half of the show. So, you know.

[19:19] Daniel Nolen: So, I mean, so were you, were you did you go to the performances? I mean, were you?

[19:23] Billy Stritch: Oh yeah, you couldn't keep me away. I think I was at almost every show.

[19:27] Daniel Nolen: How is that like three weeks after meeting her that you're sitting opening night at Radio City watching this triumphant show?

[19:35] Billy Stritch: It was pretty amazing. I mean, I have to say, everything was happening so fast.

[19:40] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[19:40] Billy Stritch: Uh, this was about maybe six weeks from the time I met her to the time we opened. We opened on April 23rd.

[19:47] Daniel Nolen: And, uh, it was a big star-studded event.

[19:50] Billy Stritch: I remember there was one. I mean, you'll probably get to this, but in the second half of the show, she does, uh, uh, she sings "Losing My Mind," and then she sings "The World Goes Round," and then she starts to sing, and this is not on the video.

[19:51] Daniel Nolen: She starts to sing neither, yeah.

[20:05] Billy Stritch: All by myself.

[20:07] Daniel Nolen: Don't want to think she sings, yeah, swear to God.

[20:10] Billy Stritch: She sings a little of that, and then she goes into all of a sudden this girl in the audience interrupts her.

[20:18] Daniel Nolen: Liza, Liza, Liza, I just heard you look so lonesome on the stage.

[20:22] Billy Stritch: Well, these 12 girls were planted in the audience. So Monica Wemmett, who was one of the girls, was planted next to Gregory Peck and his wife.

[20:33] Daniel Nolen: Oh my god.

[20:34] Billy Stritch: Wow. So, and she's the first one that breaks, she's the one that gets up and goes, "Hey, hey, Liza, I just you're terrific." You're true, does the whole thing. And she was so nervous sitting there, knowing that she had to have this moment, and then she starts the moment, and he literally tried to shut her up and stop her from doing it.

[20:52] Daniel Nolen: He did not realize, and then finally his wife Veronique pushed, uh, you know, realized.

[20:57] Billy Stritch: And then he looked at her, realized, and then he was like, "Oh, this is part of the show." He sat back in his chairs.

[21:02] Daniel Nolen: Oh my gosh.

[21:03] Billy Stritch: And I was sitting about a, uh, a row away from that. So I kind of saw this stuff happen too.

[21:08] Daniel Nolen: Oh my god.

[21:09] Billy Stritch: Uh, it was, yeah, that was quite a night. And the opening night at the Rainbow Room, you know, the party and everything. It was, I mean, I'm telling you, it was kind of fantastic.

[21:18] Daniel Nolen: So who always there at that party?

[21:20] Billy Stritch: Well, Joe Pesci was there. Isaac Mizrahi and Sandra Bernhardt. I remember dancing with both of them.

[21:24] Daniel Nolen: Wow.

[21:27] Billy Stritch: Uh, Cheetah was there, and Liza, I remember Cheetah and Liza doing this hot dance together on the part of there's like a little, there was like a little stairway that went to a little, uh, second level over the bandstand.

[21:39] Daniel Nolen: And at one point I look up and they're just doing this little tank, this hot little dance together.

[21:43] Billy Stritch: I'm like, wow, this is fantastic.

[21:46] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[21:46] Billy Stritch: Um, Liz Smith was there. Uh, you know, I'd have to go back and look at photographs, but there was, uh, it was quite a who's who, as you can imagine, you know, of, uh, everybody hot in New York was at that opening night, you know.

[22:00] Daniel Nolen: It's so big time.

[22:02] Billy Stritch: I mean, it's just, I mean, there's just these are between that even and just the night at Bobo's, those are such like New York nights that people exactly know.

[22:11] Daniel Nolen: New York nights, absolutely.

[22:12] Billy Stritch: And then after the party was over, uh, Liza and I and Jim Caruso and Ellen Greene and her husband and, uh, my Frank Cortez Alexander and Gene Reed, a bunch of us went to the Brazzary.

[22:25] Daniel Nolen: Nobody even remembers that.

[22:26] Billy Stritch: That was, I do remember the Brazzary.

[22:28] Daniel Nolen: Do you remember?

[22:31] Billy Stritch: There's a new, yeah.

[22:32] Daniel Nolen: Well, not this minute, but you know, but it was last year or whatever.

[22:35] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah. So I think maybe Ann Hampton Callaway. I'm trying to remember the cast, but it was a bunch of us because by this point, not only was I, I was going to the rehearsals with Liza in the daytime, but then invariably I would take her out at night and we go to 88's and Don't Tell Mama.

[22:53] Daniel Nolen: Oh my gosh.

[22:54] Billy Stritch: Because she was loving the piano or cabaret world. She had never been exposed to any of that, you know. And so all of a sudden, all my friends were in this world too.

[23:04] Daniel Nolen: So, uh, it was great. I mean, it was really like a movie.

[23:07] Billy Stritch: It really was like a movie. This very charmed time in my life.

[23:11] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, Ann was there, Jim Caruso was there. I remember the night I met Liza. I couldn't wait to get to a payphone in closet. You'll never guess who came in and who I hung out with tonight.

[23:21] Billy Stritch: You know, so I remember that at a payphone on the corner of 42nd and 8th.

[23:26] Daniel Nolen: I totally remember, yeah, absolutely.

[23:28] Billy Stritch: Back when there was a payphone on the corner of 42nd and 8th.

[23:31] Daniel Nolen: So were you and Jim already friends then?

[23:34] Billy Stritch: Yeah, we have been friends for years because we both were both from Texas. He was just at the local group. He had a group called Wise Guys, and I have my group Montgomery Plant Stritch.

[23:44] Daniel Nolen: So we knew each other, and we worked a lot of the same bars and clubs and cabarets all through the '80s. So we had been buddies for about 10, maybe eight or 10 years at that point.

[23:54] Daniel Nolen: And did you introduce him to Liza?

[23:57] Billy Stritch: I did. Absolutely.

[23:58] Daniel Nolen: I mean, how's that?

[24:00] Billy Stritch: Right off. Well, I, we Liza and I met on the 8th of March, and I have my very first solo show at 88's on March, I think the 9th or 10th.

[24:10] Daniel Nolen: That's good timing.

[24:11] Billy Stritch: And Liza came, Jim was there. Liza brought k.d. lang to my, wow.

[24:18] Daniel Nolen: I mean, all of a sudden, guys, it was happening.

[24:21] Billy Stritch: Everything was happening. She was hanging out, Terry White was there. I mean, you know, that little room upstairs was small, but it was packed.

[24:29] Daniel Nolen: And of course, I was a big deal all of a sudden because Liza liked me.

[24:33] Billy Stritch: You know, it's like, I mean, truly, it all started to happen at that moment. So, and then Liza's 45th birthday was on March 12th, and she had a big party at a place called Tattoo on the east side.

[24:45] Daniel Nolen: Oh my gosh.

[24:45] Billy Stritch: I mean, so there was a lot of social stuff in the midst of rehearsals in the midst of this. I mean, I somewhere I still have my date book with everything that happened, you know, in that in that year.

[24:56] Daniel Nolen: But, uh, it was a pretty wild time, I have to say.

[25:01] Billy Stritch: Yeah, I have a question about that, but just as a brief sideline, because it won't really pertain to talking about the concert anyway.

[25:07] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, but, um, you made me think of it with k.d. lang, just in case anybody doesn't know.

[25:11] Billy Stritch: I wrote one of Reba McIntyre's biggest hits, "Does He Love You?"

[25:16] Daniel Nolen: I did.

[25:16] Billy Stritch: And what, what did you have any kind of a country, uh, feel like what was your country deal before that?

[25:26] Billy Stritch: Uh, not really much of much of one. I mean, I grew up in Texas, so I listened, you know, everybody listened to country music, so I was certainly aware of it.

[25:34] Daniel Nolen: But, uh, I wasn't into the country scene, and actually the song "Does He Love You" was not written to be country, it's really a pop song.

[25:42] Billy Stritch: It was written, Sandy Knox and I wrote it for my the two girls in my cabaret group because Montgomery and Plant.

[25:49] Daniel Nolen: Montgomery Plant.

[25:50] Billy Stritch: It's a wife and a mistress, so it's got that dramatic element, and it gets after the bridge to the big key change, and they turn and face each other and face off.

[26:00] Daniel Nolen: Does he love you?

[26:01] Billy Stritch: Does he love you?

[26:03] Daniel Nolen: And so we used to always close our nights in the gay bars, and of course, the Queens went wild.

[26:07] Billy Stritch: Everybody was wild. And they call, they nobody could remember the name of the song. They just called it the bitch fight.

[26:14] Daniel Nolen: Are you guys gonna do the bitch fight?

[26:16] Billy Stritch: So, um, so that was like we wrote that in nineteen eighty-five. Sandy moved, Sandy moved to Nashville not long after that became a staff writer at a publishing company, and then Reba McIntyre was looking for a duet in nineteen ninety-three and that song got into her hands.

[26:34] Daniel Nolen: Incredible.

[26:38] Billy Stritch: Yeah, lucky.

[26:39] Daniel Nolen: That was good luck.

[26:40] Billy Stritch: It was really good luck.

[26:41] Daniel Nolen: Okay, so two more questions about where we were before we go into the concert.

[26:45] Billy Stritch: One is I just, you are in the piano bar scene, you're friends with all these people, Ann Hampton Callaway and Jim Caruso and everybody work at Bobo's.

[26:52] Daniel Nolen: What is it like to walk into 88 or Don't Tell Mama, which is like, you know, your home turf at this point, except you walk in with Liza Minnelli's?

[27:01] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[27:02] Daniel Nolen: Well, it was, it was something.

[27:04] Billy Stritch: I mean, it was a little, uh, it was a little overwhelming.

[27:07] Um, but I have to say to Liza's credit, she does not come on like a big star.

[27:14] She just wanted to be one of the cabaret kids.

[27:16] She just wanted to be normal.

[27:18] She didn't treat anybody like, you know, like she was a big deal.

[27:22] Everybody was equal to her.

[27:25] Daniel Nolen: So, and, and she was friendly with everybody.

[27:28] Billy Stritch: So, you know, by the second or third time it was like, "Hey Liza," you know, and she was hugging on everybody and, you know, so, uh, it wasn't, there wasn't any weirdness.

[27:38] I mean, I know that there was probably a group of people that were like, "Oh, well, he's big, you know, la la Liza."

[27:45] Daniel Nolen: You know, there was definitely that element.

[27:47] Billy Stritch: Sure. And that, you know, I had a couple of hurtful incidents that happened, or things I found out about.

[27:54] Daniel Nolen: But I got past that.

[27:57] Billy Stritch: You know, it's like, you know, because actually, Liza said to me, you know what, she said, "They'll catch up, and if they don't, it's not your problem."

[28:06] Daniel Nolen: So, you know, because we came, we became very close.

[28:10] Billy Stritch: So, you know, it's like, and this is what happened, you know. You know, it wasn't like I, I was trying to put anything over on anybody or trying to be anything different.

[28:17] Daniel Nolen: You know, it's just now all of a sudden Liza Minnelli's's my friend.

[28:21] Billy Stritch: And why shouldn't that be a thing?

[28:22] Daniel Nolen: But do you feel everyone's like tripping over themselves to sidle up to her and like crowding your table or whatever?

[28:28] Billy Stritch: There were a few people like that, but most people were pretty cool.

[28:30] You know, 88 people were cool.

[28:32] They were happy to watch.

[28:33] I mean, it was a small place.

[28:35] That was the coolest piano bar I've ever been to.

[28:37] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely.

[28:38] Billy Stritch: I mean, we would get a table toward the back and just, uh, but like I said, she was never put off if people wanted to come over and say hi, or, yeah, you know, and, and I don't remember her actually getting too overwhelmed with that.

[28:51] Daniel Nolen: I mean, there would be times when we'd be in other cities walking through a mall or an airport, and all of a sudden, and she really knew how to get herself through that really fast.

[28:59] Billy Stritch: Like she would spot it from like 50 feet away, somebody, and she goes, "Let's go this way. Cut left, blah blah blah."

[29:06] Daniel Nolen: So I mean, she kind of had a sixth sense about it, but you know, she was never one like, uh, you know, if people recognized her or wanted an autograph or just say a few words, she was really fine with all of that, which is great, you know, because you have to, you have to own that.

[29:22] Billy Stritch: You know, you can't just be mad that you're a star, you know.

[29:25] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, so don't be able to do that.

[29:27] Billy Stritch: Well, she's someone also who has, she's got nothing but experience of that.

[29:31] I mean, Liza Minnelli's's never had one day of her life not.

[29:34] Daniel Nolen: That's right.

[29:35] Billy Stritch: She grew up with it. She, she watched it with her mom and everyone else in Hollywood.

[29:39] Daniel Nolen: She grew up with it.

[29:40] Billy Stritch: So she was very, that's one thing she already knew how to handle for sure.

[29:44] Daniel Nolen: Yep.

[29:44] Billy Stritch: Well, I love that.

[29:45] Billy Stritch: Okay, and now it just I have to how does Ellen Green factor into this? They had just they had just filmed a movie called Stepping Out about two years before that.

[29:55] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[29:55] Billy Stritch: So Jane Krokowski. With Jane Krokowski and Julie Walters and Andrea Martin and Shelly Winters and Bill Irwin. I mean it's a fantastic the most underrated film because what happened with that movie was that it got lost in the shuffle of a new regime that came into the I think it was Fox, I forget the studio, but they were all behind it. By the time it was released, nobody was behind it. So that movie did not get a proper blast off. But so she and Ellen were friends, they bonded over that film. I will say that it was released barely in the States, right around the time of the Radio City show. And actually the show at Radio City was called Steppin' Out at Radio City Music Hall. Yes, because the anticipation was that that was gonna be a big movie.

Well, by the time that show at Radio City happened, the movie was released, I think, in four theaters and never was didn't happen. But later that same year, Princess Diana hosted the premiere in London of the movie. It was to benefit her, the Royal Marston children's charity appeal, one of her big causes there. So I flew with Liza to the opening at the Albert Hall.

[31:18] Daniel Nolen: Oh my god, that film, and met Princess Diana.

[31:22] Billy Stritch: What can I say about that? Oh my god, absolutely, who also was could not have been lovelier, just everything you'd ever hope she would be. So I mean literal royalty.

[31:29] Daniel Nolen: Literal royalty.

[31:34] Billy Stritch: I mean, I have this incredible picture, and I'm sure you can find it online. Liza and Diana were both dressed in white, and they're sitting at a table and they're whispering to each other. It's really funny.

[31:46] Daniel Nolen: Yes, I've seen that.

[31:47] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[31:47] Daniel Nolen: Iconic.

[31:48] Billy Stritch: Iconic, right?

[31:50] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's great.

[31:51] Billy Stritch: So that was just an aside. But so Steppin' Out was how Ellen Green and Liza were friends, and we hung out with Ellen for a long time. She was at every party and with us all the time. And I haven't seen her in a while. The last time I saw her was in London about four years ago. So we kind of lost touch, but I adore her.

[32:08] Daniel Nolen: I adore her.

[32:08] Billy Stritch: Yeah, she's so fabulous. Well, and the other thing I wanted to ask you about is because I didn't realize I had known that this concert opened in the months we were talking about in 1991. But I guess that you guys had a return engagement in 1992.

[32:23] Daniel Nolen: And that's the one that was videotaped and started for C.

[32:27] Billy Stritch: That's the one. And the order of the songs slightly changed. Well, we ran the show the first time April into May. I think we closed May 12th, like three weeks. And then we went on tour that summer. We went to like 12 cities, and we took eight of the girls, eight of the 12 girls, and went to it was all outdoor, what they call the sheds. It was like Chastain Park in Atlanta and Indianapolis and Nashville. We went to like 12 different places, toured the show. Then that fall, I went with Liza to Paris, and we did five weeks with Charles Aznavour. A separate concert, which is also on video, which has been a great album, Sailor Boys. Great album, great concert. We spent a month and month five weeks in Paris. And then we came back and we reprised the Radio City show in January of 1992. I think we did another 10 performances then.

[33:25] Daniel Nolen: Oh my.

[33:25] Billy Stritch: So you broke the box office record and then equaled it.

[33:28] Daniel Nolen: I think so.

[33:29] Billy Stritch: I think that's what happened. And so with that show at Charles Aznavour, were you then you were playing then?

[33:34] Daniel Nolen: I was playing, yeah, it was great.

[33:35] Billy Stritch: And if you watch it, I actually opened the second act with Liza and Charles. We do a trio together.

[33:41] Daniel Nolen: Is that on video?

[33:42] Billy Stritch: Yeah, it's on video.

[33:43] Daniel Nolen: Oh, I didn't know.

[33:44] Billy Stritch: I only knew there was an album.

[33:45] Daniel Nolen: No, it's on video.

[33:46] Billy Stritch: You've got to check it out. It's really good.

[33:48] Daniel Nolen: We must.

[33:48] Billy Stritch: We must. It's really good. I mean, they start together, then Charles does the first half, and then there's an intermission, and then we do this jazz medley of songs he wrote in the second half. And then Liza takes off, does Bonjour Paris and does the second half, and then they close together. It's a great, great concert.

[34:07] Daniel Nolen: And oh I'm in.

[34:08] Billy Stritch: That was like 22 performances in the Palais des Congrès, which is almost as many seats as Radio City, and sold out the whole run.

[34:15] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[34:16] Billy Stritch: Oh my God. I mean, what is that like to be like selling out this huge venue in Paris for 22 shows with Liza and Charles Aznavour? Like, were you the toast of Paris?

[34:25] Daniel Nolen: Well, we were.

[34:28] Billy Stritch: It was quite a year for me as I'm looking back. Even I'm impressed talking about listening to the it was great. We were staying, you know, we were staying at the George V Hotel. It was gorgeous. And you know, again, every night there was something after the show to do. And of course, all I mean, you know, Liza being such an international star. We had all the great stars. You know, Régine was there, Sophia Loren came one night. I think Audrey Hepburn came to the show one night. I mean, I have great pictures of that time, and then it was a lot to do with the daytime. I have been to Paris, but I had never certainly spent a month in Paris, you know.

[35:11] Daniel Nolen: Oh my god.

[35:12] Billy Stritch: Yeah, it was incredible. And we were lucky because we took the whole band. I mean, you know, this probably wouldn't happen now. It might.

[35:19] Daniel Nolen: No.

[35:19] Billy Stritch: But there was Liza always had 12 musicians. We augmented it with four or six string players and maybe a couple more keyboards. But it was our 12 guys, and then her staff of like eight people and me. And it was great. We were all just this big group, and it was a really incredible, incredible month.

[35:41] Daniel Nolen: And tell us about Bill Lavornia.

[35:43] Billy Stritch: Pappy.

[35:45] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, Pappy.

[35:46] Billy Stritch: Pappy, larger than life, I gotta say. I mean, I remember Bill Lavornia playing for Liza at that show. I saw her in Houston in 1980, that New Orleans show.

[35:56] Daniel Nolen: Wow.

[35:56] Billy Stritch: You know, sitting at the top of the thing on that scaffolding with that big beard and just banging the hell out of those drums and just fan what a showman he was. And I got his autograph that night. I was one of the people who stood up the floor.

[36:10] Daniel Nolen: I love that.

[36:13] Billy Stritch: I mean, everybody was standing getting her autograph when he came out and I said, Oh, I want you. And he looked, I remember him looking at me like he was kind of why would you want my autograph? And then, you know, that first day I showed up at rehearsals for the Radio City thing, nobody knew who I was. She introduced me and he just took me under his wing. He could not have been nicer. I mean, he and his wife were great. We would do gigs in Atlantic City in the years following and always share a house, Liza and I and Pappy and Joan, and just hang out for the weekend on the beach. And he was great. He had a temper, he was Italian. God forbid he would ever admit he was wrong about anything, but that was not very often anyway. And certainly when it came to music, he knew what he was doing. It was rare to have a drummer who conducted.

[37:01] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[37:01] Billy Stritch: He used to say, you know, all I do is I watch her, I watch her ass. And I know exactly. And anytime she, you know, she's such a dancer at heart. So you know, they would just the two of them are working out. She goes, I'm gonna do a hit here, and I'm gonna do a bump here. And she goes, I need you to, and he would just like bap, sweat, got, ga. So if you listen to that stuff, it's like he is playing her body. I mean, he really is.

[37:24] Daniel Nolen: That is so falling.

[37:26] Billy Stritch: You know, and he played for Judy, so that's the first time she heard him.

[37:30] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[37:30] Billy Stritch: I think, yeah. I mean, the first time I think Liza met him, she was probably 12 or something. So they have been friends all that time, you know.

[37:37] Daniel Nolen: And how long was he in the picture then with Liza throughout the city?

[37:41] Billy Stritch: He was in the picture until he passed away. I mean, he started, I think in the Liza with a Z years, there was a conductor named Jack French was the conductor.

[37:52] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, Jack.

[37:53] Billy Stritch: Yeah, and then I think probably I don't know, I'm not sure of the timeline, but I think probably somewhere in the 80s, Bill Lavornia took over as but I mean the 70s. But when did he die, rather?

[38:09] Daniel Nolen: I want to say it was probably about 10 years ago, maybe a little longer.

[38:18] Billy Stritch: Because let's see, we did Liza's at the Palace in 2008. And it was prior to that, because Michael, Mike Berkowitz was already playing.

[38:29] Daniel Nolen: Gotcha.

[38:30] Billy Stritch: So gotcha. Maybe maybe 2005 or six, somewhere in there. Did you did you become Liza's musical director after he died?

[38:37] Billy Stritch: I did. Berkowitz, we kind of shared it because Berkowitz played the drums, but I kind of was conducting from the piano at that point. So we just looked at each other. Between us we could had it all covered, I have to say.

[38:55] Daniel Nolen: Love it.

[38:55] Billy Stritch: I think maybe at one point I did have that title. You know, I mean, the title that I really claim is a companyist, accompanist and arranger, you know. And certainly in most of the shows I sang with Liza as well. You know, we always did duets and she'd let me do solo, and you know, so I was special guest star too, you know.

[39:15] Daniel Nolen: Well, I'm glad you say that though. It's so it's so like this like beautiful dichotomy about you, Billy, is that you're someone who is at the same time that you are a star yourself and you are a special guest and you bring so much more than somebody that's just kind of like support, you know, but also better than almost anybody, probably you are support. I mean, you're able to literally support, you know, even something like the project we did together with Countess Luann, somebody who was just doing her first time really singing live and needed so you know, you're the dream person, but it's such it's almost like a mind fuck because you're so supportive and yet you are you don't you're be you're so much beyond those boundaries.

[40:04] Billy Stritch: Well, I just you know, I thank you for that. I mean I feel like I have a lot to offer in the way of guiding a singer, guiding a performer, handling things on stage. And as you refer to with the artist that with Luann, who was new to this whole thing, I mean, if the artist trusts me enough to let me do what I do, I will always take care of them. You know, I will always I will never throw somebody under the bus or hang them out to dry because my job is to support, and all the better if they feature me along the way. I mean, I don't mind that at all. I love to sing with people. I love to, I mean, and almost every act that I play for, that's a part of it with Christine Ebersole with Marilyn Maye.

[40:48] Daniel Nolen: Sure.

[40:48] Billy Stritch: I mean, you know, I always get to sing a little bit. And I can't believe we've been talking for 40 minutes and we haven't mentioned Marilyn Maye.

[40:55] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I know, like we finally ding ding ding ding.

[40:58] Billy Stritch: Everybody have a drink.

[40:59] Daniel Nolen: Take a drink now.

[40:59] Billy Stritch: We mentioned her name.

[41:01] Daniel Nolen: Right?

[41:02] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[41:03] Billy Stritch: But yeah, so I feel like I go beyond just musical director. You know, it's like I just I like to be a part of the team and the collaborator up there. And that's what makes me feel good, whatever you call it. It doesn't need a title, you know.

[41:15] Daniel Nolen: Well, all right. So let's dive into this concert because please it starts with this amazing Billy Stritch arrangement, which I mean, well, you know, let me before you say that, yeah, let me tell you how it really started.

[41:28] Billy Stritch: Because this is what's not on the video. First of all, you heard this overture, ba da ba da duda, and that you do hear on the record.

[41:39] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[41:44] Billy Stritch: She walks out front, and the music came way down, and it went to this really pretty introduction, and she is adorable, never looked cuter, and she sings, it's not the pale moon that excites me, that thrills, or it delights me.

[42:04] Daniel Nolen: Oh no.

[42:04] Billy Stritch: And out of that white raincoat, she pulls a pair of white binoculars out and she puts them and looks in that cavernous theater. She goes, It's just the nearness of you. Huge laugh. So she it's not so, and then at the end she goes, so let's forget all of this size stuff and let me strut my stuff for you. And if you something the nearness of you, and on the last you it went the on the in the reaver, it went you, you, you, you, you, you, you, and there was a big applause, and then the band goes, and then it's teach me tonight.

[42:50] Daniel Nolen: Oh that was fabulous.

[42:53] Billy Stritch: That's the way it happened in the theater. Okay, just wanted to clarify that.

[42:56] Daniel Nolen: No, I'm so happy to know that.

[42:58] Billy Stritch: I'm now my new goal is to get in touch with all these fans and get a bootleg of that because I have I think I might have it somewhere.

[43:04] Daniel Nolen: Oh yeah, yes.

[43:05] Billy Stritch: Yep, for sure.

[43:06] Daniel Nolen: Well, that's even more magical.

[43:08] Billy Stritch: Nothing makes me happier than a short, small pre-opening followed by a huge real opening.

[43:16] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, exactly.

[43:16] Billy Stritch: It's effing genius, I gotta say.

[43:19] Daniel Nolen: Yes, and the way that show looked with just those panels in the back opening up the irising out like that. I mean, it's so simple, and yet it is mind blowing when you have a proscenium as big as Radio City.

[43:32] Billy Stritch: I can only imagine. I mean, it's also when you have a profile, a silhouette as iconic as Liza.

[43:39] Daniel Nolen: I mean, and we you guys had that at the Palace, too.

[43:42] Billy Stritch: That's right. We created well, first it was in Liza with a Z.

[43:46] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yes, and then it was a Radio City, and then we recreated in the Palace, but it was in a triangle, it was in like in the game of the perfect so it's different, but but same.

[43:56] Billy Stritch: A silhouette standing, yeah, and then coming out. And she, I mean, nobody, nobody can strut downstage if you better realize that.

[44:05] Daniel Nolen: She calls that her big girl walk.

[44:08] Billy Stritch: Oh, it sure is. When she takes off that coat and throws it into the pit or whatever.

[44:13] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yeah.

[44:15] Billy Stritch: Done with this now, right?

[44:16] Daniel Nolen: I know.

[44:17] Billy Stritch: And she does, I mean, she looks as good or better in this video than she ever did in her 20s or ever.

[44:25] Daniel Nolen: I mean I have to say this was Liza at just the the top, top, top.

[44:30] Billy Stritch: Absolutely. She just spent six months on Nutra System because we did it together.

[44:35] Daniel Nolen: That's from 1991.

[44:37] Billy Stritch: Absolutely.

[44:38] Billy Stritch: We did it together. She was Isaac Ms. Ray was designing cute clothes for her. Donna Karen was designing. She was determined to look adorable. And she looked, wasn't too thin. She's curvy, that cute. I mean, she was, it was just gorgeous. Absolutely. The costumes are beautiful. And it's, I mean, speaking of her as a dancer, the addition of Susan Strowman to this, it really, um, I mean, those are the two things that I kept thinking about was Billy Stritch and Susan Strowman. Like that's what sets this concert, you know, in an artistic class. You know, I mean, like, I love her um 86 London concert video uh from the Palladium. Yeah, and it's so great, you know, and she's in fabulous form, and it's, it's so I just live for that sort of campiness almost of her doing the Pointer Sisters or Elton John or all that stuff.

[45:30] Daniel Nolen: Is that the one with, is that the one with the foot lockers? Is that the one with that group that opens for her?

[45:36] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah.

[45:37] Daniel Nolen: Okay, the little that did the breakdancing kind of stuff.

[45:39] Billy Stritch: Yes, yeah, never mind. Uh I mean, it's not on the, the video starts with her backstage talking to Lorna. To Lorna.

[45:47] Daniel Nolen: Oh, that's right.

[45:48] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, okay. I know the one you made. Sure. But yeah, but that's the same concert. But it's like, but this one, it's like there's no um sort of camp wink about appreciating this concert 20 years later. You know, this concert is just, it's so classy and classic. You know, and it's what I meant by that. You that, that it starts with Teach Me Tonight fusing all those elements, the jazz, the pop, the show business. You know, it has she's strutting around the stage and she's selling it in that, that show business, Liza, Judy, Jolson, you know, just way that nobody else can do.

[46:25] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[46:25] Billy Stritch: But it's also, it is so jazzy. It does have that kind of a musical, you know, legitimacy to it. And at the same time, it's also feels pop, you know, it doesn't feel like you're hearing like jazz art. You know, it feels like you're having something that's just candy that you just want to swallow down, you know.

[46:43] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely. It's not trying too hard to be anything. It's like delicious. I mean, when you guys opened with that at the Palace, and I grew up on this album, so I knew this arrangement. I mean, I write down to the bada, you know, I mean, the whole exactly when it happens. Thank you for not blanching. Um, but uh, but you know, but what I just remember, it's the first I can I saw you guys a few times at the Palace in 2008, but I remember the first time I went, you know, not knowing what it was gonna be, other than some Kate Thompson stuff at some point. And when it opened with this, I was like just full of gratitude.

[47:18] Billy Stritch: We kept going like, well, what should we open with? And we kept trying different things, and she finally was like, you know what? We just teach there's nothing better than that. Let's just pull that one out again. So we did, you know, shame shamelessly, we just pulled that out again, and it worked. So the only thing better than that was when I saw you guys at the Hollywood Bowl the following summer.

[47:36] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[47:36] Billy Stritch: And when you open with Teach Me Tonight in front of 18,000 people under the night sky.

[47:42] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[47:43] Billy Stritch: That was a level up even from the Palace. But it's magic.

[47:48] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[47:48] Billy Stritch: Yeah. But so it, but it's thrilling here at Radio City. I mean, like you said, that proscenium, it's, you know, I mean, we all are in love with Carnegie Hall and Broadway and all that stuff. But sometimes, like, just bigger is better, I feel.

[48:02] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[48:03] Billy Stritch: It's certainly in the case of a show like this. Because if you remember the first, it's first act is just her alone on stage. And the orchestra's in the orchestra pit. Uh but at one point in the first act, uh she sings Sarah Lee, and the orchestra raised up out of the pit, and she used to pass her she danced around the passerelle. Hello Dolly. Just as it came up, they sing Sarah Lee, and she's like, and the thrills. But so it was the whole Hello Dolly thing. Then they went back down, and she closes the first act with the big Vincent Manelli seeing things. Yes. Thriller. But then the second act, the orchestra's on stage, elevated way up high. So it was like they really took made full advantage of that speech.

[48:48] Daniel Nolen: And was that, was that because I guess I had thought actually that Susan Strowman directed it, but I saw that Fred Ebb directed.

[48:55] Billy Stritch: Yeah, Fred directed. Fred was the one that got Susan Strowman on board. So you've got to, you gotta use this girl. She's fantastic, you know. I mean, tell us about Fred Ebb, because I worship him. I never met him.

[49:04] Billy Stritch: Well, Fred Ebb had was had the best sense of humor, and he was a sweet, loving guy. Uh, he was a match, he was uh kind of sloppy, always kind of like rumpled, you know. It's like his shirt's like okay, see and he run. Can you run a comb through your hair? You know, kind of like that. But if you could make Fred laugh, then you'd be happy for the rest of the year. I mean, and so that was the joy of him. And I have great memory of him. I think we were a few weeks into the rehearsal, and everyone was kind of taking it coming back from lunch, and uh Liza said to Fred, Oh, Fred, get up and do get up and sing Liza with the Z. He's like, Oh no, oh no, oh no, I couldn't, you know. And all the girls were hanging around.

And he gets up and he performs Liza better than Liza. And she told me later, she I mean, he did all the little girly things like clutching at the skirt, and if you know, just and she told me that she's the one that invented me. He's the one that invented that girl that you see out there. He totally got who she was and was able to, and so she never made a move without him. He was the one that said, we gotta hire this kid, meaning me, because I was showing up and giving ideas and throwing out stuff, and finally he, you know, so I adored him, and uh I was thrilled to know him, I have to say. He was great.

[50:31] Daniel Nolen: I mean, and John Candor, the same thing, but John was not around as much. Fred was being the director, was always there.

[50:37] Billy Stritch: So well, speaking of him inventing her, you know, it's something we were talking about when we were doing the New Orleans concert was you know, I mean, Lives with the Z is so incredible. I mean, it's really this, you know, I always call it a Fossy film. Um and and she's so brilliantly utilized in a way she hadn't been before that. And it but it feels very much that she's the actress and singer and dancer, and she is at the service of Bob Fossey's creation.

[51:01] Daniel Nolen: That's right. Uh-huh.

[51:01] Billy Stritch: And Liza in New Orleans, it felt like maybe it was a little bit like kind of on both sides. She was Liza, the star, but there was a couple places where you heard a little bit like the voice of Fred Ebb not fully integrated. Like, what was it? We were talking about before she sings Arthur in the Afternoon, where she was like winter. Yeah, you know, where it was just like not clunky because it's still great, but it's just a little bit like this is scripted, obviously. I mean, not that it's not supposed to be scripted, but it's very capital S. And this exactly this moment after Teach Me Tonight, when she sings the beginning of the Hello Steven Sondheim, Old Friends, right? And then with the music playing and goes into, you know, I'm talking about old friends. I mean old friends.

[51:46] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[51:46] Billy Stritch: Right, right, right. It's this amazing fusion because it's so Fred Ebb and it's so scripted, but it Liza owns it, like, you know, it's such the most beautiful marriage in that moment.

[51:57] Daniel Nolen: I love it absolutely.

[51:58] Billy Stritch: Yeah, she would commit to it. I mean, my favorite line like that is from Liza with the C, you know, when she goes, uh uh Lisa, so good to see you. I love that hat. She goes, Thank you. It's Liza, and that's my hair. I love that.

[52:13] Daniel Nolen: That's a classic Fred Ebb line.

[52:14] Billy Stritch: Yeah, classic. Yeah. Liza knew how Liza really knew how to deliver that those lines, though. Throughout this whole concert, I was just so struck by how funny she is. I mean, it was almost like watching Lucille Ball or something, like her facial expressions and kind of her like the zaniness of it all. Like it was really, really a masterclass.

[52:35] Daniel Nolen: Oh, she's great at the double take, and like, especially when especially when the girls all of a sudden are interacting with her and all the girls.

[52:42] Billy Stritch: Yes, yes. Yeah, it's great. I mean, she's a great reactor. She knows how to hold for the laugh. Hold for the laugh, you know.

[52:48] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[52:49] Billy Stritch: Well, she learned from the best, I gotta say.

[52:52] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, she sure did. Well, Jude, I mean, Judy, you could say so much about Judy, but one thing about Judy is she was hilariously funny.

[52:58] Billy Stritch: Hilarious. Yes.

[52:59] Daniel Nolen: Well, that's what I guess that's what Liza always says about her. That's what everybody says. That's the uh lane stretch.

[53:04] Billy Stritch: Yeah, right.

[53:05] Daniel Nolen: So there's nothing tragic. She's everybody thinks of her as a tragic figure. She says, There's nobody funnier.

[53:10] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[53:11] Daniel Nolen: Yeah. So um, okay. Well, speaking of Stephen Sondheim, I couldn't, but I the only thing I love more than Liza singing old friends is the song from Dick Tracy, Live Alone and Like.

[53:12] Billy Stritch: Live Alone and Like It's reconceived as a huge showstopping up tempo, just like production number.

[53:31] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, this is almost like, you know, I mean, maybe you know, like uh, because I assume this was in it before you showed up that day at rehearsal.

[53:40] Billy Stritch: Yeah, this was I think Marvin Laird was the one that laid this arrangement. It's a it's a it's an old Sophie Tucker song called uh L I'm Living Alone and I Like It. Yeah, going into the Sondheim one.

[53:51] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and it goes into uh you know Live Alone and Like It for Yes, but it starts with I'm a one-ticket gal, I am as free as the breeze. That's an old that's an old Sophie Tucker thing.

[54:03] Billy Stritch: Okay, yeah, so it's a great medley. So that's called I'm Living Alone and I Like It, and then she goes into Live Alone and Like Live Alone and Like Right, exactly. Yeah, gotcha. I mean, it's just I just love it. I mean, this uh this is so gay of me, but when I back in the day when I used to work out, this was on my cardio playlist.

[54:20] Daniel Nolen: Sure.

[54:20] Billy Stritch: Oh, that's pretty gay.

[54:22] Daniel Nolen: I don't think it's the gayest thing I've ever heard you say, but it's right up.

[54:25] Billy Stritch: For sure. No, we'll get there, we'll get there yet. Um, but uh anyway, I just love this so much. Uh but I also like I wonder, I mean, like, you know, like who in the group of Liza and Susan Strowman and Fred Ebb, like who comes and says, 'Hey, let's do this song from Dick Tracy,' you know.

[54:44] Billy Stritch: I feel like, you know, honestly, I can't answer that question. I feel like maybe that was Marvin Laird.

[54:51] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, okay.

[54:52] Billy Stritch: So for people that don't know, Marvin Laird uh wrote the he's a composer of the musical Ruthless, and he was Bernard at Peter's uh musical director to this day for decades and decades. And uh I didn't know that he had worked on this or worked with Liza at all.

[55:06] Billy Stritch: Yeah, he was. I'll tell you who the cast of it was Marvin Laird, Artie Shrek, Michael Abeni, Ralph Burns, Tori Zito, Glenn Roven, Russ Cassoff, Don Sebesky, Peter Howard, and me. Peter Howard, who did all the arrangements for like Hello Dolly and all those classic musicals. Great day. All the dance arrangements like in the second act when they do the big stepping out number and it goes to all the dance Peter Howard did every every bit of dance stuff. So yeah, Marvin uh was like the overseer of all that.

[55:37] Daniel Nolen: Oh wow.

[55:38] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah. And and was and that's like the only time I worked with him. I mean, I've seen him many times since, but you know, that was the the on that show was the main.

[55:46] Daniel Nolen: So I mean, what when this show, like after this show, I guess then you guys were on tour. Uh, you did the Charles Asnaver thing, but I mean, at a certain point, does it is it a slow evolution from the tour dates for this, where you have the eight girls and whatever, to the point where you're just on tour with Liza playing gigs, or is it's a good one.

[56:06] Billy Stritch: Yeah, well, we went we went back to Radio City the next year and did the did the show one more time, and then that was the end of this show. Gotcha. Then all of a sudden it's like we're back to Atlantic City, we're back to sewing, we're back to the the just the Liza show. You know, but for you for that was your then you're saying the the just Liza show. Then yeah, and I I I was uh hanging out. I wasn't involved on stage. It was about another year before I started coming before I started being like her guest star in the yeah, and then that started. We went to uh that started maybe 1993, and I had a I had my own four-piece band. Halfway through the show, the set would turn around, all of a sudden I would uh be there and I'd do 15 minutes. Then she'd come out and we'd do a big duet, and so yeah, I was the guest, I was the guest star on the show. So uh yeah, there was a lot of incarnations uh of of how I worked with her and in what capacity.

[57:04] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yeah, but but you were already with her when I saw you guys at um the Cerrito Center for the Performing Arts in 1995.

[57:12] Billy Stritch: That's right. I was I opening was I opening for her then.

[57:16] Daniel Nolen: I don't remember if you opened or if it was in the middle, but I definitely remember like my friend and I being like Billy Stritch is the only person we would be happy to watch a guest spot uh from in the middle of a Liza Vanelli show.

[57:27] Billy Stritch: Wow, thank you. Yes, it was in the middle, and you know how that came about. We were touring in uh South America, and wow I had been opening the show, and then all of a sudden the first two one or two shows, I went out to open, and you know, they're not used to that, and so like all through my show, it was like Liza, Lisa, people, and I'm just like sweating up. They're like, oh, she's gonna come out any time here, but just hang in there with me, guys, because uh uh, you know, and then we sat down on the dress. I said, I don't know. She goes, you know what, we're gonna switch this around. I'm gonna put you on the middle. I mean, talk about protecting me. I mean, it's beautiful, really beautiful.

[58:05] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's funny the different expectations of audiences regarding that issue because I know with like I I noticed with the Luann show that a lot of people would show up half an hour, 45 minutes late because they just completely assumed that there was gonna be an opening act and that they wouldn't miss any part of her show.

[58:23] Billy Stritch: It's a thankless job to be an opening act, yeah.

[58:26] Daniel Nolen: For sure.

[58:26] Billy Stritch: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely, yeah. But I mean, you know, I I being more, you know, when I, you know, Patty or Bernadette, they don't have that. So it's like it was so strange to me that like an audience just assumes that's gonna be, but I guess that's more common, you know. Um well, and also in the case of Lou Ann's crowd, they're they gotta get to the bar and get all their drinks.

[58:44] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yeah, they need time.

[58:46] Billy Stritch: They need time, they need time. Who's in a rush, right?

[58:50] Daniel Nolen: Oh, okay. Well, that that's Liza.

[58:53] Billy Stritch: Yes.

[58:54] Daniel Nolen: Um, well, okay, so then we have I asked, which now was that written uh specially for this.

[59:01] Billy Stritch: It was Kendra. I was, yeah, I had never heard this.

[59:05] Billy Stritch: Yeah, that was written for uh the show. Uh and it goes, and there was also one before that. I don't know if it's on the is who would have dreamed on the album. No, it goes into cottage for sale. Is it on the album? No, I want to hear her do cottage for sale. Yeah, it was great. It was oh well, I I have a bootleg somewhere. I guess you saw that, Billy. It was another song Fred and Fred and John wrote called Who Would have Dreamed? Who would have dreamed? It's like the love affair ending, and then it goes into Cottage for Sale, gorgeous.

[59:34] Billy Stritch: Oh, I love a cottage. Then she does some people. She does some people, she does Sarah Lee. Then she does sorry, I asked. Oh, so the order's all different. Well, I'm looking at something somebody just sent me, and it might not be right either. But uh I think yes, I think that's a good one. But you know, it's also at this point in time because there was the VHS, there was whatever they aired on PBS, there was the album, there was the VHS, there was the laser disc, there's the DVD. Now there's what they sell to download from iTunes, and you know, I'm sure it's all a disaster. It's all been mixed up. And also, yeah, we got last summer. Didn't we spend I Daniel? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think on Fire Island, we spent the better part of an afternoon trying to confirm whether or not there were two different video edits of some people from this concert on YouTube.

[59:59] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:00:23] Billy Stritch: Yes. There could be I just kept being like, no, you're not supposed to see the microphone stand there. Well, that's certainly a good way to spend a day in Fire Island, I have to say.

[1:00:33] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, arguably.

[1:00:34] Billy Stritch: So it's either that or the meat rack, but you know, same same.

[1:00:34] Daniel Nolen: Same same.

[1:00:38] Billy Stritch: Because yeah, this some people from this concert, it's the same dress, same song, you know, same everything, but it's uh not this recording, it's not the Radio City video that they show at like Showtune Sundays and that could very well be true.

[1:00:52] Daniel Nolen: That absolutely be true.

[1:00:54] Billy Stritch: Yeah, we were just like racking our brains. Some minutia. I mean, I've always been so obsessed with this. Some people, I mean, like yeah, to me, like there's this version of some people, and then there's every other anyone else ever did. Including Eliza. And they're all too slow, except for they're too fucking slow.

[1:00:54] Daniel Nolen: That's right.

[1:01:11] Billy Stritch: I mean, it's so hard to go back and listen to I mean, God lover, Ethel Merman. It's like some people. It's a god, yes.

[1:01:19] Daniel Nolen: That's right.

[1:01:19] Billy Stritch: It's so weird, you know. You know?

[1:01:19] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:01:21] Billy Stritch: Well, I both the true of both some people and sorry I asked, which I she does this thing, and maybe you can confirm or deny this because she before the song starts, she turns her back to the audience and walks upstage.

[1:01:19] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:01:35] Billy Stritch: So she can then turn downstage. And I think on some of these tracks where she does that, I even see her talking, although maybe her mic is turned off or something. And someone had told me that Fred Ebb told her that every song has to be a scene, and the audience won't know it, but you just start acting it and just you know, like is that what's going on?

[1:01:57] Daniel Nolen: I think that probably is what's going on. She's probably starting the conversation.

[1:02:02] Billy Stritch: I love it. You know, and it's like when she started it, because I I've I remember I always notice that about some people because I see it out of context so much in gay bars or whatever, you know. And it's and in some people you really hear it because she starts. I don't know if she's saying, like, did she it sounds like she's asking if somebody got something or loaded it up in the car? I don't know what. There's like definitely like some kind of dialogue, but you can't really make it out. So I always laugh at that and make fun of that. So then this so sorry, so sorry I asked started, and I saw her doing that. So I started writing in my notes, oh, here we go. The classic Liza walk upstage and do an imaginary scene.

[1:02:35] Daniel Nolen: It's so good, right?

[1:02:36] Billy Stritch: But then the acting in this song shattered me. I was like sitting there being like, ha ha ha, Liza, you're over the top. I can't with you. And then I'm sitting here like getting choked up, you know. And yet she brings it right in. It's right in.

[1:02:51] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, you know, and I was reading the reviews of this concert, and it's like that, it's you don't expect it because it's the way everybody thinks about Liza, but all the reviews were talking about how subtle and understated and moving her acting is, you know.

[1:03:04] Billy Stritch: Yeah, that's true. That's true. And it's it's just it's so funny how she um you wouldn't necessarily think a Radio City like spectacular would be the time that you would like you know find a place for that, but that's what they're doing.

[1:03:18] Daniel Nolen: For subtlety, yeah, absolutely.

[1:03:20] Billy Stritch: Yeah, no, you wouldn't, but she absolutely, you know, she knows that they're gonna come to her, she doesn't have to play it big, and certainly it works really well in the video that it's smaller, yeah.

[1:03:29] Daniel Nolen: For sure it is for sure.

[1:03:31] Billy Stritch: Um, and then there was a song after that, by the way, that it's not also in the video called Similar Features by Melissa Etheridge.

[1:03:39] Daniel Nolen: No, yeah, it was like the hipposong, go on and close your eyes. Imagine me there. She's got similar features and something hair. It was like this great little bridge song, and that didn't make the cut for the CD or the the DVD or anything like that. But that's that was in the show.

[1:03:46] Daniel Nolen: Okay.

[1:03:59] Billy Stritch: Wow. What's the thing with Liza with all these country singers like Melissa Etheridge and Katie Lang and what's the other one? Roy Orb Roy Orbison, Brian.

[1:04:08] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and Katie Lang pulling and pulling back the reins. She used to sing that all the time, that Katie Lang song.

[1:04:06] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:04:14] Daniel Nolen: I love when she sings crying so so massive.

[1:04:17] Billy Stritch: Yeah, me too. Me too. What's um oh Winona Judd? That's the other one I always heard about her hanging out with.

[1:04:24] Daniel Nolen: I don't I don't remember her hanging.

[1:04:25] Billy Stritch: Well, she might have. I didn't, we didn't hang out all together. Well, I guess if you're Liza, you've probably hung out with literally everybody.

[1:04:31] Daniel Nolen: A lot of people, yeah, for sure.

[1:04:33] Billy Stritch: Um, but uh but like so so okay, so that one you mentioned similar features. I mean, did that have like a Melissa Etheridge kind of like rock country?

[1:04:42] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it had a rock kind of rock feel to it. And I I guess. You know, it just got went went away when they were trying to make the cut for the uh for the the video release. I think you know what? It's it's funny that thinking about that because I'm my first ri response is like I'm so mad at them for not giving me everything.

[1:04:58] Billy Stritch: Right, but that was one complaint that some of the reviews had was that it didn't, it there was something disjointed that the songs didn't all necessarily feel like of a piece.

[1:05:08] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:05:09] Billy Stritch: And I was like, what the hell are they talking about? This video feels like 100% of a piece. But maybe it's because if you cut that and you cut losing my mind, you know, maybe that what made the difference. I have to say, I think all the cuts are probably really good cuts.

[1:05:23] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:05:24] Billy Stritch: Honestly. To make it.

[1:05:25] Daniel Nolen: That's interesting.

[1:05:23] Billy Stritch: Yeah, because it is extremely cohesive. It seems like a perfect video, you know, uh thing.

[1:05:31] Daniel Nolen: Yep.

[1:05:32] Billy Stritch: But there should also be a complete version for the.

[1:05:34] Daniel Nolen: I know, but I think this was I think this was released before people started doing that, you know.

[1:05:39] Billy Stritch: So I mean, so somewhere it's got to exist. Well, speaking of which though, I don't know if I don't I think I've meant to send this to both of you and I didn't. But after Daniel and I were freaking out about you and uh Liza doing um back in business at the Sondheim Carnegie Hall, uh, somebody sent me um an un, I guess it's not unaired because I can think it was used in a PBS pledge break, but there is video of you guys doing Water Under the Bridge that's on the album.

[1:06:06] Daniel Nolen: That's it.

[1:06:07] Billy Stritch: So anyway, I I was about to send it to the two of you, but I guess you've already seen it. It's so great.

[1:06:11] Daniel Nolen: But you could send it to me, I'd be happy to have it.

[1:06:13] Billy Stritch: Uh yeah, no, I was so thrilled because I didn't and now I'm like, hmm, what else is that? And speaking of that, I mean that was a brand new song, and something sat sat with us in the room and coached us for a half an hour on this.

[1:06:22] Daniel Nolen: Incredible.

[1:06:23] Billy Stritch: Which was really great. I have to say, I I love that song.

[1:06:26] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, I do too.

[1:06:27] Billy Stritch: I do too. And um, anyway, well, so uh okay, so then the next thing on the video of a concert is So What from Cabaret.

[1:06:35] Daniel Nolen: Okay.

[1:06:36] Billy Stritch: Sure. I live for that.

[1:06:39] Daniel Nolen: I do too.

[1:06:40] Billy Stritch: I do too. I mean, just the fact that's so uh I would never have thought of that as a Liza kind of a song.

[1:06:46] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:06:47] Billy Stritch: And she makes it the Lizaist song that ever Liza.

[1:06:52] Daniel Nolen: It is.

[1:06:53] Billy Stritch: And you know, it's such a great lyric because every I think in all the verses, Fred does the same thing twice like if I like that you're here, and I like that you're here. Or if it wasn't, you know, there's these great turns on the same phrase.

[1:07:06] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:07:07] Billy Stritch: Uh I can't remember them all, but it's like it just the inflection changes and the whole meaning changes.

[1:07:12] Daniel Nolen: Totally.

[1:07:13] Billy Stritch: And it's it's talk about writing for a character, but Liza was able to take that and make that her own character.

[1:07:18] Daniel Nolen: Yes, she was.

[1:07:19] Billy Stritch: I mean, the joke, uh uh when you're as old as I is anyone as old as I. Right. It's like when Liza says that, it sounds like it's special material written for her. Like, I mean, that's so like it was God, is anyone as old as I? I mean, it's such a Liza joke, but it's not in the script.

[1:07:37] Daniel Nolen: You know, it is.

[1:07:38] Billy Stritch: That's right. Yep, for sure. I just I love it. And then that ending, I mean, it's it's a better ending than the song ever had in the show.

[1:07:44] Daniel Nolen: It's so good.

[1:07:45] Billy Stritch: Oh, yeah, it was it it was never that big in the show.

[1:07:47] Daniel Nolen: No, no.

[1:07:48] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think when I I directed Cabaret in college, which was a couple years after this concert. And I remember having like a really like serious discussion with my musical director, trying to convince him that our Farline Schneider needed the Liza Penn. She needed to be like Liza.

[1:08:05] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:08:06] Billy Stritch: Who cares so much? He did not agree, and I did not win the argument, but but I tried my darndest.

[1:08:12] Daniel Nolen: Sure.

[1:08:13] Billy Stritch: Well, you tried. But uh oh, I'll just tell you about how fabulous she looks. I just have to also say I love uh not only the fabulous, I don't know. Is that white dress the Isaac Mizrahi, the little shortcut?

[1:08:27] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that little tennis dress, yes.

[1:08:29] Billy Stritch: Oh, so fabulous. I mean, it's like a little sparkly, but it's also kind of plain. It's just flawless.

[1:08:35] Daniel Nolen: Simple, yeah.

[1:08:36] Billy Stritch: And I love her jewelry. She has these great big fabulous diamond rocks on the ears.

[1:08:41] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:08:42] Billy Stritch: And then just the most simple, barely there little necklace with just like one like diamond pendant. Little Elsa Pareti bean or pen or something like that.

[1:08:51] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, exactly.

[1:08:52] Billy Stritch: And also I have to say, I was so happy it wasn't a cross.

[1:08:55] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:08:56] Billy Stritch: I'm like, I want to go back to like 1991 where she didn't have like Jesus in every like costume. Except I except I gave her that cross. But other than that, that's okay.

[1:09:05] Daniel Nolen: Well, listen, if she's gonna wear a cross, it shouldn't be the fabulous one she's gonna do.

[1:09:09] Billy Stritch: But I I give I get what you mean.

[1:09:11] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, so um, you know, but it's I sure I shouldn't let I shouldn't let the um the bad guys take Jesus away from Liza.

[1:09:19] Billy Stritch: Yeah, it's okay. It's alright. Um down, Ben, calm down.

[1:09:23] Daniel Nolen: Seriously.

[1:09:25] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Well then back to the love. Sarah Lee. I mean, this is also, I mean, I this is one of the points where I was just like, God bless Susan Strowman.

[1:09:35] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:09:36] Billy Stritch: Because you know, when you talk about her like coming down on the passerelle, um, like it's just the littlest things. I mean, it's also very Liza because it's the kind of stuff she was doing with Fosse, too, where like the subtle shift from just walking to strutting to something that's more choreographed to fully dancing to back to not dance. You know, it's so gradual and seamless and effortless and stylish.

[1:10:01] Daniel Nolen: Yep.

[1:10:02] Billy Stritch: And it's so great in this number. Because I mean, it is so showbiz.

[1:10:05] Daniel Nolen: Oh, that's the two of them. They worked that out. I remember watching them work it out.

[1:10:09] Billy Stritch: Yep.

[1:10:10] Daniel Nolen: Um, and then the um, oh, and I forgot I've forgotten that she did um There There is a Time. That's not what it's called, the Charles Aston.

[1:10:20] Billy Stritch: I just I love hearing her do that. Um that that opens up the the Asnavor section.

[1:10:25] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:10:26] Billy Stritch: Well, so here it was only the one song about the deaf lover.

[1:10:29] Daniel Nolen: Okay, well, this is what happened this is what happened and the actual show. Sorry you missed it. Um it was you know how she opened with the iris thing, you know, that opened up really big.

[1:10:40] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:10:41] Daniel Nolen: Well, she she she went to the Asnavor section, she sang a bit of Leton, and then she introduced Asnivore, and she goes, How he right makes little movies. She went to stage right, and just in a square, she sang Quiet Love.

[1:10:55] Billy Stritch: Wow.

[1:10:56] Daniel Nolen: And then she went to stage left, and in a real tall, like pillar kind of opening, she sang What Makes a Man a Man.

[1:11:04] Billy Stritch: Oh.

[1:11:06] Daniel Nolen: And then which she did at We're Priest at the Palace. Yes. And everyone else. And then the third song, she went to Stage Center and she did Sailor Boy. And on the last course of that, that's when the Iris opened up again. It was hugely effective and stunningly visual. So I think that was awesome.

[1:11:23] Billy Stritch: Yeah, it was three songs. I love I love that Sailor Boy. Daniel, do you know Sailor Boy?

[1:11:28] Daniel Nolen: No.

[1:11:29] Billy Stritch: You will love it's it's so great. Um but uh but this one I love, and at some points, like I was about to be like, uh, I was like, this the what is it called? Quiet Love. I was like, is this song like too on the nose for me? And then I just kept being like, just be glad it's not Barbara Streisand hitting you over the head with this lyric, you know.

[1:11:47] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:11:48] Billy Stritch: You know, right, right, right. Yeah, it's tricky, but I mean, she does act it very, very well. Yes, you know, it's got the element of the sign language.

[1:11:55] Daniel Nolen: Sign language, yeah.

[1:11:56] Billy Stritch: Which but I was like, bitch, learned all that freaking sign language for this song.

[1:12:00] Daniel Nolen: She absolutely did.

[1:12:01] Billy Stritch: She absolutely did. Yeah. Incredible. Very appreciative. And then the transition to the next song where she uh says, okay, Pap, hit it.

[1:12:10] Daniel Nolen: I let out a screech.

[1:12:12] Billy Stritch: Hey, what is the next song? It's remind me.

[1:12:14] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yeah, right.

[1:12:15] Billy Stritch: The greatest.

[1:12:16] Daniel Nolen: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:12:17] Billy Stritch: Okay, sure. Bam, bam, bam, bam.

[1:12:21] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yeah, the greatest. I mean, that like brass just like does it for me every time.

[1:12:22] Billy Stritch: Every time.

[1:12:26] Daniel Nolen: Me too.

[1:12:27] Billy Stritch: Me too. And the little choreographic gesture of just the sum hum drum people where she flicks the hands. I mean, yes, and now knowing your intel about him watching her, it makes so much sense because it's just it's so tight and it's just right with her every time.

[1:12:43] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely.

[1:12:44] Billy Stritch: Absolutely. And listen the way he plays drums. Everything's double time, and on uh on all the cymbals and everything, it's like that just the way he drives that band is like uh textbook. Brilliant. Billy, what's that like when you're working with an artist and you guys have been together for all these years and even longer than you've been with her, Bill Lavornia has been her drummer, and then he dies. Right, and you guys are back in rehearsal for the next gig.

[1:13:07] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:13:08] Billy Stritch: It that's a pretty steep learning curve, right? Like, how do you get how do you how do you fill that hole?

[1:13:18] Daniel Nolen: Uh well, luckily, I mean, to fill that spot, we we got uh Mike Berkowitz, who had known Pappy and had uh, you know, totally knew how to cop his style. I mean, he really absolutely knew how to play in that style.

[1:13:33] Billy Stritch: So there wasn't Liza didn't have to listen to too much in a different kind of way. I mean, so that was pretty seamless. And then I feel like the next big show that we created from the ground up was the Palace show.

[1:13:47] Daniel Nolen: So Manelli Amanelli.

[1:13:50] Billy Stritch: Bill Lavoringa was playing the Manelli Almanelli. That was a little bit more.

[1:13:53] Daniel Nolen: Oh, right.

[1:13:54] Billy Stritch: I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was still Bill Lavorna. So Bill Lavorna was playing, he played the Minelli Almanelli. But by the time we did the palace show in 2008, it was Mike Berkowitz and still the 12-piece band. But that we created, and you know, everybody knew the style. We still had Fred Ebb, we still had Don Sebeski, we still had uh a lot of the people who had done the prior shows.

[1:14:18] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:14:19] Billy Stritch: And we had Liza Delitas, you know, and she knew what she wanted to hear. And if she would hear an orchestration that wasn't quite right, she would say, change this, change, you know, in a great way.

[1:14:30] Billy Stritch: But uh she was very discerning and is very discerning. It wasn't like a lot of singers, like, oh, do me a chart, okay. Here's the chart. Right. You know, she knows what she wants to hear. I mean, that's what I've heard about Liza. I'm trying to remember what the context was, but I think I heard several different stories from several different people that like she just has such an impeccable sense of taste and almost like a almost like an unfailing barometer of like uh certainly what she wants, but pretty much just what is the best choice.

[1:15:00] Billy Stritch: She absolutely does. She absolutely does. And she also has the great taste and the lack of ego to surround herself with really, really good people.

[1:15:10] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:15:11] Billy Stritch: To do the jobs, you know. She she doesn't have any kind of ego about like that, letting someone else shine or or do so. I mean, she's smart that way, really smart.

[1:15:21] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:15:21] Billy Stritch: I learned a lot from her in regards to that for sure. Also, I have another question in terms of like the palace shows. Like when you're on tour and you're playing the Atlantic City gigs or you know, whatever. And then you've got a big thing coming up, like Manelli on Manelli or Liza's at the Palace, where you're gonna be, for example, in those cases on a Broadway house, but you know, for kind of a sit-down run.

[1:15:43] Daniel Nolen: And um, does that do you then have I mean, you don't have like a Broadway rehearsal process of like four weeks, but do you have extra time to work in a sort of concerted way than you normally?

[1:15:54] Billy Stritch: Well, and uh for the Manelli on Manelli show, which was ninety-nine, yeah, uh, we did rehearse in a rehearsal hall for uh uh three or four weeks pretty much together, and it was for five guys, and Marvin Hamlish did a lot of the arrangements with me and Fred was there. So that was created uh, you know, just like a Broadway show.

[1:16:14] Billy Stritch: Uh and then we did it on Broadway. Now for Manelli on Manelli, we toured that show for a couple of years before we brought it in. For Lizas at the Palace. I mean Liz at the Palace, yeah. We we toured around with that. We had done that, we polished it, you know, uh went all around the world with it, and then it was like, let's do it in in like so like you had like um uh like uh Jim and Tiger and and Cortez and um like on the road prior to Broadway with that.

[1:16:43] Daniel Nolen: Oh yeah, all of us were on the road, everybody was on the road.

[1:16:46] Billy Stritch: And I think that came about because I'd have to look at the what played at the palace, but all of a sudden there was like this opening at the palace. Something closed and something wasn't gonna open until the next early the next year. So all of a sudden it was like we can grab this time slot. Do we want to grab it? Can we do it? And yes, let's do it. Let's get back on Broadway.

[1:17:05] Billy Stritch: So uh it was a limited run. It was scheduled to be four three weeks, and we got held over for two more. So it was five weeks total. So and then we had to get out of there because I think the next show was coming in.

[1:17:18] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:17:19] Billy Stritch: Well, it was magical.

[1:17:20] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:17:22] Billy Stritch: Uh all right. So then uh we're almost done with act one. Um my god, okay, good. Uh uh so we have as we discuss seeing things, speaking of magical.

[1:17:33] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yeah.

[1:17:33] Billy Stritch: Um she says that great quote, I got my dreams from my mother, but I got no, I'm sorry, I got my drive from my mother, but I got my dreams from my father.

[1:17:41] Daniel Nolen: That's correct.

[1:17:41] Billy Stritch: Which I thought was so uh powerful.

[1:17:43] Daniel Nolen: Total sure, sure.

[1:17:45] Billy Stritch: It's funny, when I was a kid watching this, I didn't appreciate um how incredible it is for Liza Minnelli's to say that she was visiting the um Radio City archives.

[1:17:57] Billy Stritch: Yeah, and and found out that her father had you know designed and then produced and directed all these shows that she didn't know about. Right. Because when Liza says something like that, you're just kind of like, well, you know, Vincent Manelli. But like just too, I really went watching it this time. I was like, can you imagine like like being at like an archive and like learning that your dad can produce and directed these shows, you know?

[1:18:19] Daniel Nolen: And designed them and designed the show.

[1:18:22] Billy Stritch: Yeah. I mean, and that was back when they were doing a different show every week.

[1:18:26] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, and you look at these things, it was like uh I mean, it was like 1933 to like 35 or seven or something like that. It was just uh this incredible productive time.

[1:18:36] Billy Stritch: Uh the hall was new, it was a new venue, and you know, they had these enormous shows that changed all the time. And if you go back and look at it, you could see the in that film that montage, there's a lot of the pictures from the designs. It's mind-blowing what he was able to accomplish.

[1:18:53] Daniel Nolen: And then he went to Chicago and then he went to uh Hollywood, you know.

[1:18:56] Billy Stritch: So that was uh you know, he was on his way at that point, but he started as a designer.

[1:19:01] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:19:02] Billy Stritch: Well, I mean, it's no when you talk about Liza having that amazing instinct and you know, tastes and everything. I mean, it's with that kind of well, I'd obviously Judy, but you know, Vincent, you know, be is Oh, that I, yeah.

[1:19:16] Daniel Nolen: She got that eye for from him.

[1:19:17] Billy Stritch: Yeah, for sure.

[1:19:18] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:19:18] Billy Stritch: Well, and I think, and then you know, he went on to create some of the most beautiful films we've ever seen. And uh, I think it I was recently watching something about Alfred Hitchcock, who was also pre-directing, he was a graphic designer, I believe.

[1:19:33] Billy Stritch: In like the Swiss kind of tradition. And so it's very interesting to see these drawings of Vincent Manelli and see his uh the taste level and the point of in the the use of color and and the balance and the layout and everything that he would have come to use in his films.

[1:19:51] Daniel Nolen: Right, right, absolutely.

[1:19:52] Billy Stritch: I mean, he's just a genius uh all the way around, you know, eccentric and and and probably and everybody said he was kind of like uh ahead in the clouds, kind of oh my god. But boy, when he was designing something, he was right on it, you know.

[1:20:06] Daniel Nolen: So now was he was he gone already when you yeah, I never met him.

[1:20:11] Billy Stritch: Yeah, I think he died in like 87 or 8, and I met Liza in 91.

[1:20:16] Daniel Nolen: Gotcha.

[1:20:17] Billy Stritch: Um, and uh all right, so well, okay. So we opened the second act, as you mentioned. Now, after having just this, you know, psych that was lit with just Liza in front of it. Now it's this fabulous, elaborate set.

[1:20:27] Daniel Nolen: Speaking of design, I mean, yeah, it looks like my you know, fantasy of what uh the it's like what a nightclub looks like in an old Hollywood, like uh like Busby Berkeley number or something like that.

[1:20:41] Billy Stritch: That's right. Because literally it is the tower on that thing. It's literally 40 or 50 feet high.

[1:20:46] Daniel Nolen: So it's like it is like a movie.

[1:20:48] Billy Stritch: So it's it's so glorious. I mean, it's just it's and then later when all those ladies come on, it's almost like uh like Ziegfeld or something.

[1:20:55] Daniel Nolen: Oh, really?

[1:20:56] Billy Stritch: Yeah. But you have to love, I mean, in such trip credit to Liza and or Fred and Susan, you know, but the fact that they come on and that they look like all different kinds of real women, you know.

[1:21:06] Daniel Nolen: I know.

[1:21:07] Billy Stritch: Well, that was all Liza's idea. She said, you know, that's brilliant. She said, I don't want to do men because everybody does it's lady and Margaret does with men, I've done with men, it's cheetah, everybody does here are my guys.

[1:21:19] Billy Stritch: She goes, first of all, I want to do women, but I want to do real women. I want to do like I I want an old lady, older lady, I want a heavy set lady, I want everybody type you could think of. And I felt that, and everybody was like, what? You know, and then it was kind of genius because it looks so authentic.

[1:21:38] Billy Stritch: They all get up, there's every possible tie. It was from 16 to 65, you know, and and not a lot of glamour. There was a few really pretty girls, but it was just a lot of different types. It was really ahead of its time. I mean, I think it's part of why this concert, it's why it's aged so well.

[1:21:54] Daniel Nolen: Because I mean, especially at this exact moment in time, you know, so many things that we watch, you feel a little bit like uncomfortable watching them now, you know.

[1:22:03] Billy Stritch: That's right.

[1:22:04] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, but that's right. They don't age so well.

[1:22:06] Billy Stritch: Yeah, and this is not the case at all. I mean, it could be yesterday. And um, and and not only do they look different, but they're they're, you know, they're they're not people that are just like backup people.

[1:22:19] Billy Stritch: I mean, too. No, they're not core, they're not like core, they're all stars. They're not like airs. You have Mamie Duncan Gibbs who come up and kick kicked up in the ceiling, and then you've got Dottie Stanley and I mean all these people who but everybody's like a star uh a type, they're a leading person.

[1:22:42] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, this girl.

[1:22:43] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:22:44] Billy Stritch: They all have their own little character, also who you see throughout the second act.

[1:22:48] Daniel Nolen: That's correct.

[1:22:49] Billy Stritch: Absolutely.

[1:22:49] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:22:50] Billy Stritch: That's another thing that's so special about Liza. I really can't think of anybody else, not even Cheetah in this respect. That is that Liza has a way of becoming part of the ensemble and yet still being the star and anchoring.

[1:23:06] Billy Stritch: Like she's really able to like slip in and out of it and let and let the other person shine. And so I said about that the ego. It's like she's happy to stand back and let Terry White sing. Stand back and let and just look at her and admire her, you know.

[1:23:21] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:23:22] Billy Stritch: And and Judy had that too, by the way. You know, you see that on her TV show.

[1:23:26] Daniel Nolen: Yes, with the guest stars.

[1:23:27] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Very happy to let the guest stars do what they did so well. But Liza can even do it like dancing in a line.

[1:23:33] Billy Stritch: I mean, it's like it's it's really amazing how she she can be part of that. And and it it's it it's the choreography in this is so fantastic. I mean, when they're all dancing and and and you know, L Liza's in the kick line and then Liza goes around and walks down the side and it's all in counterpoint to what they're doing and the traffic patterns.

[1:23:54] Billy Stritch: I mean, it's just so you always know where to look and it it's just so flawlessly executed.

[1:24:00] Daniel Nolen: Well, that's Susan Strowman, of course.

[1:24:02] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Genius.

[1:24:03] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:24:03] Billy Stritch: It's a great, it's a great marriage. So they do this, well, they do the hilarious bit we talked about where they interrupt uh Liza and come up on stage and um one at a time, and then they have this crazy men medley.

[1:24:16] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:24:16] Billy Stritch: Where they sing literally everything in the world.

[1:24:18] Daniel Nolen: Everything.

[1:24:19] Billy Stritch: Yes.

[1:24:20] Daniel Nolen: You're right.

[1:24:20] Billy Stritch: I mean, Liza even gives us a little bet and a little Barbara with um The Glory of Love and Enough is Enough.

[1:24:27] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:24:28] Billy Stritch: And then My Man.

[1:24:29] Daniel Nolen: Yes, that's right.

[1:24:30] Billy Stritch: My man.

[1:24:31] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's great.

[1:24:31] Billy Stritch: Great, great, great song. I did part of that, but a lot of that was. I mean, I think there were three or four of us that laid that out for her.

[1:24:38] Daniel Nolen: Well, it's so many songs.

[1:24:39] Billy Stritch: I mean, you like teams.

[1:24:41] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:24:41] Billy Stritch: I stopped listing them because I was like, okay. It's like 20, 20 songs or something crazy.

[1:24:46] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:24:47] Billy Stritch: Yeah, for sure. I just like it.

[1:24:49] Billy Stritch: I like it when Terry White sings, My Man's Gone Now. And Liza says, it's a pity you can't sing Terry.

[1:24:55] Daniel Nolen: Totally.

[1:24:56] Billy Stritch: I remembered that from 20 years ago. When Terry started singing, I would say it out loud. I said, Pity you can't sing Terry.

[1:25:03] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that's right.

[1:25:03] Billy Stritch: Exactly. I mean, but you know, this video when I moved to New York and I would see Terry sing at Rose's turn, and that was I was like, oh, she's a star to me from from Liza.

[1:25:14] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:25:15] Billy Stritch: Right, exactly. Sure, I love it.

[1:25:16] Billy Stritch: Um, I mean, that was another great piano bar that we lost, is Rose's turn. She was so fabulous down there.

[1:25:22] Daniel Nolen: Um, but uh anyway, it's so uh and by the way, Terry dances her face off in this number, which is great to watch.

[1:25:29] Billy Stritch: She really does.

[1:25:30] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely, she really does.

[1:25:32] Billy Stritch: Yep.

[1:25:32] Daniel Nolen: They all do.

[1:25:34] Billy Stritch: Oh, and then the other, well, I guess I was sad. I was thinking that I would wanted to hear her sing Rogers and Heart when you mentioned uh Cottage for Sale.

[1:25:41] Daniel Nolen: But um, but I I actually forgot. Then here when they're singing Bewitched, she sings it never entered my mind.

[1:25:47] Billy Stritch: That was me.

[1:25:47] Daniel Nolen: Okay, that was me.

[1:25:48] Billy Stritch: I put those two on top of each other.

[1:25:50] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[1:25:51] Billy Stritch: So brilliant.

[1:25:52] Daniel Nolen: Thank you.

[1:25:52] Billy Stritch: Thank you. It's so beautiful. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard Liza sound, you know.

[1:25:58] Daniel Nolen: I know she sings really in her nice head voice.

[1:26:01] Billy Stritch: Yeah, I love what I like myself.

[1:26:03] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's great.

[1:26:04] Billy Stritch: Yep, yep.

[1:26:04] Daniel Nolen: And it just so well mixed the balance between them on the other song.

[1:26:09] Billy Stritch: And it's so genius too because Bewitched is such such a familiar song.

[1:26:14] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:26:14] Billy Stritch: That your brain, your brain can afford to have it on the back burner because your brain knows what the song is. So you can give your attention more to Liza, but you can't ignore Bewitched.

[1:26:25] Daniel Nolen: It just like it really fuses such a yin and yin.

[1:26:27] Billy Stritch: Okay.

[1:26:28] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:26:29] Billy Stritch: That's a great.

[1:26:29] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:26:30] Billy Stritch: I loved it. And then after you get through with that, it goes into someday he'll come along. Liza standard.

[1:26:37] Daniel Nolen: And that's that's such a satisfying ending to that whole mud like the way that's it.

[1:26:41] Billy Stritch: It really is. There's something about her just going into that song that's so satisfying.

[1:26:50] Daniel Nolen: Especially because I was watching this and I was thinking, oh, you know, like she's in such great form in this whole concert. But I was like, but you know, maybe you can hear a little bit of the beginning of her vocal decline. There's like a hoarseness or a huskiness, and she sings some of the notes.

[1:27:07] Billy Stritch: The notes are shorter, but then she got to the man I love, and I just like crumbled up my notes, you know.

[1:27:13] Daniel Nolen: It's like it's like she fooled you, didn't she?

[1:27:15] Billy Stritch: Yeah, she made you think she wasn't gonna have it, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh god, here we go.

[1:27:20] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, Seth Rudetsky always talks about that thing on the album, the cat original cats album of Chicago, where at the end of all that jazz, Cheetah's like, and oh and then she's like screams it out and he's like, It's a D.

[1:27:35] Billy Stritch: She's belting a D.

[1:27:37] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that's right. It's like as long as you give them a great last note, that's the that's the point.

[1:27:42] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:27:42] Daniel Nolen: Oh my God.

[1:27:43] Billy Stritch: Uh well, then this fat I forgot all about this incredible tribute to Fossey. Um they're in the total Fossey uh costumes with the black sequence.

[1:27:54] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, like that's right.

[1:27:55] Billy Stritch: Like Robin Hood outfit. The hat, except I think I think it was cowboy like cowboy hat. Like not cow, but but they weren't there weren't it wasn't derbies, but it was hats.

[1:28:04] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[1:28:04] Billy Stritch: It's what are those called? They're like there are cowboy hats, but they're like the other kind of cowboy hats.

[1:28:08] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, smaller.

[1:28:09] Billy Stritch: They're not they're not like Western hats, but yeah.

[1:28:11] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's it's not a 10-gallon hat, it's just a cowboy hat.

[1:28:14] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:28:15] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:28:16] Billy Stritch: But uh, but uh, but what what were these songs?

[1:28:19] Billy Stritch: Long way to Tipperary. Pack up your troubles in your own kit bag, and then it went to it's a long way to Tipperary, and then it ended with uh imagine the John Lennon Imagine.

[1:28:30] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, that I remembered.

[1:28:31] Billy Stritch: It was a whole metaphor for women sending their husbands off to war. That was the whole whole lies this whole thing behind it.

[1:28:39] Daniel Nolen: Oh, well, this was was this during the Iraq war.

[1:28:42] Billy Stritch: Well, that was no, I think this was the Iraq War was after that. This was uh wasn't that ninety-five or something like that.

[1:28:50] Daniel Nolen: No, no.

[1:28:51] Billy Stritch: I thought if anything, it might have been earlier. You know what? I'm so bad. Cut this part out, please.

[1:28:59] Daniel Nolen: I mean, in your defense, we had another Iraq war that was much bigger.

[1:29:02] Billy Stritch: Right, right.

[1:29:02] Daniel Nolen: That was out of the desert desert storm, right?

[1:29:05] Billy Stritch: Desert storm. That was that that was later than 91 for sure. I think.

[1:29:08] Daniel Nolen: Let me look it up. Uh look it up later. Uh but this was it was supposed to be women sending their husbands.

[1:29:16] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah, no, this was right after that.

[1:29:18] Billy Stritch: Okay. That was February 91 that ended up.

[1:29:20] Daniel Nolen: Oh, that makes sense.

[1:29:21] Billy Stritch: Okay, well, then it was very timely.

[1:29:23] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[1:29:24] Billy Stritch: Pack up your troubles in your old knitbag is like a marching song for World War One. War One and Along Way to Tipperary, that's World War One, too.

[1:29:33] Daniel Nolen: Okay, now I get it.

[1:29:34] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Um then it goes into this anthem for peace.

[1:29:39] Daniel Nolen: Which this time.

[1:29:40] Billy Stritch: So now, did you arrange all these vocals, Billy?

[1:29:44] Billy Stritch: I did. Marvin Laird did the orchestral arrangement, and then I set the vocals to it.

[1:29:49] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:29:50] Billy Stritch: I mean, this was my favorite number of the night. Um, and those harmonies that are kind of dissonant and then they resolve into these like really pure, just lovely, delicious tones. I mean, it like brought tears to my eyes because it reminded me of like, you know, singing in high school choir, because it had like such a choral sound to it. Yeah, it was just so moving.

[1:30:04] Daniel Nolen: Thank you.

[1:30:14] Billy Stritch: Thank you. Yeah, I love it so much. Plus, I love that song.

[1:30:17] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, me too.

[1:30:18] Billy Stritch: It's, uh, but it's so that arrangement is so, uh, like rich and like, well, Marvin had to say did this gorgeous treatment of it, and then it really did inform what I should put vocally on top of it, I have to say. I mean that inspired me a lot what he did. But you know, you don't sit there and think like, oh, she's singing the Beatles now. No, it's just that's go with her, you know. She said, yeah, I want to do Imagine, but I don't want to do that. You may think we've got to find another way to, and they really created a whole different way of hearing it.

[1:30:50] Daniel Nolen: Yep. Love it.

[1:30:51] Billy Stritch: Yeah, I love it so much. And like you were saying earlier, Ben, it's not, you know, if someone else would have done this song, it might not have seemed a little like heavy-handed, but Liza does it.

[1:31:02] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I mean, so if you imagine Barbara Streisand doing Imagine with a chorus of girls, I mean, it would be so offensive.

[1:31:10] Billy Stritch: It'd be creepy and preachy, yeah.

[1:31:14] Daniel Nolen: I mean, the way Liza does it, it's just so like, I'm just like, yes, yes, tell me, tell me it's gonna be okay. Like I will imagine with you.

[1:31:21] Billy Stritch: Yep, I agree.

[1:31:23] Daniel Nolen: Well, there's a great innocence about her, you know, in a sense, yes.

[1:31:27] Billy Stritch: That, uh, yeah, she doesn't pretend to know everything. Uh, Streisand's different, you know. It's like I'm gonna tell you how things are, you know.

[1:31:35] Daniel Nolen: That is a very good way to explain it. That really has a lot to do with it. It is like Barbara wants to teach you, and Liza wants to, Liza literally says, "Teach me to teach me."

[1:31:44] Billy Stritch: That's right. I mean, she thinks she'll let me learn. One of her big openings was "I Can See It."

[1:31:48] Daniel Nolen: I love that.

[1:31:49] Billy Stritch: Let me learn.

[1:31:50] Daniel Nolen: Let me learn.

[1:31:52] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:31:53] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I can see clearly.

[1:31:54] Billy Stritch: Oh, so good.

[1:31:55] Daniel Nolen: That's right. Um, well, then she does speaking of that. Was the opening of, um, or that was the second act opening of the '87 Carnegie Hall.

[1:32:02] Billy Stritch: Right. And then we get another song from that album here, which is the medley, or the, you know, the pairing of "Here I'll Stay" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay."

[1:32:10] Daniel Nolen: I know. So good.

[1:32:11] Billy Stritch: And it's what you've kind of been wanting from Liza, you know. Here she just stands still and belts, you know. And it's really the first time she's done that. Sing something we know that's so beautiful, yep. And you know, and just all voice just pours out.

[1:32:25] Daniel Nolen: Yep.

[1:32:25] Billy Stritch: Yeah, and you get flashes of Judy whenever she belts like this.

[1:32:28] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's the way she opens her mouth and her lip kind of quivers like Judy's used to.

[1:32:32] Billy Stritch: Yeah. And she does that catch that "Here, I'll stay," that kind of thing with her voice that Judy did too. Attack over the top of the note is like very, uh, dramatic.

[1:32:43] Daniel Nolen: It's great.

[1:32:44] Billy Stritch: Yes. Oh, Daniel, you were mentioning that last week when we were talking about some people also. You were saying that about, um, when she does the like, um, oh yeah, uh, "Two Blueberry Pie."

[1:32:55] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, right.

[1:32:57] Billy Stritch: Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah, I mean it's just the placement is great.

[1:33:01] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely.

[1:33:01] Billy Stritch: Yeah. She knows how to really go for it.

[1:33:05] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:33:06] Billy Stritch: Well, then we get a little tease of "No Business Like Show Business," and then we get into the act.

[1:33:09] Daniel Nolen: Well, she actually in this, I don't know if you remember, I guess, but for the video, Billy, instead of doing "All By Myself," she had done like at that point the stepping out song, but just a little bit before she got into the...

[1:33:09] Billy Stritch: That's right. I think that changed, yeah.

[1:33:24] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely, yeah.

[1:33:25] Billy Stritch: Why am I alone?

[1:33:26] Daniel Nolen: Oh, that's right.

[1:33:27] Billy Stritch: Why am I alone tonight?

[1:33:28] Daniel Nolen: And that's when Malika jumps up.

[1:33:29] Billy Stritch: So you don't have to be alone, you don't have to be alone.

[1:33:31] Daniel Nolen: Okay, thank you. But, uh, but so now she sings the full song and the girls come in behind her, and it's great.

[1:33:37] Billy Stritch: It's a big dance, right?

[1:33:38] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:33:39] Billy Stritch: Yeah, and we love that song. I mean, that's another casualty of that movie, not having a bigger life is that people don't know this terrific. People don't know the song because the song is great and the movie's great. I encourage everybody to try to find this film if you could. Daniel, have you seen it?

[1:33:53] Daniel Nolen: No, but I did see it's on Amazon.

[1:33:57] Billy Stritch: Oh, yeah. Such a storming movie. So sweet. The most amazing cast. Fantastic.

[1:34:03] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:34:03] Billy Stritch: And, um, uh, so we have that, and I guess then it's "New York, New York."

[1:34:03] Daniel Nolen: Then it's "New York, New York," which has not the one ending, not I think it's got the triple ending at the end.

[1:34:13] Billy Stritch: The key change, key change, and then all of a sudden she comes out. Yes, the waters part again. There's another iris, and it's all these flashing strobe lights, and the orchestra's way up high, and the girls are kicking behind her.

[1:34:28] Daniel Nolen: Right?

[1:34:30] Billy Stritch: This one is even more epic because it starts with a throwaway of a little bit of the first. So it starts with "My Little Town Blues."

[1:34:37] Daniel Nolen: My little town blues.

[1:34:40] Billy Stritch: I mean, just note for note. This is your best bang for your buck, "New York, New York."

[1:34:45] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, she goes, come on, come through.

[1:34:48] Billy Stritch: "New York, New York," no key.

[1:34:52] Daniel Nolen: And that's when you hear the bum bum.

[1:34:55] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Then we do the whole song, and then another big ending. And then the girls appear.

[1:35:00] Daniel Nolen: Oh, it's fantastic.

[1:35:03] Billy Stritch: Oh, I'm getting goose.

[1:35:05] Daniel Nolen: It is the ultimate. I mean, it spoiled me. I was saying to Daniel, I can't when I like, I love that New Orleans concert. I love that New York medley. But when she sings "New York, New York" with only, you know, two endings instead of three, I feel like I got chipped.

[1:35:19] Billy Stritch: Yeah, right.

[1:35:19] Daniel Nolen: Well, this is the ultimate, ultimate version. Was this the first time that the extra ending was added?

[1:35:25] Billy Stritch: I imagine it was.

[1:35:26] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, sure.

[1:35:28] Billy Stritch: I mean, it is the end all be all.

[1:35:30] Daniel Nolen: I think it is.

[1:35:31] Billy Stritch: Yeah.

[1:35:32] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:35:32] Billy Stritch: And then it ends, then she, this is one, and then the girls take the bow, and then you see the shot of her slipping off the one thing and wearing the cute little thing underneath that. Then putting on that great robe, that great sequined robe to come out and take her bow in.

[1:35:47] Daniel Nolen: I love it.

[1:35:48] Billy Stritch: It's such a star thing, right?

[1:35:50] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:35:50] Billy Stritch: So starry.

[1:35:51] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely.

[1:35:52] Billy Stritch: Orange.

[1:35:52] Daniel Nolen: Orange, I think, with the white, and the white, um, the white terry cloth towel for her hair.

[1:35:58] Billy Stritch: Oh, yeah. I love that Liza's hair gets completely drenched. I mean, it's like she stuck her head in a bucket of water.

[1:36:07] Daniel Nolen: It's like every night.

[1:36:08] Billy Stritch: Every night. Yeah. That's where she says she sweats from her scalp every night. But you know that Liza just worked for you.

[1:36:15] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:36:16] Billy Stritch: Yeah. She just absolutely.

[1:36:19] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, there'd be lots of meetings where she just peel up the eyelashes, too, you know, at the end of the night.

[1:36:24] Billy Stritch: Because her whole face was, you know.

[1:36:26] Daniel Nolen: So by the end of the show, it's like all bets are off.

[1:36:31] Billy Stritch: Yeah, and that star curtain call, like you're saying, when they bring out that, uh, you said it was a robe, like a terry cloth robe.

[1:36:38] Daniel Nolen: No, well, she's a little bit.

[1:36:39] Billy Stritch: No, no, I was, oh, she does a towel thing, and the girls all take their bow over voiceover. You hear Liza go, "Sherry Dunish, Roxanne Dunish, terrible."

[1:36:48] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah.

[1:36:49] Billy Stritch: And they each take a little bow, and then she comes down center, but there's a little shot of her slipping on this robe. And she has that like Juliet to the floor gold sequin, I think.

[1:37:01] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:37:02] Billy Stritch: That she just kind of throws on and takes this very glamorous. It's like that's a star.

[1:37:06] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's a star curtain call.

[1:37:08] Billy Stritch: Yeah. It absolutely.

[1:37:09] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:37:09] Billy Stritch: Can't then she walks upstairs. Oh, and then she walks upstage and the whole thing closes in on her at the very end.

[1:37:15] Daniel Nolen: Oh, yeah.

[1:37:16] Billy Stritch: So magical. Just the way it started.

[1:37:18] Daniel Nolen: And it's the way it started.

[1:37:19] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Ah, what a night in the theater that was. So tell us like all your years, like doing like these like big gigs with Liza. Like, what can compare with the sort of event feeling of Radio City?

[1:37:32] Billy Stritch: Yeah. Uh well, I mean, the other events clearly. I mean, that I, I mean, there's that. There's those big other two Broadway shows that we mentioned. There was the Asnavour show that I, we mentioned. Playing at the Royal Albert Hall with Liza was fantastic. Uh, we went to Tokyo, and that's on YouTube too. I'm, uh, after the show.

[1:37:53] Daniel Nolen: Yes.

[1:37:54] Billy Stritch: Uh, that was an incredible time. Um, and I mean there's not a lot to come. I mean, those nights are just Radio City.

[1:38:03] Daniel Nolen: During like the, um, David Guest period too, right?

[1:38:07] Billy Stritch: Like, I, I was kind of out. I was kind of out. I, I didn't do Liza's back.

[1:38:12] Daniel Nolen: Oh, uh, but then right after that, there was a show she did at three nights, three shows at Town Hall.

[1:38:18] Billy Stritch: Yeah, Liza's Christmas at Town Hall.

[1:38:21] Daniel Nolen: Right.

[1:38:21] Billy Stritch: And so I was brought back in to do that. Uh, because she just all set with David Guest, he was insisting on all different musicians and nobody that she knew, and finally she, I think she laid down the law with him and said, "Look, if you want me to do this show, I gotta have some of my guys back." So I came back for that. And then after not long after that, he was out of the picture.

[1:38:41] Daniel Nolen: So that was horrible.

[1:38:46] Billy Stritch: I always hear people that know Liza and fans of hers talk so derisively about him.

[1:38:52] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[1:38:52] Billy Stritch: Um, but I, I mean, I always did feel though, like regardless of everything else that could be said, you know, that he, that as for me as a fan who had zero connection to her, it was very exciting to see her come just back hugely in the spotlight after being almost kind of written off when she'd been ill the year before and all that.

[1:39:14] Daniel Nolen: Right, right, right. Now there was so much publicity, and she looked so great and all these, you know, um just huge stars and talk shows and attention, and it just seemed like it hit this fire, you know.

[1:39:28] Billy Stritch: I guess, I guess it did. I mean, it was hard to be objective because of being so close to it, but you're right, she was definitely a lot of the news, and certainly that wedding was like the wedding to end all weddings. Uh, you know, it just didn't, I just remember sitting down with her at lunch like four days before, and she was getting cold feet. And I was like, "Liza, you don't have to go through with this." And she was like, "Well, I mean, uh, everybody's kind of, you know, it's all so," she, uh, you know, and she went through with it. I and I, but I just know that she, you know, even that the day SR get married, I thought, oh well, here we go. So, uh, I think he was a bit of an opportunist.

[1:40:09] Daniel Nolen: I think that's an understatement, but yeah.

[1:40:09] Billy Stritch: But yeah, I mean it did get her back in the spotlight, you know. Certainly got a lot of national interest in her again. Yeah, you know, I mean a lot of things that came right after that, in terms of like, um, Liza with a Z with Craig and Neil being re-released and all that, like that all felt like it sort of came on the wave of all the attention she had at that moment.

[1:40:32] Daniel Nolen: I guess, yeah, uh although that particular thing was something that had been in the works for a long time.

[1:40:37] Billy Stritch: But oh sure, yeah. Yeah, you know, that I think, but regardless, I think there probably were a lot of interest, you know, yeah that came out of that.

[1:40:45] Daniel Nolen: Yeah. Well, "Arrested Development," and then of course, well, that's your appearance with her in "Sex and the City 2," doing "Single Ladies."

[1:40:53] Billy Stritch: Yes, "Single Ladies," all the single, yeah, that's right.

[1:40:57] Daniel Nolen: That just came up on my family Zoom last night because we were talking about, I don't know, have you guys seen, um, Mandy Patinkin has been posting these videos of him and his wife, their son?

[1:41:06] Billy Stritch: Flossing doing the flossing thing and all that stuff.

[1:41:08] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, well, they're then their kid quizzes them on, on like pop culture stuff, and they fail every test. You know, do you know what, um, L M A O means? Do you know what this is? You know, and they never know. So on my family Zoom, my brother was quizzing my parents and they didn't know anything. So my brother says, "Um, do you know, uh, what song can you fill in the blank? If you, if you like it, then you should have put a blank on it." And my parents were totally not knowing. And then, uh, my, my sister was like, "Come on, Liza Minnelli's sang this in the Sex in the City sequel. You guys should really know this."

[1:41:45] Billy Stritch: Wow, how funny.

[1:41:48] Daniel Nolen: But I was like, that's so funny. I'm gonna talk to Billy tomorrow.

[1:41:51] Billy Stritch: That's great.

[1:41:52] Daniel Nolen: Well, you guys, I think we covered it, right? We got through the whole thing.

[1:41:55] Billy Stritch: I mean, this was so fabulous. We have to have you back when we, after the pandemic is over and we go back to our regular podcast. We have to have you come on and we have to get, um, journey of, you know, your career. And also what we're gonna want. The thing of what we normally do is talk to people about an album that inspired them that they were obsessed with, and you of all people would be, it would be so fascinating to have that conversation with.

[1:42:25] Billy Stritch: Well, thanks. I look forward to that. We'll do it.

[1:42:27] Daniel Nolen: But, uh, but this was a huge treat. You're so wonderful.

[1:42:29] Billy Stritch: This was so wonderful. Just what just what I needed.

[1:42:33] Daniel Nolen: Good.

[1:42:33] Billy Stritch: Yeah, absolutely. Perfect for me too. We hope that all of our listeners will be not just watching, uh, Liza at Radio City, but all the Liza and Billy work that's available, and then all Billy's albums and Billy's stuff. And also, can I can I just say real quick, yeah, watch me on Thursday nights because I'm doing this live stream on my Facebook page. It's called Billy's Place. It's right here from my living room. I've done four. I'm having the best time. It's Thursday nights at eight.

[1:43:01] Daniel Nolen: So that's the only thing I have to follow.

[1:43:03] Billy Stritch: We're gonna share it.

[1:43:04] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:43:05] Billy Stritch: Okay, great.

[1:43:05] Daniel Nolen: That's wonderful. Oh, Billy, thank you so much. You're wonderful, and see you at Billy's place.

[1:43:12] Billy Stritch: I love you, Billy.

[1:43:13] Billy Stritch: Love you, Daniel too. Take care.

[1:43:15] Daniel Nolen: Me too. Bye-bye.

[1:43:16] Billy Stritch: Bye.

[1:43:19] Daniel Nolen: Thanks for listening to Ben Rimalower's Broken Records on Broadway World. For more episodes, visit Broadway World, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever podcasts do be. And be sure to check out our new twice weekly live stream video chat. Tuesday, Thursday, April, August. Available on the Broadway World Facebook page and the Broadway Podcast Network YouTube channel Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 AM. This episode was edited by me, Daniel Nolen. Thanks to Emmy-winning composer and lyricist Lance Horn for the Broken Records theme song. Follow us both, Ben Rimalower and Daniel Nolen on all y'all's socials. That's Ben Rimalower, B E N R I M A L O W E R. And that's Nolan with an E, not Nolan with an A. Because Nolan with an A isn't it.