when the moon is in the seventh house, and jupiter aligns with mars, marilyn mccoo does the shing-a-ling

Posted about 1 year ago

Artist:

Sandie Shaw
Track:
- PLAY
- QUEUE
Frank Mills

We are approaching (April) the 40th anniversary of "Hair" opening on Broadway, after playing at the Public Theatre since the preceding October.Almost immediately, "Hair" was everywhere. The cast (sorry, the "tribe": this was a "Tribal Rock Musical") showed up at NYC peace-and-hippie gatherings and on TV variety shows, and the play became the last Broadway show to trigger a wave of hit singles: "Good Morning, Starshine," "Easy To Be Hard" "Hair," "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In." Even songs that didn't become smash singles got covered: Julie Driscoll did "Ain't Got No," Sandie Shaw did "Frank Mills" (in English and in French), and Phil Spector supervised a sidelong "Hair" suite for their album on A&M."Hair" is goofy, to be sure, but it was a pageant of all the themes that we now think of as "The Sixties": anti-war politics, drugs, nudity (the whole cast got naked except, legendarily, Diane Keaton, who was in the original cast), interracial sex, astrology, "rock" music (the score doesn't really rock all that hard), and, of course, long hair. One of the gentlemen flanking Ms. Keaton here is Barry McGuire, who a few years earlier warned that we were on the Eve of Destruction:

I was torn about what to post here. The Cowsills? Three Dog Night"? I decided to go with two videos and an MP3. So we have The Fifth Dimension floating in space, Jennifer Warnes (from the LA cast) on the Smothers Brothers TV show, and Sandie Shaw, in her native tongue.

Comments (8)

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deedee says I remember it being such a big deal at the time-- I played the LP a lot-- but the truth is, it's neither good pop nor good Broadway. I like "Frank Mills," though. (And Sandie Shaw.) Shelley Plimpton and Keith Carradine met when they were in the Broadway cast, and they begat Martha Plimpton, so that's nice.

Permalink posted 01/09/2008
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dachmo says martha plimpton is the daughter of keith carradine? wow! I did not know that. I used to work at the public theater and I've seen all sorts of memorabilia (photo's, films, scripts, gold records) but I've never seen the play done on stage. I remember liking the movie though and my mother used to sing/hum "Frank Mills" while cooking dinner. Thanks for the videos.

Permalink posted 01/09/2008
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emscee says Sometimes I publish too fast...the Spector "Hair" suite was for The Checkmates' A&M album. Another fun fact: members of The Lovin' Spoonful and The Blues Magoos joined the "Hair" cast during the Broadway run.

Permalink posted 01/09/2008
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Jonh Ingham says I saw it as a kid in LA - I've still got the programme and looking it up, the cast had Jennifer Warnes, Cleavon Little, Gloria Jones (aka Mrs. Marc Bolan and "Tainted Love"), and Jobriath. That's a pretty good roll call of people who went on to bigger things. And no, it wasn't that good but it was a lot of fun.

Permalink posted 01/09/2008
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dermahrk says I never saw it but pretty much hated the music that came out of it. Shooby dooby dooby lah lee lee lo lo, or somesuch still brings out ralphing urges. But it certainly had its share of future stars, eh? My guess is that the Spoonful member who joined the cast would've been Joe Butler, the too-smooth drummer who still tours with the bass player as the Spoonful, lacking of course the two essential members.

Permalink posted 01/10/2008
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ivylander says Our ninth-grade English teacher, Miss Homer, made us listen to listen to "Frank MIlls" in class as part of our unit on poetry. Nothing bestows an Eternal Certificate of Lameness on a song quite like being forced to hear it in school. I must say, though, that Sandie Shaw's version of this is a mile better than any other I've heard.

Permalink posted 01/10/2008
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deedee says Oh, jeez, those well-intentioned English teachers and their pop songs. No song should be recited. Ever. Unless you're doing, say, a Steve Allen homage.

Permalink posted 01/10/2008
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Bartleby says I haven't seen until I was 17. It was Milos Forman's adaptation of "Hair" -- Did "The Sodomy Song" become an unlikely hit? How do you find the adaptation?

Permalink posted 01/13/2008