- a misguided attempt at a musicalisation of the great chanteuse
Josephine Baker …
JOSEPHINE [concept]
Book music and lyrics by Michael Wild
Studio Recording cast: Helen Gelzer, Frank Olegario, John Worthy,
Sally Lavell, Michael Crossman, Sarah Payne, Nicola Blackman
SONGS: Paris It's Me; So Many Years; I'm Gonna Be In A Broadway
Show; Is There Anyone There?; Dixie Girl; Tenderness; Give It
'Em Big; Success; Toujours Paris; Bananas; Nobody Walks Out On
Me; The Things We Didn't Say; Josephine
- We can only hope that Michael Wild's musical treatment of
'the life and times' of Josephine Baker remains merely a concept.
Frankly, it beggars belief that its creator should have exposed
this dire thing to the light of day. Reading the very song's
titles creates a sinking feeling: 'Toujours Paris' sounds like
something from the 1950s flop Romance In Candlelight, except
that, even there, it would have been done with some conviction.
When Helen Gelzer bravely delivers one of Josephine's big numbers
'I'm Gonna Be In A Broadway Show', the listener does not, in
a sense, know what to think of the inanity of the lyric, the
plodding progression of the melodic line or the sheer bloody
cheek of it. Gelzer was ill advised to step into the studio for
this one, but she at least sparks on more cylinders than her
supporting cast. Frank Olegario as Josephine's father asks 'Is
There Anyone There?' to a spiritual-like dirge, surely a rhetorical
question when the number is one of the worst ever to have featured
in a musical score. His performance of it is excruciating. But
it is pointless to specify the grossness of it all. There is
not a hint of intelligence in music or lyric, there is not the
shred of an idea or the shadow of invention. Josephine's distinction
lies in its possibly being one of the two worst musical play
recordings of all time. The other may well be another of Mr Wild's
extraordinary concoctions, the appalling Maggie.
RETURN TO RECORD CABINET
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