The opening bars of the present that began all of it ring out to sign the beginning of Tim Rice’s tour My Life in Musicals, and oh what musicals they’re. The present charts his life from clerk in a lawyer’s workplace in 1965, by the highs, lows and the whole lot in-between of a 60 yr song-writing profession.
The (virtually unbelievable) tales are informed with humour and modesty. Rice is a pure raconteur, who wears his phenomenal success frivolously and who generously acknowledges the work of everybody who has contributed alongside the best way.
Rice’s old flame was the pop world to such an extent that he produced tune demo that whereas rejected by the music world, however he did handle to get a tune That’s My Story printed and recorded by 60s band The Night Shift.
Next up, ebook writer Desmond Elliott noticed Rice’s potential as a author after he submitted a ebook he had written, and launched him to a 17 yr outdated composer named Andrew Lloyd-Webber.
It was 1965 and Lloyd Webber was engaged on a musical The Likes of Us about Dr Thomas Barnardo. The present didn’t discover backing for a West End manufacturing however the potential of the pairing was evident.
In 1967 Lloyd Webber’s household pal Alan Doggett, the music instructor at Colet Court School, commissioned the pair to write down an finish of time period ‘pop cantata’ on a biblical theme for 20-30 seven to 10 yr olds within the faculty choir in simply six weeks. On the first March 1968 the perennial favorite Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat was born. Such was the success of the 15 minute manufacturing {that a} additional efficiency was organized, and the present expanded to twenty minutes with the band The Mixed Bag accompanying. In the viewers that night time was one of many boys’ mother and father Derek Jewell, Sunday Times music critic who was impressed to write down a glowing evaluation. The success of the present led to a publishing deal for the ebook and a recording of the present, however most significantly a administration deal for 2 years at £3000 a yr that allowed the pair to work on their subsequent undertaking.
Rice then charts the lower than straight path that subsequent undertaking took. From the forged album of Jesus Christ Superstar (a forged album of a present that at the moment didn’t exist) to it changing into No.1 on the US charts, to its debut on Broadway earlier than the West End and the technical issues it was plagued with. Rice tells and sings a rustic pop tune referred to as Kansas Morning, an try at chart success alongside the strains of The Bee Gees Massachusetts and its path to changing into on of JCS’s most well-known songs I Don’t Know How to Love Him. He additionally tells with pleasure how he wrote a tune for Elvis, It’s Easy For You, which appeared on his final album.
It was by likelihood that Rice, misplaced on the best way to a cocktail party, heard a radio programme on Eva Peron. Inspired, his peaked curiosity and subsequent analysis would finally change into, in 1978, the multi-award-winning Evita.
With Lloyd Webber pursuing different initiatives, Rice returned to is old flame, the pop world and with Mike Batt wrote the Christmas hit A Winter’s Tale for David Essex.
Rice then turned to large display tune writing: the Bond Theme All Time High, earlier than a return to the stage with ABBA’s Bjorn and Benny on Chess.
Act two bursts to life with Superstar earlier than Rice shares the method of bringing Aida to life with Elton John. A success for 5 years on Broadway, it has by no means had a full manufacturing within the UK. He then turns consideration to the Disney years with Aladdin, and The Lion King (Hamlet with Fur) and the writing of an additional tune for the Evita film to make them eligible for an Oscar – the tune You Must Love Me profitable Rice his third Academy Award.
In newer years Rice’s output has slowed a little bit along with his final stage present From Here to Eternity in 2013 however he definitely hasn’t retired, latest writing credit together with one with Gary Barlow.
Despite the sheer magnitude of his success, Rice is surprisingly unphased by all of it, citing his Pointless trophy, gained with fellow songwriter Don Black as his most proud, this from a person with a shed-load of silver ware together with the coveted EGOT – Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony ( which he brings out on stage, a lot to the delight of the viewers).
Accompanied by a high notch band and a quartet of phenomenal vocalists, this present is a chunk of the utmost high quality, a implausible celebration of the wonderful lifetime of a real musical genius.
Leave a Reply