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It's not quite as witty as a Porter song (who could equal the incomparable Cole?), but this thorough biography honors the Broadway musical's worldliest, most intelligent composer by taking him seriously. Voluminous research buttresses William McBrien's portrait of a charmed life scarred by tragedy. Born in 1891, Porter left his wealthy family in Indiana to thoroughly enjoy himself at Yale University in Connecticut, where his sassy songs gave the Midwestern outsider social clout. Although exclusively homosexual, Porter was nonetheless devoted to the wealthy widow he married in 1919, and McBrien's narrative of their 1920s travels through Europe captures the glamorous sheen of their life together. Porter had some early success with shows like Fifty Million Frenchmen, but his sustained run of hits began in 1932 with Gay Divorce, continuing through the '50s and Kiss Me Kate. The author liberally quotes from Porter's deliciously naughty lyrics, reminding us how corny most show tunes seem when compared to "Love for Sale" or "Anything Goes." McBrien's painful account of the ghastly aftermath of a 1937 riding accident, which left Porter in pain that ended only with his death in 1964, reveals a quiet, uncomplaining stoic whose substance matched his dazzling style. --Wendy Smith
Book Description
In his life and in his music, Cole Porter was "the top"—the pinnacle of wit, sophistication, and success. His songs—"I Get a Kick Out of You," "Anything Goes," and hundreds more—were instant pop hits, and their musical and emotional depths have made them lasting standards.
William McBrien has captured the creator of these songs, whose life was not merely one of wealth and privilege. A prodigal young man, Porter found his emotional anchor in a long, loving, if sexless marriage, a relationship he repeatedly risked with a string of affairs with men. His last eighteen years were marked by physical agony but also unstinting artistic achievement, including the great Hollywood musicals
High Society,
Silk Stockings, and
Kiss Me Kate (recently and very successfully revived on Broadway). Here, at last is a life that informs the great music and lyrics through illuminating glimpses of the hidden, complicated, private man.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but not great........2006-02-20
I suppose the challenge of reading a biography is slogging through the parts of the person's life in which you have little interest. As a musical theatre performer, I was most interested in the chapters devoted to the genesis of Porter's shows - to me, these were the most interesting, and seemingly well researched. The rest of it, particularly his early life, did not quite spark my interest. I did find the ending chapters - dealing with Cole's descent into melancholy and illness - to be touching. I did gain some insight into the glamorous world of Mr. Porter's time - quite the polar opposite to the Great Depression and WWII. In the sense that I admire books that give me a glimpse into a world different from my own, I liked it.
Night and Day this is the one Cole biography to read.......2004-08-19
Night and Day this is the best biography of the great Cole Porter (1891-1964). Porter was the scion of a wealthy family from Peru, Indiana. As a lad he excelled in music making and
graduated with a degree from Yale University. After a year of Law School at Harvard the travel loving Porter journeyed to Paris. He wed Linda Lee Thomas a wealthy woman several years his senior. Porter was gay and the marriage to Linda was sexless. The couple did love one another and Porter was never the same following Linda's death in 1954.
Porter wrote one fabulous musical after another for over 40 years. He lived in luxury with staff to attend his every need. He had a wide circle of friends from among the cultural and literary elite but was an aloof, fastidious, secretive man. Porter was a hard man to know and this biography is about as close as we will ever get to the inner core of the composer.
Porter was a genius in the witty line, the fetching tune and had the ability to make Broadway take notice during his fabulous career.
His life was placid but painful following his fall from a horse and the amputation of a leg. He was alcoholic and probably took durgs.
McBrien is an English professor who has written a well cratede book rich in anecdote. The book is well illustrated with photos from the Porter legacy. Several of Cole's famed lyrics are recorded to the delight of the reader.
With the new movie on Cole Porter this is a good supplement to the film. Well recommended.
A Memorable Biography of a Brilliant Artist.......2004-06-11
Cole Porter (1891-1964) determinedly created the image of an extremely wealthy man who traveled the world, played with the rich and famous, and now and then wrote a Broadway show or two for the pure pleasure of it. But although he was in some respects a shallow man who lived largely for personal pleasure, he was also a very driven and complex one, a man whose fame on the stage did not come easily and who faced a series of horrific hurdles in his private life.
Porter risked his grandfather's ire--and the family fortune he controlled--by settling on a career in music, and while he earned early fame at Yale through his compositions, his first Broadway venture, See America First, was a humiliating fiasco. Homosexual in an era when it was flatly unacceptable, he would marry to retain respectability and forge a remarkable emotional (if completely platonic) relationship with wife Linda Lee Thomas--even while conducting a series of same-sex affairs that would prove frustratingly superficial. Near the height of his career, a horseback riding accident would leave him crippled and in physical agony for the rest of his life, and the pressures of pain and keeping up appearances would plunge him into fits of depression that seemed to border on the psychotic.
Biographer William McBrien is meticulous in his research and his recreation of Porter's very high society, and in other hands such a weight of knowledge might plunge a book into absolute impenetrability--but although McBrien sometimes errs by flooding the reader with inconsequential detail, by and large he keeps a fine balance on his very difficult subject, tracing the arc of Porter's life from Indiana to Yale to New York to Europe to Hollywood, tracing the arc of his career from the humiliating fiasco of Porter's first Broadway show "See America First" to the brilliance of such successes as "Anything Goes" and "Kiss Me Kate."
In the process McBrien not only seems to capture Porter, but an entire era as well--a world of sharp sophistication when terms like "star" and "toast of two continents" and "gentlemen" still had meaning, when the "have-nots" danced to the tempo of the "haves" and the wealthy went slumming for a thrill. Filled with numerous photographs and large chunks of Porter's memorable lyrics, this is one biography that truly does its subject justice.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
READ IT!.......2003-01-11
WILLIAM McBRIEN has done it;he has given all the PORTER fans of this world the biography they were waiting for for thirty-four years.What this book gives us is an accurate account of the composer's life including his well known homosexuality, even if he married for respectability.PORTER's early years were quite different when compare with the other composers of his generation;he had a millionnaire grandfather and a rather aloof father with whom he didn't really communicate.He led a rather easy going life until he finally decided at the age of 37 to let his talent bloom on BROADWAY.There is considerable irony to the fact that from his riding accident in 1937,that man who had everything suffered a great deal until his death in 1964.You end up knowing what was this thing called love.
A Ride Down Memory Lane.......2002-06-27
I was more curious about Cole Porter's life because I, too, am in love with the lyrics and music he created. Songs like ANYTHING GOES, YOU'RE THE TOP, I LOVE PARIS to name a few are classics to no end. I like a book that takes me back in time, but I'd prefer a good story. I was a bit disappointed how the book became too informational with naming of who's who and who did what vs. a classic story. There are definitely stories behind the stories that would be much more interesting...so, I suppose we have to use our imagination. This book is a great resource to anyone studying about Cole Porter. I had no idea about his horse accident which really put a damper on his lifestyle. He was quite the world traveler in the 20s & 30s which is quite an accomplishment in those days. He definitely had a way with words...but if you read this...complement it with a CD of the COLE PORTER Songbook. It took me a while to get through this because it IS a book that you can put down & keep on your coffee table for a long time (before you pick it up again).
Book Description
Cole Porter possessed to a singular degree the art of expressing depth through apparent frivolity. The effervescent wit and technical bravura of his songs are matched by their unguarded revelations of feeling. In the words of editor Robert Kimball, "Porter wrote tellingly of the pain and evanescence of emotional relationships. He gentle mocked propriety and said that few things were simple or lasting or free from ambiguity." Of the masters of twentieth-century American songwriting, Porter was one of the few who wrote both music and lyrics, and, even in the absence of his melodies, his words distill an unmistakable mixture of poignancy and wit that marks him as a genius of light verse.
Selected from over eight hundred songs, here are Porter's finest flights of invention, lyrics that are an indelible part of 20th-century culture: "Let's Do It," "Love for Sale," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Anything Goes," "In the Still of the Night," "I Concentrate on You," and dozens more.
Robert Kimball is a historian of the American musical theater whose books include The Gershwins (with Alfred Simon), Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake (with William Bolcom), Reading Lyrics (with Robert Gottlieb), and volumes devoted to the complete lyrics of Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Frank Loesser. He is the longtime advisor to the Cole Porter Musical and Literary Property Trust, is the editor of several books on Cole Porter, including Cole and The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter. He received a Drama Desk Award for his rediscovery of lost musical-theater manuscripts in a Secaucus, New Jersey warehouse.
Elegantly risqué, suffused with understated emotion, delightful in their bursts of comic invention, the witty and romantic lyrics of Cole Porter evoke a golden age of song. Here is the cream of half a century of songwriting, from the Jazz Age resonance of "Let's Misbehave" to such 50s classics as "Too Darn Hot" and "It's All Right With Me"-more than ninety of the most enduring works of America's master of bittersweet sophistication.
Customer Reviews:
Pass Another Helping of Porter, Please!.......2006-08-24
As a child and beyond, I soaked up pop song lyrics that have remained cruelly fixed in memory and apparently ineradicable. Too often (and mysteriously) some snatch of what is most often retro and regrettable will surface. This can be highly annoying, as will be clear to those who've heard one of those appalling 1950s clunkers like "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" and finds that it periodically and mysteriously lays siege to their consciousness. Such bizarre "Many Splendored" lyrics as, "Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to sing" may then infest one's head for days.
I thought of this assault-by-heard-music syndrome when I began to look
into "Cole Porter, selected lyrics" - compiled by Editor Robert Kimball as a 21st-century salute to the astonishingly prolific master of both music and lyrics who died in 1964 at 73. He was witty, worldly, and a magician capable of amazing feats of legerdemain, not with wand but with words and music. Why, then, hadn't even one from the rich trove of Porter compositions - uber-sophisticated, sly, knowing - wedged itself within my brain?
I'd welcome being haunted, for example, by a Porter confection such as "Why Don't We Try Staying Home?" with its gently coaxing refrain, "What if we threw a party or two, And asked only you and me?" Or the get-on-with-life-after-loss lyrics of "It's All Right With Me": "You can't know how happy I am that we met/ I'm strangely attracted to you/ There's someone I'm trying so hard to forget/ Don't you want to forget someone too?"
The only frustration of this slender volume (one in the series sponsored by the "American Poets Project") is that it is slender! Some 800 of his compositions survive, it's said. I say, "Bring on more Porter!"
Average customer rating:
- Not the Most Inclusive Selection of Songs
- Lyrics with Piano Accompaniment and Chords to:
|
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter, Vol. 1
Cole Porter
Manufacturer: Hal Leonard Corporation
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Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
-
The Gershwin Collection
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Best of Cole Porter
-
50 Gershwin Classics
-
The Harold Arlen Songbook
-
Rodgers And Hart - A Musical Anthology
ASIN: 0881881821 |
Product Description
Over 50 songs including: Allez-Vous-En, Go Away Begin the Beguine Easy to Love Friendship From This Moment On In the Still of the Night Night and Day True Love more. Includes show chronology and B & W photos. 288 pages.
Customer Reviews:
Not the Most Inclusive Selection of Songs.......2004-08-08
The songs are written for an intermediate level pianist and they are arranged nicely. I am only giving this four stars because many of Cole Porter's best-loved songs are not included. For example, there is nothing from "Anything Goes" and "Kiss Me Kate". It is disappointing that so many gems were left out. On the plus side, the biography is nice and there are some nice photos.
Lyrics with Piano Accompaniment and Chords to:.......2000-01-09
ALL OF YOU, ALLEZ-VOUS-EN GO AWAY, AS ON THROUGH THE SEASONS WE SAIL, AT LONG LAST LOVE, BEGIN THE BEGUINE, BETWEEN YOU AND ME, BUT IN THE MORNING NO, CA C'EST L'AMOUR, C'EST MAGNIFIQUE, COULD IT BE YOU, DO I LOVE YOU, DOWN IN THE DEPTHS, EASY TO LOVE, EV'RY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE, EV'RYTHING I LOVE, FAR AWAY, FARMING, FRIENDSHIP, FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA, FROM THIS MOMENT ON, GET OUT OF TOWN, GOODBYE LITTLE DREAM GOODBYE, I AM LOVED, I CONCENTRATE ON YOU, I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU, I HATE YOU DARLING, I LOVE PARIS, I LOVE YOU, IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT, IT'S ALL RIGHT WITH ME, IT'S DE-LOVELY, I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN, I'VE STILL GOT MY HEALTH, JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS, KATIE WENT TO HAITI, LET'S BE BUDDIES, LET'S DO IT, LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT LOVE, LOVE FOR SALE, MAKE IT ANOTHER OLD FASHIONED PLEASE, MIND IF I MAKE LOVE TO YOU, MOST GENTLEMEN DON'T LIKE LOVE, MY HEART BELONGS TO DADDY, NIGHT AND DAY, OURS, RIDIN' HIGH, SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR, STEREOPHONIC SOUND, TRUE LOVE, USE YOUR IMAGINATION, WELL DID YOU EVAH, WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE, WHERE OH WHERE, WOULDN'T IT BE FUN, YOU DON'T REMIND ME, YOU'D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO, YOU'RE SENSATIONAL, YOU'RE THE TOP, a short biography with pictures and a show-film chronology.
Average customer rating:
- Cole Porter Song Book
- Great service
- Beautiful Music
- A great gift for any Cole Porter Fan
- A Must-Have for Cole Porter Lovers
|
Best of Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Manufacturer: Hal Leonard Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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| Theory, Composition & Performance
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Similar Items:
-
The Gershwin Collection
-
50 Gershwin Classics
-
Rodgers And Hart - A Musical Anthology
-
The Harold Arlen Songbook
-
Irving Berlin Anthology
ASIN: 0793515173 |
Product Description
38 of his classics, including: All of You Anything Goes Be a Clown Don't Fence Me In I Get a Kick Out of You In the Still of the Night Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) Night and Day You Do Something to Me and many more!
Customer Reviews:
Cole Porter Song Book.......2007-10-11
Grade 2/3 with nice arrangements. The only problem I have with this series of song books (I have several)is that the music is printed too close to the binding, so you have to nearly break the binding for the book to stay open when used. Wire binding and/or larger pages would be a big help.
Great service.......2007-01-10
I had ordered this as a gift for my mother for her birthday. When it arrived, it was in perfect condition and my mother, a huge Cole Porter fan, absolutely adored it.
Beautiful Music.......2005-08-02
The "Best of Cole Porter" far exceeded my expectations for beautiful music. The arrangements are complex enough for the advanced pianist, but also easily practiced by the beginner. The songs selected, are a delight.
A great gift for any Cole Porter Fan.......2001-07-10
"The Best of Cole Porter" contains some of his best songs ever (in my opinion at least). The only thing that would make this item better is if it contained all of Mr. Porter's songs. For anyone not to familiar with Cole Porter, this book offers a great introduction to his music.
A Must-Have for Cole Porter Lovers.......2000-08-20
If you love Cole Porter's music there is nothing better than this collection of songs. I've made use of every song. Each one of the pieces are from some of his best works. It's a nearly perfect combination of some of the greatest songs ever written. One minor disappointment is that it doesn't contain more, or that there isn't other volumes of the same book. Basically, if you need/want a collection of Porter's music there isn't any reason why you shouldn't have this book. :-).
Product Description
Charlotte Greenwood never intended to become a comedienne, but she was unfashionably tall at 5' 10" and her early aspirations to become a great dramatic actress eventually led her to the field of comedy. Greenwood, whose early life had taught her nothing if not how to be optimistic, stifled her disappointment and used her considerable skill to become one of the greatest comedic actresses of the early twentieth century.
Based on Greenwood's unpublished memoirs, this biography presents a personal, detailed look at her colorful life. Beginning with her early years in Philadelphia, Boston and Norfolk, it relates her struggles with ill health, her social difficulties caused by her then unusual height and her realization of her ambition to become an actress. The main focus of the work is her career, which spanned more than 50 years and ranged from vaudeville to the dramatic stage and, finally, to films (during the World War II years she starred in Twentieth Century Fox musicals with Cesar Romero, Betty Grable, Edward Everett Horton, Jack Haley, Don Ameche, and Carmen Miranda). Her roles in a variety of works including The Passing Show of 1912, So Long Letty (both stage and film), and I Remember Mama are also discussed. Special emphasis is placed on her career-defining (and best-known) role as Aunt Eller Murphy in the 1955 film adaptation of Oklahoma! Charlotte Greenwood's performance history, a list of her known recordings, and a filmography for her husband Martin Broones are also included, along with a collection of rare photographs and memorabilia.
Product Description
This unprecedented new book is a must-have for any musician. These previously unpublished works by Cole Porter are now being made available for the first time! A number of songs in this volume were written for unproduced shows or films, some, for a long time, had existing lyrics but no music, and others were simply thought to be lost, only to later be found in archives and warehouses. Several songs have interesting stories behind them, and some were simply considered too long for the traditional sheet music format. The book includes a CD that provides demonstration recordings for 15 of the titles to aid in learning the pieces. Titles include: You and Me (Hitchy Koo of 1919) * Love Em and Leave Em (Misc. Song) * Ah Fong Low (Hitchy Koo of 1922) * Dizzy Baby (Paris) * The Extra Man (Wake Up and Dream) * That s Why I Love You (Fifty Million Frenchmen) * Why Marry Them? (Gay Divorcee) * Ruins (Nymph Errant) * Through Thick and Thin (Something to Shout About) * We Shall Never Be Younger (Kiss Me Kate) and more.
Book Description
Includes: You Do Something to Me * I've Got You Under My Skin * I Get a Kick Out of You * What Is This Thing Called Love? * Begin the Beguine and many more.
Customer Reviews:
The "One" to buy.......2005-09-07
If you are going to only buy one Cole Porter Songbook this is the one to buy. Before I purchased "The Great Songs of Cole Porter" I bought Cole Porter Volume 1 and 2. I regret this purchase for 2 reasons. One, a lot of the chords listed above the bars were incorrect and two, that collection was missing some of the songs I wanted. i.e. "So In Love" from Kiss Me Kate and "Experiment" to name a few. Buy "The Great Songs of Cole Porter". The quality and quantity of familiar Cole Porter tunes are more prevalent in this collection. You'll be very satisfied with this purchase.
Book Description
Includes: After You * All of You * Buddie * Beware * C'est Magnifique * Easy to Love * From this Moment On * I Happen to Like New York * I Love You * It's De-Lovely * Love for Sale * Thank You So Much Lowsborough-Goodby * Night and Day * So in Love * You Do Something to Me * You're Sensational * You're the Top and more.
Book Description
The hot new Broadway revival of this show deserves a new edition of the vocal selections! Our book for this classic Cole Porter musical features 14 songs, several of which are appearing for the first time in piano/vocal format. Includes: Always True to You in My Fashion * Brush Up Your Shakespeare * From This Moment On * I Hate Men * So in Love * Tom, Dick or Harry * Too Darn Hot * We Open in Venice * Why Can't You Behave? * Wunderbar * more! Winner of 5 Tony Awards , including Best Revival of a Musical!
Customer Reviews:
Most all music, some missing!.......2000-07-12
This music highlights the old version of Kiss Me Kate before the Broadway revival! It is great for auditions for soprano voices. There are one or two songs for the alto voice. Very clear in marking who is the singer. I found this book to be full of great songs at a reasonably good value. The book is written in fairly large print so they are easy to read when singing.
A Little Dissapointing.......1999-11-20
I enjoyed the music featured in this book, however I did not feel that it highlighted the best music from an absolutley hilarios score.
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