NEW YORK CITY—Up to here, Edsa traffic is as hot a topic as Beautiful, the smash hit musical on the life and times of legendary composer-singer Carole King now playing on Broadway.
I just had to watch Beautiful at the vintage Stephen Sondheim Theater on 124 West 43rd Street if only because it was she who composed “You’ve Got a Friend,” best known as the song that catapulted James Taylor to stardom.
I never knew that Carole King made that song until I watched Beautiful, thanks to New Yorker Chuchi Villaverde, the architect-niece of writer-journalist Sol F. Juvida, who made it all possible.
Probably because I was all “Beatles, Beatles, Beatles” in my growing up years that I missed the magic of Carole King, who, although she started composing at the very tender age of 16, had rocketed to fame quite early in her writing-singing-composing career.
Sorry to belabor you with this but modesty aside, I had been composing songs myself when I was a teenager (ahem!). Had I not pursued journalism, perhaps, I would have ended up as a composer—and a singer, as well (ahem again!)?
Indeed, no one can predict the future. If Nostradamus did—how he did it, I haven’t the faintest of ideas.
Anyways to continue, Beautiful was from the book Beautiful by Douglas McGrath. It was directed for Broadway by Marc Bruni, and the words and music were by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. The four are the best of friends.
Gerry, a brilliant lyricist, and Carole, the melody master and a gifted pianist, got married when Carole was a teenager. They made good music together, but they broke up after having two kids—Gerry being a womanizer and breakdown-prone.
Their superhits included “So Far Away,” “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” “Take Good Care of My Baby,” “It Might As Well Rain Until September” and, of course, “Beautiful.”
One of the duo’s biggest hits is “Chains,” which was also recorded to soaring public adulation by Little Eva and her Cookies, and, yes, The Beatles themselves when The Beatles weren’t composing all of their songs yet in the 60s.
OK, you want more King stuff?
I also got to learn in Beautiful that it was Barry Mann who composed “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” a big Elvis Presley ditty, and “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” a favorite of mine that was popularized by Eric Burdon and The Animals.
I can go on and on and on but let me end now by saying our orchestra seats that put us literally just a spitting distance away from the stage cost $135++ each (approximately P8,000). Not bad for a show that uplifted the soul once more—as Broadway productions have always been known to dish out performances with absolute beauty and professionalism.
To cap our magnificent, drama-filled day, Manhattan boy Kenneth Causon brought Sol and me to an Italian dinner at artsy Soho’s Cipriani after a 15-minute or so Uber ride through the city’s mostly arrow-straight streets that weren’t as vehicle-filled as Edsa.
Motorists love to blow their horns here, especially the cabbies, so that it felt like I never left home at all while our Bangladeshi driver zigzagged his way around the city a.k.a. Manhattan. Yes, we skipped the subway, kept dirty(?) as usual by authorities or this isn’t your typical New York anymore. Trains run efficiently though, always, despite their being rickety and croaking noisily—a Nuyok trademark that is as old as the Statue of Liberty near Ellis Island.
OK, bye for now, and please, stop spreading the news. I love Broadway, yes, but never will I trade it with the eternal bliss of being in the land of my birth. Home is where the heart is.
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Panelo panalo
BY accepting the CC (Commute Challenge), Salvador Panelo was doomed. It was a trap. The presidential spokesman should have known better. Getting to his destination in nearly four hours on board jeepneys had been a foregone conclusion. But even if he had arrived in Malacañang from his Marikina home in less than an hour or so, he would have still found himself, to his dismay, getting crucified. Panelo panalo? Hello! Against a mob, one can never win. What was he trying to prove when he called the CC? That Manila is not mired in a traffic crisis? Shoot! Why would President Duterte ask for an emergency traffic power if there was none? Panelo panalo? Hello! Why would a QC resident wake up at 3 a.m. to get to his Makati office before 8 a.m. Monday to Friday? And that’s only barely 25 kms. On a Good Friday, that’s only a 20-minute or so ride by car. So, had Panelo taken on the CC on a Good Friday, panalo?
You bet.
PEE STOP Even as I wrote this here in Frank Sinatra’s city that doesn’t sleep, I’d be home, hopefully, by the time you are reading this. I know I’ll be fully recharged by then, thank God—and have already played Carole King songs on vinyl with my old, reliable turntable. Nice to be with you again, fellers!