With respect to your recent "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" festival, Stubby Kaye's original rendition is, in my opinion, far and away the best.
Speaking of Mr. Kaye, an equally memorable performance was in the 1959 movie Li'l Abner when he sang Jubilation T. Cornpone. He also played Marryin' Sam in the Broadway production.
Speaking of Li'l Abner, since you are well plugged into the illustrated comics community; how is Al Capp thought of these days?
Agree with your opinion of Mr. Kaye's performances of those two numbers. I also like him in the "I Love to Cry at Weddings" number in Sweet Charity. He really was a talented guy. And I know all about Li'l Abner on stage and screen, having researched them extensively for this article and this article.
I would guess that if you polled a roomful of cartoonists and experts on newspaper strips about Mr. Capp, you'd hear that he was a very good artist and that his strip was brilliant for most of its run…until its last decade when it went into serious decline, eventually becoming a pretty sad, clumsy mess. And if you asked about Al Capp the human being, you'd hear that he was a rather lousy excuse for one — and today would have or at least should have gone to prison for his misdeeds.
Here are two more numbers from Guys and Dolls but neither is the one you're sick of. First is "The Oldest Established," which is sung near the top of the show by all the gamblers including Nathan Detroit, played here by Nathan Lane in the 1992 Broadway revival directed by Jerry Zaks. I saw this production and it was really good. In fact, years later I saw a touring company of it in Las Vegas with Frank Gorshin (!) as Nathan Detroit and Jack Jones (!!) as Sky Masterson and it was still really good, although Nathan Detroit kept lapsing into impressions.
In this video, you may also recognize the gent in the purple suit playing Benny Southstreet. That's J.K. Simmons.
Here's the thing about Guys and Dolls that some of you may not know. When the show was first being assembled in 1950, the first actor signed — before the script and songs were even completed — was Sam Levene as Nathan Detroit. Mr. Levene was then a huge star on Broadway and it was a major coup to get him…though they soon found there was one big problem: He couldn't sing. Quite a few musical numbers were written for his character and quite a few musical numbers were then either dropped or reassigned to other characters because Levene couldn't perform them.
They were still glad to have him because he was (reportedly) very funny in the role — so much so that when Levene finally left the show, Abe Burrows — who wrote the book — found it necessary to add some more jokes to Detroit's part to compensate. But Levene wound up with only one number in the show when it premiered — "Sue Me." For the other numbers he was in, like this one, he was given no solo lines and was ordered to mouth the words but not sing.
Over the years, people who could sing have played the part — Frank Sinatra in the movie, of course — and they're given a little more to vocalize. Here, Nathan Lane gets to sing a bit of "The Oldest Established." Sometimes, Mr. Detroit is added in inappropriately when they sing the title song. Sometimes, a stage production will include "Adelaide," a song written by composer Frank Loesser for the movie. But it can be a frustrating role for someone who can sing. I was told by a performer in that Las Vegas production that when Frank Gorshin was approached, he initially refused to sign unless Nathan Detroit was given the "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" number but signed anyway when the producers refused.
Here's our first number from that 1992 revival…
And now here from the recording session for the cast album, Nathan Lane sings "Sue Me" with Faith Price, who played Adelaide. And you'll see a little of Jerry Zaks, the director…
This is the last "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" post, at least for a little while. I received a few complaints about the repetition and one very outraged one from a guy who insisted the name of the song is "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" with a "G." Yes, people sometimes write it that way but the original sheet music spelled it with an apostrophe so that's good enough for me.
I decided to close this run with the number as performed in the movie…with Stubby Kaye belting out the number as it (reportedly) never failed to stop the show on Broadway. Looking at all the ways it's been staged since tells us something about how the theater has evolved. It's no longer acceptable to just sing it. You have to orchestrate the hell out of it and have dynamic choreography. It's that way with just about every revival but I kinda like the way it's performed here.
Fans of The Dick Van Dyke Show may recognize the famed gangster Big Max Calvada among the mugs being "saved" at the mission. This was from back when he went under the name of Harry the Horse and before that, he was a bartender named Nick visible in It's a Wonderful Life.
But now, here's Stubby showing that you don't always gotta get a gimmick…
Here's another rendition of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" and you'll never guess who the performer is this time. That's right…it's you! This is a Karaoke version of the song with the lyrics onscreen. And while they don't seem to me to perfectly match the melody, maybe you can make something out of it…
Steady visitors to this blog may think you've heard "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" performed every possible way it can be performed. Well, you haven't hear a lady singing it and accompanying herself on the ukulele, have you? We are about to rectify that glaring omission…
I know you're weary of seeing one stage production after another of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" from Guys and Dolls so we have a change o' pace for you today…sort of. This is a recording of the song by Stan Worth, a jazz (sort of) pianist who enjoyed some fame in Los Angeles in the sixties, appearing on local TV shows and at local clubs and in local commercials.
You might think you never heard him sing before but you're probably wrong. You must have heard the theme song from the original Jay Ward cartoon show, George of the Jungle. That was Stan Worth singing that and he also sang the theme song to Super Chicken for Jay. Here's Stan…
I love harmony groups and here we have the Alexandria Harmonizers with their rendition of — and you didn't see this coming — "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." I'm just featuring this song here to put much-needed money in the pocket of Paul McCartney, owner of the catalog of songs written by Frank Loesser…
I was so busy getting to the con and checking in and dealing with the hotel's WI-FI system (which consists of two Dixie Cups, a connecting string and a couple of emaciated homing pigeons) that I forgot to post this link to Patti LuPone singing — what else? — "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat"…
Here's a different interpretation of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" which says it was performed by the FCHS A Cappella Choir. With a little sleuthing ability and the help of our friend Google, I figured out the "FCHS" was for Fort Collins High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. What I can't figure out is why an A Cappella Choir is singing with piano accompaniment…
This will be a busy week for me and you all know why. Posting here will be light but there will be a lot of video links and not all of them will be of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." I may also encore a few old posts and I'll try to check in anew when I can.
Not much to say about the new likely/presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party other than that she has impressed me about as much as any Vice-President could…which isn't much. Joe Biden did so a little as Veep but he didn't really impress me until he got the "com," as they used to say on Star Trek. I thought he was an excellent President of the United States though I can understand why someone might not if they were listening to his opponents. Sad that his exit had to happen the way it did.
Here's another link to my schedule. Several of my panels will have additional "surprise" participants…
Here's the way they did "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" on the TV series, Glee. The gent at the piano is my pal — with whom I sometimes write songs — Brad Ellis…
Here's a really good rendition of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" from the 1992 Tony Awards. I saw this revival of Guys and Dolls back in New York…and I do know the guy playing Nicely-Nicely was Walter Bobbie and that there's a very young Nathan Lane in there (playing Nathan Detroit) and you can see a then-largely-unknown J.K. Simmons in there, too. A fine production…
Speaking of the number "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" in Guys and Dolls, here's the way they did it in a 2015 London revival in which Richard Kind — you'll see him for a few seconds — played Nathan Detroit. I did a mess o' Googling and was unable to ascertain the name of the gent playing Nicely-Nicely Johnson.
