A Quote by Alice Ripley
There is genuine healing in a beautifully crafted musical theatre song, like Stephen Sondheim's 'Losing My Mind,' or a pop music gem like Joni Mitchell's 'Help Me.'
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Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.
Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me - he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.
The thing about Stephen Schwartz is that, while it may be difficult to learn - it's a little bit like[Stephen] Sondheim; Sondheim is quite difficult to learn - but, once you have it in you: it never leaves you. It becomes some of your favorite music; it really does.
I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell's version of "A Case of You." My mom was a huge Joni Mitchell fan.
I listen to a lot of old music, like Joni Mitchell and David Bowie.
The only Train song I like is the one that I play in my act "Drops Of Jupiter". Sheryl Crow has three or four songs that I like; also Dave Matthews Band. With those particular musicians, it's more that there are a few songs that I like rather than their entire body of work. There are a lot of indie bands that I like too. I'm not a snob about music. Does the fact that I like Stephen Sondheim and Broadway musicals make me a fake? Does the fact that I'm "the Billy Joel of comedy" mean that I don't have indie-rock credibility?
It seems like pop singing has sort of influenced musical theatre in so many ways - you could argue good or bad, really - and musical theatre is written for that style so often, which is a completely different style.
It's like there's the rest of the world, and then there's America. Part of the reason I would really love continue to making music over here because so much of American music has inspired me, whether it's Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen.
At 13 I taught myself piano from an old song book, and Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides Now' was the first song I learned.
Popular music of the last 50 years has failed to keep in step with advances in musical theater, namely Stephen Sondheim. But the two have grown apart so that popular music is based more than ever on a rhythmic grid that is irrelevant in musical theater. In popular music, words matter less and less. Especially now that it's so international, the fewer words the better. While theater music becomes more and more confined to a few blocks in midtown.
I am writing better Stephen Sondheim songs than even Stephen Sondheim is writing.
It's great when it all comes together in a great musical like 'Sweeney Todd,' when Stephen Sondheim writes songs from heaven, the book is good and the staging is good. But it's very rare when that happens.
When the suggestion was made that I might consider doing music of Joni Mitchell, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Joni, I admire not only for her music but for her person, because she's a person that really stands out for what she believes in.
It's strange: I love pop music, and I really can enjoy it, but I didn't feel like the characters within pop music - like when Madonna sings 'Crazy For You', for instance, I don't feel like I would ever be the character she takes on in that song. I would never feel... I don't have that confidence in me.
I think pop music was going through a phase where it was like pop but dance-hall or pop but R&B. But, no, I just want a pop song.
I think the genre of musical theatre, when it started, the pop songwriters of the time were writing the music. I think sometimes when we write musicals now, we keep writing in that same style, as though that's the musical theatre genre... We have to figure out how to tell stories with the music that we listen to now, or we'll lose our audience.
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