While the Barry/Lerner collaboration was artistically successful, I read--in Joseph Tandet's book--that Tandet ran into the composer and lyricist while they were rehearsing Lolita and Barry complained that Lerner was difficult to work with, with the constant parties and pill-popping. "Never again," Barry said, about working with Lerner. Tandet had been trying to get the pair to work on a musical of The Little Prince--and it fell through. That's why he was surprised to see them working together.
I think Lerner went to Barry for several reasons, one of which as that Loewe was long-retired and living in Palm Springs. I also think Lerner knew that Loewe was not the right person for Lolita and wanted a more modern sound, which he definitely got. And no, they did not get along so well. I spent an hour on the phone with Chris Gilmore aka Annette Ferra and got some great stories - I'll be doing a video interview with her that you'll all want to watch.
Can't wait! I also read an anecdote by choreographer Dan Siretta of a strategy session in New York with Barry, Lerner, John Neville, and Truman Capote.
While the Barry/Lerner collaboration was artistically successful, I read--in Joseph Tandet's book--that Tandet ran into the composer and lyricist while they were rehearsing Lolita and Barry complained that Lerner was difficult to work with, with the constant parties and pill-popping. "Never again," Barry said, about working with Lerner. Tandet had been trying to get the pair to work on a musical of The Little Prince--and it fell through. That's why he was surprised to see them working together.
I think Lerner went to Barry for several reasons, one of which as that Loewe was long-retired and living in Palm Springs. I also think Lerner knew that Loewe was not the right person for Lolita and wanted a more modern sound, which he definitely got. And no, they did not get along so well. I spent an hour on the phone with Chris Gilmore aka Annette Ferra and got some great stories - I'll be doing a video interview with her that you'll all want to watch.
I'm a huge John Barry fan and quite happy that Kritzerland is releasing LOLITA, MY LOVE on CD. Your sample tracks sound very good. Instantly ordered last week. Just curious about the infamous Blue Pear LP. Do you know anything about its history? Why was such a bad recording allowed to be put out on LP? Did Barry have any say about its release? I think I saw it once at some specialty store decades ago, but avoided it because I had heard about its really bad sound.
Thanks again for giving us this recording! Can't wait to get it.
A couple of other references to how Barry and Lerner got together. One is from Joseph Tandet's book. Tandet was trying to get a production going of The Little Prince in the late 60s. Lerner was always his first choice. He and Lerner discussed many composers--Mancini, Legrand, Barry, and others. Barry caught Barry's interest--and Barry was extremely interested. For various reasons, the Barry-Lerner collaboration fell through--with Lerner going back to Lowe, and Barry trying to persuade Tandet to sign off on a Saltzman-produced musical film, written by Robert Bolt, directed by David Lean, and scored by Barry. Tandet had already committed to Lerner. A couple of years later, Lerner and Barry were working together.
According to Barry in a very old interview, while working on The Lion in Winter, Katherine Hepburn knew that Barry and Lerner both had an interest in The Little Prince. Lerner suggested that they do Lolita first.
While the Barry/Lerner collaboration was artistically successful, I read--in Joseph Tandet's book--that Tandet ran into the composer and lyricist while they were rehearsing Lolita and Barry complained that Lerner was difficult to work with, with the constant parties and pill-popping. "Never again," Barry said, about working with Lerner. Tandet had been trying to get the pair to work on a musical of The Little Prince--and it fell through. That's why he was surprised to see them working together.
I think Lerner went to Barry for several reasons, one of which as that Loewe was long-retired and living in Palm Springs. I also think Lerner knew that Loewe was not the right person for Lolita and wanted a more modern sound, which he definitely got. And no, they did not get along so well. I spent an hour on the phone with Chris Gilmore aka Annette Ferra and got some great stories - I'll be doing a video interview with her that you'll all want to watch.
I'm a huge John Barry fan and quite happy that Kritzerland is releasing LOLITA, MY LOVE on CD. Your sample tracks sound very good. Instantly ordered last week. Just curious about the infamous Blue Pear LP. Do you know anything about its history? Why was such a bad recording allowed to be put out on LP? Did Barry have any say about its release? I think I saw it once at some specialty store decades ago, but avoided it because I had heard about its really bad sound.
Thanks again for giving us this recording! Can't wait to get it.
I knew the fellow who did the Blue Pear releases (he passed away a few years ago) - he had no first generation material - just copies of copies of copies of cassettes made from copies of whatever tape some had. It was a pathetic release.
I knew the fellow who did the Blue Pear releases (he passed away a few years ago) - he had no first generation material - just copies of copies of copies of cassettes made from copies of whatever tape some had. It was a pathetic release.
Was the Blue Pear LP a legitimate release? Or were things just different back in the 70's? I think by the time I saw the LOLITA, MY LOVE LP in some store, I no longer had a working turntable and was replacing all my Broadway cast LPs with CDs. I'm glad I waited until now. I hate recordings with really bad sound.
I feel like when that question needs to be asked, it almost always answers itself.
I'm not as knowledgeable about these issues as many who post here. I'm just a fan who loves film scores, particularly from golden age composers, but also from silver age ones like John Barry. I don't have an agenda or anything like that. I'm just asking a question so I can understand how things work. Blue Pear LPs have been distributed by Amazon for decades. Some of their releases have been evaluated by prominent music critics, whose reviews are listed in The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings. How does this happen? Was the Barry LOLITA, MY LOVE score not properly copyrighted (is that the correct term?) so that Blue Pear Records was able to issue a poor quality LP of it?
This is such an amazing score, unfortunately for a show no one wanted to see. Even on this recording, you can sense how uncomfortable the audience is in spots.
It must have been a huge problem for the audience when Dorothy Loudon's character disappears after stopping the show with "Sur le Quais."
But, for these characters, you can't imagine anyone writing better songs. And John Neville has such a beautiful, resonant voice. Great release!
The sound is much better than on the older releases. Somehow they managed to equalize the mono sound so music and voices are much more balanced, and this enhances the clarity. It is such a great score. A huge thank you to Mr. Kimmel for taking a chance on "Love".
I usually get Screen Archives orders in 2 days after they shipped. lolita shipped on Dec 4th and tracking indicates in transit, but it's been in that status since 12/11. I'm still waiting hopefully but I can't shake the feeling that "in transit" is an euphemism for MIA.
