Live, alas, and on-stage: ‘The Harder They Come’

Dem-a-loot, dem-a-shoot, dem-a-wail

When a big movie comes unexpectedly out of a little country, it’s an event to remember, and everyone will  recall the 1973 release of “The Harder They Come,” the Jamaican reggae-infused gangster film. I first watched the movie as a high-school kid during the Nixon presidency, Spiro Agnew still a contemporary political figure, and me thinking, “Whew, I need to see this again.” Which I have done, many times in various cities. Bought the soundtrack, too, along with anything I could get my hands on by Desmond Decker and the Aces, or the Maytals (later Toots and the Maytals), and then the entire Wailers catalogue. We spent years amusing ourselves by reciting the script’s best lines, waiting for the most inappropriate occasions to begin imitating the Trenchtown patois: “Gimme break, mon” and “Don’… fawk… wid me!”

Jimmy's shirt: It sure would look good on you, dad

It would seem like a wonderful idea to base a stage musical on this landmark movie. The first British version was staged in 2006, and moved to the West End last summer, to positive reviews. The original cast is now appearing in a touring edition, which I caught in Toronto last week.

It’s always a hell of a thing to see what the passage of 36 years has done to our culture. The film used a cinema-verite technique to depict reggae as, in Bob Marley’s phrase, Rebel Music, imported from the teeming Third World. Now, the music is as safe and familiar as any other packaged consumable. The Canon Theatre had a big display for Red Stripe Jamaican lager — in contrast to the obvious reality that when the Rude Boy scene was emerging, the brewers must have been terrified that their trucks would be looted by rechet-carrying yoot. More galling still: the distinctive jersey worn by Jimmy Cliff in the film version, an item I’ve searched for high and low and would have gladly paid a fortune for on E-bay, was being sold at souvenir stands at a brisk rate to ridiculous middle-aged men exactly like myself.

The performance is lively and spirited, and all the other verbs reviewers use when what they’re really trying to say is that the show isn’t all that good. The story has lost something — actually, a few things — in translation from gritty movie to slick musical. You get the feeling the producers’ first choice would have been to obtain rights to that other Jamaican-themed movie, the 1993 John Candy comedy “Cool Runnings,” but that was a Disney film and you know what those Disney people are like to deal with. Momsers.

Instead, they’ve Disneyfied all the rough edges out of a story that, to begin with, was perhaps not that much more than the sum of its rough edges. What’s left is one of those frenetic song-and-dance musicals with a few comic turns, done in tribute to the swell old music of bygone days, viz. “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” That’s well and good, except three of the show-stopping ensemble numbers in this production have been imported from somewhere that isn’t “The Harder They Come.”

You get Jimmy Cliff’s “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” always a treat to hear, but not part of the original film, perhaps for the reason that it has nothing to say about the story line. You also get “Day-O,” made famous by Harry Belafonte, as a sop for those who would leave might leave the theatre disappointed after seeing a musical that’s supposed to take place in the Carribean that doesn’t include “Day-O.” Worst of all, you get not one, but two renditions of the Jackie Wilson classic, “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher & Higher,” and that’s two more than were required. Wilson was a great artist, who experienced a severe myocardial infarction while onstage, just as began to sing the lyric of that song that begins, “My heart….” He probably deserves a West End musical of his own, but what he surely does not deserve is to have his signature song plopped mindlessly into the mandatory church-gospel scene of a mediocre stage play. Wilson wasn’t mediocre, and, for that matter, neither was he West Indian, which gives you an early sense of how quickly things veer off-course.

The cast is good, and the singing is very fine. Rolan Bell makess a plausible Jimmy Cliff stand-in, and Chris Tummings does a better-than-adequate job belting out Toots Hibbert’s “Pressure Drop.”

Unfortunately, this just serves to recall how all the uneven pleasures of the movie have been flattened into a flavorless paste in the musical. The first glimpse of Toots on screen was potent enough to raise him to top billing in his group, and then to ceaseless global acclaim. The character played by Tummings, as seen on film, was an intriguingly conflicted figure, a sympathetic authority figure who determined that it was a necessary part of keeping the peace in raucous Kingston, to turn a blind-eye to the ganga trade.

The musical encourages a re-examination of the movie — and the movie is a superior work, in every respect. Viewers who haven’t seen the film for several years will be delighted to recall such wonders as Bob Charlton’s quietly malevolent portrayal of the local music tycoon, Hilton, a pale, pipe-sucking presence who dictates what the islanders will hear on the “heet parade.” His assistant is a benign Sino-Jamaican, which draws attention to the simple reality that the former colony is and was far more complex and multi-dimensional than its image might lead you to first think. The musical discourages this kind of complicated thinking, to its detriment.

Admittedly, some especially violent sequences from the celluloid edition would be difficult to assign to live actors. Jimmy Cliff’s character, provoked, attacks his tormentor with a knife, and is sentenced to be lashed. The film vividly shows Cliff being flogged by authorities, while his bladder involuntarily empties. The voice heard over these images is that of the sentencing magistrate, as he thoughtfully delivers his verdict, offered with regret, but also calculated to encourage rehabilitiation and maintain public order.

This depiction is intended to be considered antideluvian and brutal — but today seems nearly enlightened, compared to the contemporary American practice of providing wholesale lengthy incarceration for non-violent offences.

Another striking scene from the movie that failed to make it on stage involves the Jimmy Cliff character, who while seeking work, wanders into the estate of a wealthy Upper St. Andrew housewife, played by Beverly Anderson. There is a half-moment of mutual sexual tension, as the lady of the house mildly flirts — and then the Jamaican class-structure inevitably and abruptly kicks in, as Ms. Anderson haughtily dismisses him from her grounds.

Prime Mininster and Mrs. Manley

Art meets life: That actress became the wife of Prime Minister Michael Manley, a mixed-race politician who won election after shrewdly becoming the first candidate to usurp the emerging musical movement by employing a reggae campaign theme, “Better Must Come.” The international ambassador and exemplar of reggae, and the tiny nation’s great poet, Bob Marley, was another Jamaican of mixed-race, who touched audiences on every continent.

The power of the music, and of the movie, is a slice-o’-life authenticity that still resonates through the generations. The stage play is a stylized slice-of-show business that offers an extended brand experience, some heart, but not too much mind or soul. Fifteen minutes after leaving the theatre, you’re thinking you’d like to go home and watch the movie one more time on DVD.

There’s no business like show business, except maybe the business of misery

Apparently a singer just died, there was a big memorial event in L.A., and it’s all over the news.

While we’re dispatching entertainers to play to capacity audiences in the Biggest Room of All, it behooves us to bid adieu, too, to Vancouver’s Serf-of-Pop, Terry Black.

Very Terry: The Japanese pressing

Mr. Black seemed to have the chops, but he couldn’t catch the breaks.  The parallels with this other dead entertainer, one Michael Jackson, are minimal, except that back in the 1960s, they were both tapped to become the next big thing in teenage music. One rose; one fell.

Mr. Black came out of British Columbia with a hit record, and moved to Hollywood, where there was talk of putting him in the next Elvis movie, as Presley’s brother. It never panned out. Mr. Jackson emerged from Gary, Indiana — a less-likely point of origin than B.C., if such is possible — with four of his brothers and a hit record, and moved to Hollywood, where he married Elvis’s daughter. That didn’t completely work out, either.

Mr. Black’s record revolved at 45 rpms, precisely the same rotation rate as Mr. Jackson’s hit singles, and both recording artist’s recordings had big holes in the middle, where you placed an adapter before putting the record on a spindle. Mr. Black’s “Unless You Care” was played frequently on Canadian radio stations for decades, at least in part because the law required broadcasters to play music by Canadians. He sang the peppy lead vocal on “Try a Little Harder,” a memorable 1972 track by the Toronto band Dr. Music, and warbled on the soundtrack of Ivan Reitman’s 1979 motion picture “Meatballs” (listen here.) When he died last week, he’d been working as a disc jockey in Kelowna, a small city in B.C. populated by retirees.

It has not been a good week for Canadian disc jockeys and other entertainment industry figures.

Two more sorry specimens are the theatrical impresarios, and just-convicted fraudsters, Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb.

The Livent Lads, on the move

If you followed their courtroom occurrences, the former principals of Livent could tend to get a little fuzzy regarding certain details of their business dealings. They are crystal-clear on one point, however: They don’t want to go to jail.

This is understandable. After all, Drab has at least one close friend named Black — not Terry Black — who is serving time right now in a Florida slammer, and most likely there isn’t much good to say about the experience.

Drab and his locked-up pal (you know the name; he writes books) share another friend, who is the lawyer, Eddie Greenspan. Ed defended them both — unsuccessfully, as it turns out. Having not achieved his desired outcome, which would be his clients absolved of all charges, and left to clink champagne flutes with their attorney while they all cackle like hyenas, Eddie has seized the opportunity to fabricate lemonade from lemons.

Don’t send my boy to jail for 10 years, judge, your worship, he has suggested to Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto; please, please don’t put this good man behind bars.

Ed’s offering up a whale of an alternative concept. Why not just let Drab and Myron, those luverly Livent Lads, put on a show?

Ed says the boys are prepared to set off on a cross-country lecture tour, if it means they can bypass a cell in the stony lonesome. Drab and Myron will star in “Community Service: Tonight!”, with performances at universities, community colleges, and technical institutes from coast-to-coast. Drumming up interest in the idea, Ed says Drab “would teach students the discipline of the craft, the enormous role that integrity and honesty play in the theatre, the importance of fulfilling contractual responsibilities [and] the avoidance of unethical conduct.” Throw in some recycled Gallagher-and-Sheen patter, along with a good set of PowerPoint slides, and you just might have box office magic.

The inspiration for Fast Eddie's lecture series?

The fellow who wants to put the producers behind bars, Crown Attorney Alex Hrybinsky, seems to think Ed-the-lawyer’s follies will bomb in New Haven. Yes, there are precedents for the type of staged entertainment Ed envisions, but they have never been imposed as a legal remedy in a criminal case. The lawyer seems to have been inspired by the exhibits of human curiosities and oddities described by author Gregory Gibson in his recent book “Hubert’s Freaks,” which is about the long-running Times Square peep-show of the same name. If what Ed has in mind is to place his clients into some kind of travelling carnival, where onlookers can gawk, and the attractions can make a bit of money answering yokels’ questions and selling souvenir postcards, that constitutes a macabre revenge-scenario worthy of fellow-showman Tod Browning.

On with the Drab 'n' Myron Show: A Tod Browning revenge fantasy?

Our layman’s prediction: The Drab ‘n’ Myron Road Show will never happen. Ed’s courtroom string of bad luck appears to be not yet over, and as much as the impresarios must long for the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, this final act has Bialystock & Bloom written all over it, if you happen to recall the ending of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.”

Plaudits to the other legal Greenspan sibling, Brian, who is representing Myron. Brian has come up with a wonderful reason why Myron shouldn’t have to go directly to jail: It seems the former Livent CFO is really kind of reluctant to mingle, and doesn’t get all out much. According to Brian, that’s equivalent to being under house arrest, and should be calculated as time served. Madam Justice Benotto must be stroking her chin over that one, in a stagy form of contemplation, or else doing a slow-burn pantomime, as perfected by the late actor Edgar Kennedy.

++++++

What is more tragic than a pair of impresarios who may find themselves incapable of producing a theatrical extravaganza, for the next eight-to-10 years? How about a broadcaster whose mike has been abruptly shut off, following a 25-year career serving one media outlet? Martin Streek, a D.J. with radio station CFNY-FM in Toronto, reportedly parted ways with his employer in May. He committed suicide this week, reports say.

Mr. Streek entered the radio business out of high school, right around the time stations were switching to an automated voice-tracked format. All the talk, in the 1980s, was that the day of the disc jockey was through. Indeed, when the early-’90s recession hit, the entire medium of commercial radio was considered to be in jeopardy, with some licensees walking away from their equity, unable to pay their whopping power bills through advertising revenues. In other words, it was very much like the situation that daily newspapers find themselves in today.

The role of the disc jockey endured, nonetheless, and it’s said Mr. Streek was crackerjack at his work, and a decent bloke, to boot. Especially disturbing is the news that he left a suicide note on his Facebook page. There are already web sites that make light of celebrity deaths, and the popularity of so-called social networking sites can’t be disputed. I fear that the posting of suicide notes to the Internet may already be a trend, and that some web entrepreneur not unlike Rupert Murdoch will quickly move in to exploit this as a niche opportunity. The round-the-clock coverage of Mr. Jackson’s death leaves little room for doubt that there is any human misery either too large or too small for someone to avoid capitalizing upon.

Theatrical criticism, and a very brief stab at onomastics

1. Theatrical criticism

“A toe-tapping vaguely good time” is exactly how I would describe “Happy Days: The Musical,” now playing for a brief run at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, before moving on to wow audiences in Schenectady and Ashtabula. You’re likely to enjoy the show, providing you can avoid asking the following question: “What has happened to this planet, that someone thinks they can squeeze another buck out of television’s most mediocre sitcom ever, by putting it on stage and charging serious money for tickets?”

The exercise of revivifying a disposed-with TV franchise as a live theatrical event is now an established off-Broadway genre, and a proven means of peddling ducats to audiences who turn nostalgic over the mention of cult classics such as The Brady Bunch or Saturday Night Live. (Although, the concept likely wasn’t that different when George Reeves and Noell Neill first took their Superman act out on the country fair circuit.)

Then, again: You can’t call the viewers of the “Happy Days” TV series a cult, and it may not be entirely correct to label them viewers, either. Consumers, more like it. There once was a Happy Days industry in North America, the same way there were once other industries, i.e., automotive, fruit canning, shoemaking, etc. Time was when you could buy Happy Days pyjamas, license-plate frames, lunchpails, or other ephemera — or simply amuse yourself by reciting the clever lines spoken by the series’ actors, such as: “Aayyeee,” “I still got it,” and two dozen similarly witty selections.

The tale of how this series entered our consciousness is well known: pilot episode set in Eisenhower Era is shot during the earliest ’70s, unimpressed network execs scream ixnay, portions are aired as a segment of “Love American Style,” director George Lucas (pre-Star Wars) views the discarded bits and casts unemployed Happy Days actor Ron Howard in a similar role in his about-to-be-lensed teen pic, “American Graffiti.” Lucasfilm does boffo box office, network says, let’s give that ’50s comedy a shot, public eats it up, show has seven-year run and endless reruns, series creator Garry Marshall becomes filthy-stinking-rich spinning off media consumables such as “Joanie Loves Chachi.”

If the “Happy Days” TV program seemed to last your entire life, perhaps it did; perhaps it has. On the other hand, the musical version’s two hours pass quickly and something close to enjoyably. The book and story come courtesy of Mr. Marshall, and are what you will expect from the fellow who drew laughs from the catchphrase “Sit on it.” By which I mean, the intent is not ambitious. The music, appropriately by ’70s-relic Paul “We’ve Only Just Begun” Williams, is okay, and incorporates familiar snatches of the original sitcom theme, penned by Tin Pan Alley denizen Norman Gimbel.

 

Composer Paul "I'm Not John" Williams

We know far too much about Paul Williams — his life, his career, his game-show appearances, his round glasses and shag-haircut — but what do we really know about Mr. Gimbel? To begin with, we know that he kept busy creating ditties for ’70s sitcoms, including Mr. Marshall’s stablemate “Laverne & Shirley.” This was by no means his claim to fame. He was a formidable hombre who wrote the English language lyrics to Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Girl from Ipanema,” and partnered with Michel Legrand on “I Will Wait For You.” With collaborator Charles Fox, he wrote “Killing Me Softly with His Song” for Roberta Flack, and Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name.” It’s assumed by many that Flack and Croce, both highly regarded songwriters, penned those respective hits — but, not so; it was the team of Gimbel and Fox. Sort of makes you wonder why some imaginative impresario didn’t stage a work around the memorable songs of that under-recognized pair, rather than taking the easy route to repackaging schlock entertainment. That in mind, you picture Mr. Marshall late at night, refilling Heinz bottles in Arnold’s drive-in, using some cheap generic catsup bought in bulk, thinking he’s getting away with something. Even imagining him in this task, he is unlikely to be humming anything from his new musical, but it’s safe to think he’d be whistling while he works, keeping tune to “I Got a Name,” coming over the Wurlitzer wall-boxes.

 

2. Onomastics

I Got a Name. That track could sum up the entire decade of the ’70s. All the themes connect: featured song in a 1973 movie starring Jeff Bridges, which was inspired by a Tom Wolfe essay about stock-car driver Junior Johnson, the tune shot to the top of the charts after Mr. Croce’s death in a plane crash. Over-orchestrated instrumental versions are still found playing in bank lobbies and on the Music of Your Life AM radio stations — but the assertive, self-declarative title forms the crux of every hip-hop and rap song that followed. Got me a name, sucka.

Thing is, we’ve all got names, do we not? Only since the advent of the Internet, however, have we been able to locate and identify others who share our individual names: Googlegängers, in the web vernacular. A new web site, http://howmanyofme.com, offers assistance in this regard. Since I believe Norman Gimbel is now enjoying his golden years, I used this site to determine how many other Normal Gimbels I’d need to sort through, in the event I wish to contact him about this Music-of-Gimbel-and-Fox Broadway musical concept that occurred to me two paragraphs back. The site tells me there are currently two Norman Gimbels in America, information which I’ve filed away. The same source tells me there is but one Jim Croce extant. He’s not the celebrated JC, who for all I know may off playing gigs with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. Still, it’s all kind of interesting. There are 37 Garry Marshalls and four Richie Cunninghams.

As for your correspondent, we now know that there are 111,607 people in the U.S. with the first name Mitchell, which is statistically the 491st most popular first name. Noting that`s the precise equivalent of the entire population of the Federated States of Micronesia, I cry out to the proud 111,607: “Dudes! We cracked the Top 500! Let’s all fill the University of Michigan Stadium to capacity, and celebrate.” We also learn that there are 51,981 people in the U.S. with the last name Shannon, enough to qualify as the 675th most popular surname, and equal to the entire population of Elkhart, Indiana. With all the credibility provided by a reference I’d never even heard of until 10 minutes ago, the web site informs me with oracular certainty: “There are 19 people in the U.S. named Mitchell Shannon.”

I’m aware that there are, additionally, at least two of us up here in Canada. There’s the fellow who is now tapping his keyboard, and there is or was some chap with the same name out in British Columbia, who once sent me a nice letter and recalled our meeting at a motorcycle rally sometime somewhere. I swear until I’m blue-faced that I’ve never been near the guy, and you’d figure I might remember if I had. Well, one of us must be wrong about the other one; that’s all.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken the earliest steps in learning what I can about the other dozen-and-a-half-plus-one individuals who share my name. I’d previously come across a web link to one, a substance-abuse counselor around my age who lived in Ogdensburg, N.Y. That town is just over the river from Belleville, Ont., and twice this past summer I found myself out driving around in his vicinity. It didn’t occur to me for a second to contact my closest Googlegänger, although we’re nearby enough to practically be homies. Must be my Canadian reticence, or else I had other things on my mind.

I saw something once about a Mitchell Shannon who is an attorney in Alabama. Imagine that. Barely seems possible.

I’m also aware of a Mitch Shannon in the Denver suburbs, who is a realtor who owns the www.mitchshannon.com domain. I wonder if he knows about Mitch Shannon, another real estate guy in Lodi, Calif. California Realtor Mitch has a sideline of blending garlic powder, paprika, salt, onion powder, red pepper, black pepper, basil and other stuff, into a bottled concoction he calls Mitch’s Oh Yeah! Original Spice Blend. A local Lodi newspaper offers the following quote from some friend of the entrepreneur, who is a winery-owner: “I love it. Ol’ Mitch got me hooked.” Oh, yeah? Actually, I’ve always wanted to own a winery. Failing which, I’d settle for having a friend who owns a winery, who refers to me as Ol’ Mitch, or occasionally Good Ol’ Mitch, and doesn’t get angry when I hang around his tasting room, offering the opinion that last year’s cabernet was far superior to this year’s batch.

Ol’ Mitch’s condiment blend sounds familiar, as though it could be very close to Tony Cachere’s New Orleanian product, but I suppose I should send him an order and put it to the test. What’s holding me back is that I’m not sure I want to provide Mitch Shannon with Mitch Shannon’s credit card information. This has security risk written all over it. But I can’t help but think he needs a Canadian distributor for his spice line. Perhaps an exchange would work well. I may need to buy some property around Lodi, which would provide a fitting base from which to practice the chords of the John Fogerty song, “Oh, lord, stuck in Lodi again.”

I disqualify as potential Googlegängers, or as anyone I might ever contact for any purpose, the married twosome in London, England who occupy the http://www.mitchandshannon.com domain. They’re probably harmless enough, but their web site features a blog purported to be written by the couple’s sock-puppets, named BH and the Binkys, who explain: “This blog is about our lives and what we do when Mitch and Shannon aren’t around.” I couldn’t endure much more, having no tolerance whatsoever for cuteness, but I imagine BH and the Binkys must have seemed like a very good idea one Sunday morning over a platter of breakfast mimosas.

Perhaps, if all 19, or 20, or 21 of us who share my first and last names, in the correct order, were to gather in one location, it would be for the solemn purpose of spending a weekend mocking those two lame-o Brits and their dreadful sock-puppets. If we do convene, I’d want to kick off the convention by recognizing the learned and honorable delegate from Alabama, who would address the delegation as follows: “Mah name is Maytch Shannon. And who maht you-all be?”