Jesus Christ Superstar Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Andrew Lloyd Webber turns 70

Jesus Christ Superstar is one of only a handful of shows that I have seen on Broadway.

A recent PARADE article, 10 Things You Might Not Know About Andrew Lloyd Webber, noted that his new memoir, Unmasked, came out March 6.

#1 on the list: “When Sunset Boulevard joined School of Rock, Cats and The Phantom of The Opera on The Great White Way in early 2017, Webber became the only person to equal the record set in 1953 by Rodgers and Hammerstein with four Broadway shows running at once.”

In our Proctors Theatre subscription packet for 2018-2019, School of Rock is included, and Phantom, the longest play on Broadway ever, is one of the additional musicals being offered. I’ve seen Phantom and Cats (#4 on Broadway all-time) at Proctors in prior years, and Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Mac-Haydn Theatre.

Still, my all-time favorite Lloyd Webber piece is Jesus Christ Superstar, written with lyricist Tim Rice. I have noted that it was one of my top 20 albums that came out prior to me going to college. It was the source of great theological debate, especially with my friend Pat, on issues of predestination and the role of the apostles, among many other things.

I watched the 1973 movie. It is one of only a handful of shows that I have seen on Broadway, in 2000.

When I read this review of a production at Schenectady Light Opera Company, described as “amazing”, I tried to get tickets; alas, it was sold out.

I’m sure to record and watch the Jesus Christ Superstar Live! event with Alice Cooper as King Herod, Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene, and John Legend as the title guy, scheduled for Easter Sunday, April 1, on NBC-TV.

Here’s the entirety of Jesus Christ Superstar, with Ted Neeley as Jesus, Carl Anderson as Judas, and Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene. Oddly it doesn’t have any of the pops and skips that my well-worn LP has. I Don’t Know How To Love Him was a hit single in 1971, which went to #28 (Elliman), and #13 by Helen Reddy.

Coverville 1209: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Cover Story

Music, February 1971: Tapestry

Producer Lou Adler wanted the listeners to visualize Carole King sitting at the piano just for them.

More random music recollections based on the book Never A Dull Moment.

Carole King was in the music business for a lot of years. As a kid who used to read the liner notes, I discovered she was the King in (Gerry) Goffin-King songwriting duo. But in 1971, she invented the album business. Tapestry was recorded in January of that year. A&M house photographer Jim McCrary had tried various pictures around the house before adding the cat Telemachus into the shot.

Tapestry was released on February 10, 1971, the day after her 29th birthday. This is the first ad, from Billboard Magazine. I know that I didn’t purchase it until the summer; I bought the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers the same day. Some years later, I got it again, because I had worn out the grooves. Finally, I acquired it on CD.

Producer Lou Adler wanted to make an album with that demo quality. “He wanted the listeners to visualize Carole King sitting at the piano just for them.” It spent an astonishing 15 weeks at #1 on the US album charts, long after the singles had faded. “By the end of the year, it was still selling 150,000 copies a week in the United States alone.” It was the first “evergreen” album that wasn’t a movie soundtrack or the like.

Two other albums recorded in the same studio the same month were Joni Mitchell’s Blue, one of my favorite albums of all time, and the only Carpenters album I owned, their third. Liking Carpenters’ music was REALLY uncool in the day.

Jesus Christ Superstar was #1 for three weeks during this time. It was a hugely significant source of my understanding/debate about theology and religion, particularly with my friend Pat. It seemed she and I would debate its merits for hours. I knew this album like my daughter knows Hamilton. I always wanted to play Peter.

Pearl, the posthumous album by Janis Joplin, spent nine weeks at #1. I recall working at a factory in 1972 and singing Mercedes Benz, one of the few songs written by Janis. Someone asked me if it were a song by the Temptations; I found that extraordinarily amusing at the time.

Listen to:
Coverville 1159: The Carole King Cover Story II
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow – Carole King with the Mitchell-Taylor Boy-and-Girl Choir
You’ve Got a Friend – James Taylor
Little Green – Joni Mitchell
Rainy Days and Mondays – Carpenters
Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin
Just My Imagination – the Temptations
What’s the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying – Jesus Christ Superstar

L is for Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber received seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, and an Academy Award.

Like many people of a certain age, I first became aware of the name Andrew Lloyd Webber when Jesus Christ Superstar, the 1970 “rock opera” with music by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice was released. The two-LP package stoked a great deal of theological discussion at a point in my life when I had begun questioning my religious upbringing.

The story is “loosely based on the Gospels’ accounts of the last week of Jesus’s life, beginning with the preparation for the arrival of Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem and ending with the crucifixion. It highlights political and interpersonal struggles between Judas Iscariot and Jesus that are not in the Bible narratives.” I played it incessantly, and know much of it by heart to this day.

Moreover, it generated two Top 100 singles for Yvonne Elliman, who played Mary Magdalene. I Don’t Know How To Love Him went to #28 and Everything’s Alright reached #92, both in 1971. Helen Reddy’s version of the former went to #13 that same year.

Superstar, essentially the title track, got only to #74 in early 1970, but was rereleased and eventually reached #14 in 1971. It was sung by Murray Head, the Judas Iscariot performer, with the Trinidad Singers.

Though written before JCSS, I next became aware of the single album Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which, in the US, was a reissue of the 1969 Decca UK album. This music has been greatly expanded since then, with some song titles I do not recognize.

Evita, a musical based on the life of Eva Perón, turned out to be the last Lloyd Webber/Rice collaboration. It was first released as a concept album in 1976, then was performed in the West End in 1978, where it ran for ten years. Patti LuPone created the role of Eva on Broadway in 1979, for which she won a Tony.

Don’t Cry for Me Argentina is the best-known song, performed by a group called Festival in 1980 (#72 US), and Madonna (#8 US in 1997, from the 1996 movie starring her and Antonio Banderas).

“Lloyd Webber embarked on his next project without a lyricist, turning instead to the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Cats (1981) was to become the longest-running musical in London, where it ran for 21 years before closing. On Broadway, Cats ran for 18 years, a record which would ultimately be broken by another Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera.”

Memory is the big hit from Cats, which I heard LONG before I ever saw the show only a few years ago. “Elaine Paige, who originated the role of Grizabella in the West End production, released a version of the song that… peaked at No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1981… Barbra Streisand’s cover reached #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #9 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart in 1982. In the UK this version peaked at #34 the same year. Barry Manilow released a cover as a single in late 1982; this became the highest-charting version on the Billboard Hot 100 when it reached #39 in January 1983. Manilow’s recording also made the Billboard adult contemporary chart, reaching #8.”

This could go on – the most recent production of Andrew Lloyd Webber is School of Rock, based on the movie – but I did want to cite some of his awards. He was knighted in 1992, and “received seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award… a Golden Globe Award, a Brit Award, the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors, and the 2008 Classic Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.”