Have yourself a merry little Xmas, Mr. Martin
By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - 1 Comment
The 96-year-old composer of the classic holiday song talks about his life
Bettman; Everett Collection; Istock; Getty Images; Illustration by Taylor Shute
“One of the things I’m most grateful for is that God gave me a variety of gifts,” says Hugh Martin, the 96-year-old composer-lyricist who also built parallel careers as a vocal arranger, accompanist and singer. But the cover of Martin’s new autobiography, The Boy Next Door, emphasizes the thing he’s best known for: it mentions that he’s “the composer of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Martin told Maclean’s that he didn’t expect that song to be the biggest part of his more than 70 years in show business: “I only wrote it because there was a spot in the movie [Meet Me in St. Louis] that called for a Christmas song.” For many years, it was less popular than another song from the same film, The Trolley Song, and then suddenly, “a lot of people began to do it about the same time. I never found out who started it.”
There’s much more to Martin’s career than one Christmas song, though, and one of the purposes of the book is to remind us that he wrote music and lyrics for pop standards and jazz favourites alike, both alone and with collaborators like his former singing partner Ralph Blane. The book touches on the origins of his best songs, including Pass That Peace Pipe, which has been covered by Bing Crosby and even the Muppets, and the campy cult classic An Occasional Man, inspired by a phrase he heard from a maid in his native Alabama. Cabaret entertainer Michael Feinstein, who has performed and recorded many of Martin’s songs, told Maclean’s that he considers Martin “one of the most inspired songwriters of his generation,” and Stephen Sondheim put four of Martin’s songs on a list of 100 songs he wishes he’d written himself.
-
Russia, secrets, and dazzling jewellery
By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments
Plus, a woman who can’t recognize faces; weird historical housemates; Ian Tyson’s memoirs; the man who invented the computer and a biography of Sarah Bernhardt
'Russian Winter': A former dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet decides to put her jewellery up for auction, less of necessity and more from spite | Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
RUSSIAN WINTER
Daphne Kalotay
In a sweeping debut novel, Kalotay throws back the curtain to reveal what really goes on at an auction house, and specifically, the skills required, in this instance, to cajole information out of a prized client offering up sumptuous and dazzling pieces from her life at the Bolshoi Ballet in its Stalin-era heyday. But Russian Winter is much more than mere behind-a-cultural-scene entertainment, well-rendered as that world is: it’s also a window into an older world of poetry, dance, betrayal, true and false love, thwarted ideals and secrets kept tighter than a sealed drum.Nina Revskaya is the now-octogenarian client, ready to dispense with her jewellery less of necessity and more from spite, and her story emerges through evocative flashbacks to a Russia struggling to assert itself under post-Lenin Communist rule. Drew Brooks is the auction representative, free of a failed marriage that wreaked havoc on her self-confidence. Along with Nina’s and Drew’s stories, Kalotay brings in a third—that of a Russian-born literature professor with his own stake in the jewellery auction—adding even more tension to the narrative.
With auction notes of Revskaya’s jewels punctuating the past and present with sly wit, Russian Winter moves at a lively clip. Kalotay, a Canadian living in Boston, has brought to life hidden worlds with the verve of an expertly executed tour jeté.
- SARAH WEINMAN -
David Clayton-Thomas talks about the implosion of Blood Sweat and Tears
By Kate Fillion - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments
Plus, the trials of touring as an oldies act, and Justin Bieber
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW TOLSON
Raised in Willowdale, Ont., the singer-songwriter grew up with an abusive father and spent his teen years bouncing between the streets and jail. After a departing inmate left him a beat-up guitar, Clayton-Thomas taught himself to play, and by 1968 was living in New York, the lead singer of Blood Sweat & Tears. As he explains in his new autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Tears, to be published in September, the journey from homelessness to a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame has been rather eventful.
-
Theo Fleury was abused: "An absolute nightmare, every day of my life"
By Charlie Gillis - Friday, October 9, 2009 at 11:28 AM - 109 Comments
MACLEAN’S EXCLUSIVE: Harrowing details from his new book and interview with the retired NHL star
Retired hockey star Theoren Fleury has at long last confirmed that he was sexually abused by his junior coach, Graham James, a trauma he says drove him to alcohol, drugs and promiscuity throughout his otherwise impressive 16-year NHL career. “The direct result of my being abused was that I became a f—ing raging, alcoholic lunatic,” he writes in Playing with Fire, an autobiography to be released this week, and provided in advance to Maclean’s. “[James] destroyed my belief system. The most influential adult in my life at the time was telling me that what I thought was wrong was right.“I no longer had faith in myself or my own judgment. And when you come down to it, that’s all a person has. Once it’s gone, how do you get it back?” Continue…
