My daughters have gotten majorly into Into the Woods lately. I took the older one to go see it when it played at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA, and she loved it and has been listening to the soundtrack, playing the songs on the piano and singing it ever since, and now her little sister basically knows the whole thing, too. I showed them the Bernadette Peters recording, and that got me on a bit of a Bernadette Peters kick.
Back in the day when I was a teenager and college student driving around town, I listened to showtunes incessantly, and in my roving through the great American showtune catalog, I came across a pair of albums by Bernadette Peters – I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight and Sondheim Etc (a live Carnegie Hall concert) and added those to my rotation. I found them both on Spotify the other day and immediately went back to nostalgia central with them. It’s amazing to me the forgotten memories that hit me when I hear songs from that time period. I not only remember most all of the songs, but also her little inter-song bits from the live show! “That last song was from a Stephen Sondheim show….that I wasn’t in. But this next song is from a Stephen Sondheim show that I was in! But I didn’t sing this song in the show.”
At some point in the past a friend recommended me to watch a recording of Company, which I did, and realized I knew “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” even though I’d never seen the show. How did I know that song? It drove ME crazy for a while. Finally realized, it was this Sondheim Etc album! I knew Bernadette Peters singing it.
These albums are from the mid-90s, but I recommend any musical theatre fan check them out if you haven’t already. Fun stuff.