Walter Rimler's Blog
RSS
Apr.17.2013
BEATLE RHETT
The Beatles On Another Timeline
by Walter Rimler
Until the following interview, in a much abridged form, was published in You magazine last spring, Rhett Law was known for two moments in his life. The first occurred in the winter of 1964 when Ringo Starr replaced...
Continue Reading »
Mar.29.2013
On January 24, 1935 George Gershwin wrote Todd Duncan (who had just been signed to sing the role of Porgy):
"I am leaving for Florida this weekend where I begin the task of orchestrating the opera. I just finished a trio in the last scene for Porgy, Serena, and Maria which I think will...
Continue Reading »
Dec.16.2012
"The Buzzard Song"
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by DuBose Heyward
In Act II Scene 1 of Porgy and Bess, Alan Archdale, the only sympathetic white character in the opera, tells Serena, Clara and Porgy he is bailing their friend Peter (the honey man) out of jail. Peter's theme is then played...
Continue Reading »
Dec.02.2012
This song, with lyrics by Gus Kahn and Ira Gershwin, was dropped from Show Girl, a production that opened in New York City at the Ziegfeld Theatre on July 2, 1929.
It has been obscure for almost a century now but it contains one of George Gershwin's greatest verses ("One time I was gay...
Continue Reading »
Sep.13.2012
Et Tu, Audra?
It makes sense to buy this CD if you want to hear the glorious voice of Audra McDonald. But if you want to hear the even more glorious voice of George Gershwin stay away. This is a tampered version of his Porgy and Bess. It isn't just because the story and libretto have been changed--...
Continue Reading »
Aug.27.2012
When the Devil Wants You
by Walter Rimler
1
Ed’s Diner was a hole-in-the wall on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco’s Richmond District. Hardly anyone in the neighborhood remembered Ed, who had been dead for eighteen years. They knew Joe Dale, a former Marine Corps PFC who...
Continue Reading »
Aug.19.2012
This song was introduced by Walter Catlett in Lady, Be Good! At the Liberty Theatre in New York City on December 1, 1924.
Gershwin accompanied Marguerite d' Alvarez when she sang this song at the Roosevelt Hotel on December 4, 1925.
The composer's piano transcription appeared in...
Continue Reading »
Aug.05.2012
This song, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, was introduced by Fred and Adele Astaire in Funny Face at the Alvin Theatre in New York City on November 22, 1927.
Funny Face was having a hard time of it during its Philadelphia tryout and this song was written to add life to the show. The idea for it...
Continue Reading »
2 comments
Jul.19.2012
When I was five years old I lived next door to a kid, Stephen Millstein (or was it Millstone?), who introduced me to life on planet earth by beating me up each day. I was a skinny guy, he was fat. I'd walk out of my apartment, look up, let the warm Los Angeles sun baste my face, inhale the...
Continue Reading »
5 comments
Jul.14.2012
This song, with lyrics by Irving Caesar, was introduced by Muriel DeForrest in Capitol Revue at the Capitol Theatre in New York City on October 24, 1919.
No one these days remembers a tune called “Hindustan” but its popularity in 1919 was directly responsible for the creation of Gershwin's first...
Continue Reading »
3 comments
Jun.30.2012
This piece is in one movement.
It was in 1923 that Gershwin, having failed to prepare a harmony exercise for his third lesson with Rubin Goldmark (nephew of Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark and a pupil of Antonin Dvořák), turned in this composition, written several years earlier. As Gershwin...
Continue Reading »
4 comments
May.27.2012
This song is sung in Act III, Scene II of Porgy and Bess.
Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics.
On opening night, John Bubbles, who played Sporting Life, surprised everybody by wearing a flashy emerald-green suit in this scene. As it happened, the zipper was not working and the entrance music had...
Continue Reading »
May.20.2012
This song was introduced by William Gaxton and Lois Moran in Let 'Em Eat Cake at the Imperial Theatre in New York City on October 21, 1933.
George Gershwin took an unusually academic approach in discussing this—his last as it turned out—Broadway musical. But it shows where he was headed—...
Continue Reading »
1 comment
May.12.2012
The lyrics to this song are by B.G. DeSylva and Arthur Francis (Ira Gershwin). It was introduced by the entire cast—including George White himself—in George White's Scandals of 1922 at the Globe Theatre in New York City on August 28, 1922. All were in black, dancing against the...
Continue Reading »
3 comments
May.07.2012
These stories were written in the early 1990s when the author, Samuel Rimler, was in his early 80s. He wrote them so his grandchildren and their children would know what he had done as a young man. As it turns out, it is a document for everyone else as well.
It presents a picture, perhaps...
Continue Reading »
2 comments
About Walter
I was born in Brooklyn, NY, grew up in Los Angeles, CA, and have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since attending UC Berkeley (class of '68).
My most recent book is "George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait" (University of Illinois Press, 2009).
My other...
Connections
