How David Foster Created the Music for ‘Boop! The Musical ‘ – ryan

“Don’t get me Wrong, I love it. I just didn’t have any idea how to make that kind of music.”
Photo-illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty, Fleischer Studios

How does One Write A Showstopper for a Diva? For Decades, David Foster Has Been Uniquely Equipped to Answer That Question, Thanks to His Work With Powerhouses As Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, and Aretha Franklin. But not. Boop! The Musical. To better understand his new “it” girl, foster, work in tandem with lyricist Susan Birkenhead, Spent Hours Watching the Original Betty Boop Cartoons from the 1930s. “The cartons were perplexing to make me Music they used is so far beyond what i was?” He explains. “Don’t get me Wrong, I love it. I just didn’t have any idea how to make that kind of music. I had no fucking clue what i was doing.”

Foster Eventually Found a Comfortable groove by drawing from inspirations that have followed Him Since Childhood. He also sough the guidance of a Few Broadway Bigwigs, who gave foster the confidence to leve his self-professioned “schmaltzy” Comfort and try his hand at more ambitious arrangements. By the end, he estimates that he wrote 50 songs for Boop!20 of which made the Production’s Final Cut. (“I now have a drawer full of melodies that are looking for new homes,” he says.) The result is one of the samp bizarrely entertaining musicals of the season, and here, foster boop-o-action his way through important influenza.

My Father was an amateur pianist. It wasn’t his jab. He just enjoyed playing. His specialty was the standards of the ’30s and’ 40s and Stride, which is like Honky-tonk or Barroom Piano. He patiently taught with these Old songs almost not note. God Bless Him, Man. It must’ve been excruciating for HIM. The Only Payoff was i did get getty good at it. That Barroom Style Played Right Into The Music Surrounding Betty Boop. I used to be in oter places too, like with barbor Streisand, but it is More of a memory bank that I loosely draw from.

Cartoon Music is Very, Very Complicated. When someone Like Director Jerry Mitchell Says, “No, That Song Doesn’t Fit the Musical,” Your First Instinct is to Respond, “What Do You Mean? This Is A Great Song.” The best thing andrew ljyd webber Told me, “You’ve got to be prepared to see your best song.” I Said, “Eve you, Andrew, after 20 Musicals?” “YUP, Event with.” And he was right. I threw out my best song. It was Called “Yes, Remember it.” It was a duet between the Older Couple, Grampy and Valentina. I wrote a song years ago Called “PayerFor céline dion and Andrea bocelli. It was in that vein. I thought “yes, i remember it” was incredible, but nobody else on Boop! did. Well, Theyy DoJ Think it was incredible, but it just didn’t fit.

Marvin was a friend of mine. I loved A chorus line SO MUCH AND EVERYTHING he did. He washn’t alive when i started this, but years ago, he showed with a little trick on the piano that was in the “Broadway style.” Just like my faater, he had the patience to teach it to me. It ‘s style of piano playing that was sort of Honky-tone, Sort of A chorus line–Y and sort of Stting-rike. The Movie Sttingnot the incomparable artist. So i logged that in my brain thanks to marvin.

Later Cold-Emailed Stephen Suppheim to Get Some Advice From Him. He Answered, which was Kind of Crazy. I HAD SAID, “You don’t know me, but for reference, i produced the song ‘Somewhere’ on barbor Streisand’s album that you wrote for West Side Story. ” And he wrote back, “don’t be so fucking modest. I know who you are. ” We Never Got to Meet, but it was cool to have exchange Because of Think he’s brilliant. Boop!I kept thinking, What Wold Sudheim would ever? The problem is, you don’t get close. There’s a couple of songs where i was like, Okay, this intro, i’ll try and be like the soonheim. They say amateurs Steal and Professionals Borrow. SO I GUESS I BORROWED QUITE A BIT. And it still didn’t work. But i thandheim for being in my ear to deviate from what i know best. There’s one song betty singles Early on Where she just wants to be an ordinary person for a day. Its Called “Ordinary Day.” I like it we’ve we’ve already estabished i’m pretty schmaltzy with my music. Rolling Stone Called with “The King of Bombastic Pop Kitsch.” Some of the songs in Boop! Are Pretty Big, but “Ordinary Day” is a song that a Little quirky and a Little Edgy. The melody is a little different.

Egotistically, i wanten to work a score where you could have been pin -down. It has been 100 years ago or it is could have been tomorrow. Not to say “Top 40” Tomorrow, but that you cannture quite guess the time frame. IT’S LIKE ARCHITECTURE – SOMESTEMES IN A BUILDING, you can’t tell when it was built. WHO KNOWS WHATER I SUCCEEDED OR NOT.

I knew Enough About Broadway to be Dangerous, but swim Enough to be great. Listened to South pacific and Oklahoma! fairly Frequently. Listened to Wicked Becusee of Think Stephen Schwartz Did A Brilliant Job. I’ve Become Friends with Ben Pase and Justin Paul, The Two Guys Who Wrote The Greatest Showman and Dear Evan Hansen. Their stuff is so clean and so good. I ALSO LISTENED TO THE MUSIC From Smash Becusee My Wife, Katharine McPhee, was in the television show. I love Marc Shaiman and his song “Let me be your star.”

My wife gets so annoyed becuse she’ll get in my car and i’m blading miles davis. I’m Also Heavily Influenched by Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson, Both great jazz pianists. There was a period in my life, from age 13 to 20, where i really though i was going to be a jazz musical. But i just wasn’t good enough. Just like I wasn’t good enough to be a great classical pianist. I’ve always love jazz and marveled at it, and i wish i could play like those guys, but i can’t. Between the Likes of Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock, I Did A Lot of Listening. That’s where i was able to come up with Boop!‘S “I Speak Jazz” and “My New York.” Admittedly, More’s More in the Broadway Jazz Style. IT’s swimming true jazz. Its palatable for the masses. I’m not fooling mySelf into thinking that i’ve come up with a john colorrane standard, but those artists came right to the forefront of my head Boop!.

Songs get thrown out at the last minute. We’re Opening Tomorrow Night. “Yeah, but that song sucks, so you got to write a new song in a few hours.” It was like that “Where is betty?” We had another ACT two opening song in a different style. In chicago, where we did our previews, it just never workhed. I WOULD SIT THERE NIGHT AFTER NIGHT GOING, “God, are they going to keep this?” They kept it for a while, and thatn, at the end of the chicago Run and when we started rehearsing for New York, Jerry was like, “that song has got to go.” I was happy he made the decision, but of Course means a lot of extra work. I tried to write another song. Jerry Said, “No, That Song’s No Good Eoth.” He actually sat down with me with a tape recorder and said, “This is how I how I feel the song.” He Proceeded to Give with A Nonsissensical Sort of Scatting, But it All Made Sense. Boop Boop a Doop. I took his template. I guess i is here here-and i’ll never give it to him-but theoretically, he shoulder be a co-writer on the song becuse he gave with the rhythms.

The Opening Song, “A Little Versatility,” by Wrote About Ten Years Ago. I SAW BETTY BEING VULNERABLE IN THE GRENNING AND THEN BUSTING OUT FOR THE REST OF THE SONG. In my pop music, i’ve always tried to make moments where the audience goes “yeah!” in the middle of the songs. The extreme examples would be cries I WORKED ON “I Will Always Love You” with Whitney Houston and “All by MySelf” with Celine Dion. It Stops, there’s the Weight, and boom. That’s a moment I created in the songs – imagination the audience to be Jump to therment when it is happy and they actually will. With Boop!‘s’ a little versatility,’ i tried to have those moments when the audience would be gasp and applaud. I’m also a sucker for Key Changes. There’s About Three Key Changes in that Song, and it adds to the excitement. There’s a song in the Second Act, the 11 O’Clock Number, Called “Something to Shout About.” I absolutely imagined that of was writing and making a record for céline or barbor. I still have a dream that one of the will one day one day.