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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now, the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the second of a three-part tribute to Richard Rodgers, who famously collaborated both with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers is perhaps best known as the composer for such shows as Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, and Carousel. This program originally aired in 1984. Mainly today, we're paying tribute to Richard Rodgers five years to the day after his death. I scoured my collection of tapes and found Dorothy Fields reminiscing about a very young Richard Rodgers at camp.

[0:51] Dorothy Fields: I wasn't the first lyricist in the family. Herbert Fields and Richard Rodgers were counselors at Camp Paradox. I think it was on Scroon Lake. Dick, age 18, was the swimming counselor and Herbert, 23, the dramatic counselor. There was a camper named Ovid Rose. Get that name, O-V-I-D Rose. All summer, Dick tried to get him to swim as far as the raft. The day before the farewell banquet, Ovid made it. Herbie and Dick had to have a song about that camp-shaking event and this is it. O stands for Ovid who swam to the raft. V stands for why did he swim to the raft. I stands for I who seen him swim to the raft. D stands for did you seen him swim to the raft. R stands for the raft out to which Ovid swam. O stands for Ovid who swam to the raft. S stands for swimming to the raft. And E stands for excellency in swimming to the raft.

[2:08] Paul Lazarus: Dorothy Fields at the 92nd Street Y reminiscing about Richard Rodgers, the subject of today's edition of Anything Goes. I'm also grateful to Ira Weitzman for providing me with several tapes including a conversation held with Arnold Michaelis in 1957, both with Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers. And here, Arnold is speaking with Oscar Hammerstein about his earliest recollections of Dick Rodgers.

[2:43] Arnold Michaelis: Oscar, let's go way back in your memory for a moment. What are your earliest recollections of Dick Rodgers? When did you first meet him?

[2:51] Oscar Hammerstein II: Well, Dick Rodgers I met as the kid brother of Morty Rodgers who was a contemporary of mine at Columbia University. And Dick came around one day to see a matinee of the Varsity Show in which I was a leading comedian. And that's my first memory of him, a little boy with very dark eyes and in short pants, as I remember. When I tell Dick this story, he claims that he was very in long pants by that time.

[3:16] Arnold Michaelis: It's a question of perspective, I guess.

[3:18] Oscar Hammerstein II: Yes, I suppose.

[3:20] Arnold Michaelis: You've been quoted as saying this about him since you bring up the question of his short pants, that behind the sometimes too serious face of an extraordinarily talented composer, I see a dark-eyed little boy in short pants.

[3:32] Oscar Hammerstein II: Yes, that's right. I wrote that in the introduction to the Rodgers and Hart songbook. And that memory stays with me. And I can still see that little boy in Dick. And sometimes it helps me to see that. If he seems, if he has a very worried look on his face, I know that underneath is that little boy.

[3:50] Arnold Michaelis: What about the Columbia Varsity Show of 1920? That show was famous because it brought you and Dick together professionally for the first and only time until 20 years later. Do you remember the song from that Columbia Varsity Show that you and Dick collaborated on?

[4:04] Oscar Hammerstein II: Well, the song we wrote was, There's Always Room for One More. All the other songs were written, the lyrics were written by Larry Hart, but this one lyric of mine was interpolated, and I wrote this with Dick. I forget just how it got in, although I do remember that I was a judge who accepted the show. I may have forced it as kind of a bribe.

[4:23] Arnold Michaelis: Do you think you still remember it?

[4:24] Oscar Hammerstein II: I think I do. My heart is an airy castle filled with girls I adore. My brain is a cloud of memories of peaches galore. There was Jane and Molly and Ruth and Sue, Camilla, Kit, and Patricia, too. My heart is filled to the brim with you, but there's always room for one more.

[4:46] Arnold Michaelis: I'm back at Columbia University in 1920.

[4:49] Oscar Hammerstein II: Certainly 1920.

[4:51] Oscar Hammerstein II: Your sweet little things, your sweet little things, the only things that make the world worthwhile. For money and fame, and empty games, there's not too bad to make a wishing star. My heart is an airy castle filled with girls I adore. My brain is a cloud of memories of peaches galore. There was Jane and Molly and Ruth and Sue, Camilla, Kit, and Patricia, too. Our hearts are filled to the brim with you, but there's always room for one more.

[5:47] Oscar Hammerstein II: I've lived quite a lot.

[5:48] Arnold Michaelis: We've heard it said.

[5:49] Oscar Hammerstein II: But happy I'm not.

[5:50] Arnold Michaelis: Why don't you read?

[5:51] Oscar Hammerstein II: A disappointment. Who am I?

[5:56] Oscar Hammerstein II: My heaven is in the room I am.

[5:59] Arnold Michaelis: By old mark I am.

[6:01] Oscar Hammerstein II: We've heard of that.

[6:02] Arnold Michaelis: For such a paradise, I fain would try.

[6:09] Oscar Hammerstein II: A jug and a loaf's the vow a girl is all I am for. But my little list of loves increases steadily a score. They would always drive in figures through.

[6:25] Arnold Michaelis: You have to purchase a papery, too.

[6:28] Oscar Hammerstein II: A forest of vows would shelter you for there's always room for one more.

[6:36] Paul Lazarus: Daniel Frank from the Columbia University production of Fly With Me with an orchestration by Bruce Pomahak and a very early Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein collaboration. In fact, the only one in that show, which was predominantly the work of Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers. Featuring today Rodgers' rarities and fresh recordings of songs that you may know, this being the case with our next song from Dearest Enemy, 1925, Rodgers and Hart score. This from the new Book of the Month Club recording called Songs of New York, a song entitled Where the Hudson River Flows, featuring the work of Meg Bussard and George S. Irving.

[7:27] ♪ Musical number: "Where the Hudson River Flows" — performed by Meg Bussard and George S. Irving ♪

[10:15] Richard Rodgers: In 1957, speaking with Arnold Michaelis, I explained how Lorenz Hart and I came to write the standard "My Heart Stood Still." We got this title when we were almost in a taxi accident with a couple of girls in Paris. One of the girls said, "Oh, My Heart Stood Still," and Larry said, "That's a very good song title." Of course, I wanted to kill him. This is a very near miss. But I was so shocked by his thinking of business at a time like that that I made a note of it. And then when we got to London a few weeks later, I found this note in a little black book. Without saying anything to Larry, I wrote the tune. I called Larry in, you see, and I said, "Here's the tune for that title of yours." He said, "What title?" And I said, "My Heart Stood Still." He said, "Oh, that's very good." I said, "Sure, Liz, it's yours." And I played the tune for him. He thought the tune was fine and then wrote the rest of the lyric.

[11:44] ♪ Musical number: "My Heart Stood Still" — performed by Dick Foran ♪

[13:17] Richard Rodgers: That song was originally written for a London show, "One Damn Thing After Another," in 1927. And you're, of course, listening to a tribute to Richard Rodgers. Back to the Arnold Michaelis interview with Richard Rodgers in 1957. Well, now this borders on a subject that you kidded quite a bit in an article you wrote some years ago for Theatre Arts Monthly. Do you remember on the question of inspiration that so many people asked you about how you were inspired to write all these beautiful melodies? And you rather pooh-poohed the popular concept of inspiration.

[13:54] Richard Rodgers: Hmm, which I do today. You know, you fall in love. Or at five o'clock one night. And you don't sleep all that night and you bounce up out of bed and grab a pencil and do something deathless. I don't believe it. I think this is a phony word.

[14:10] Arnold Michaelis: You mean inspiration?

[14:14] Richard Rodgers: Yes. Encompasses too much. It says too much and says nothing. It's lost its meaning. All right, let's look at it from the standpoint of this meaning. The term inspiration not only has to do with the reception of heavenly gifts, as we might define it, it also has to do with breathing. Well, it's the drawing in of air. All right. Can you relate the drawing in to the problem of doing it?

[14:39] Richard Rodgers: Yes, I can relate the drawing in, but the connotation of the word inspiration today means the giving out. It means the composition, whether it's on canvas or whether it's on a piece of paper. It's almost come to mean something divine, something occult, something over which we have no control. I don't believe this. I think if you express something over which you have no control, you have no art. You know the best definition of art there is. It's the expression of an emotion by means of a technique.

[15:10] Paul Lazarus: You're listening to Anything Goes with Paul Lazarus. Today, part two of a tribute to Richard Rodgers, focusing on his work with Lorenz Hart. Here's a song they wrote for the 1926 show, "Peggy Ann."

[15:49] ♪ Musical number: "A Tree in the Park" — performed by Kim Criswell and Chris Gronendahl ♪

[19:28] Richard Rodgers: "A Tree in the Park" from the 1926 Rodgers and Hart show "Peggy Ann," featuring Kim Criswell and Chris Gronendahl. That from the new Book of the Month Club recording. "Peggy Ann," according to the note provided by John Glenn, broke new ground for Rodgers and Hart as well as for the American musical. It was an experimental, surrealistic musical in which a scullery maid, Peggy Ann, played by Helen Ford, falls asleep and dreams of all the fabulous adventures that she will never be part of. It ran for 333 performances, which was astonishing in '26, particularly being so experimental. Here's several more Rodgers and Hart tunes, hopefully versions you've not heard before.

[20:08] ♪ Musical number ♪

[20:30] ♪ Musical number: "It's Easy to Remember" — performed by Bing Crosby ♪

[21:40] ♪ Musical number: "I've Gotta Get Back to New York" — performed by David Garrison and Wardell Woodard ♪

[22:54] ♪ Musical number: "The Lady is a Tramp" — performed by Teddy Lynch ♪

[24:52] ♪ Musical number: "Way Out West on West End Avenue" — performed by Ann Morrison ♪

[29:13] Paul Lazarus: Several Rodgers and Hart songs. You heard "It's Easy to Remember" featuring Bing Crosby from the movie *Mississippi* in 1935. Then once again from the Book of the Month Club recording, you heard David Garrison playing Al Jolson's role and Wardell Woodard as Acorn singing "I've Gotta Get Back to New York" from *Hallelujah I'm a Bum Again*, a 1933 film. Then Teddy Lynch from a very rare Liberty Music Shop recording singing "The Lady is a Tramp" and another song from *Babes in Arms*, "Way Out West on West End Avenue," featuring Ann Morrison, also from that Book of the Month Club collection.

[30:05] Paul Lazarus: You've been listening to a tribute to Richard Rodgers, Part Two. Associate Producer Jeff Lunden. *Anything Goes: Backstage with Broadway's Best* is produced and hosted by Paul Lazarus. For more information, visit anythinggospl.com. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.