This is the second part of my recent conversation with author Thomas Hischak regarding his new book, Song Of The Season — Outstanding Broadway Songs Since 1891.
In this captivating book, Hischak looks back at the history of the Broadway musical by chronicling of every New York theater season from 1891 to 2022 and then audaciously selecting one single song as the song of that particular season. To facilitate this discussion, I selected one or two songs from each decade covered in the book for us to discuss.
On this music-filled episode, we begin in 1938 with “September Song” from Knickerbocker Holiday and continue with his admittedly controversial selection of “I Enjoy Being A Girl” from Flower Drum Song (1958), “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound Of Music (1959), a mind-blowing leap of only seven years to “Aquarius” from Hair (1968), and on through “All that Jazz” from Chicago (1975), “The Lambeth Walk” from Me And My Girl (1986), the title song from Ragtime (1998), "Omar Sharif" from The Band’s Visit (2017), and the title song from Some Like It Hot (2022).
Thomas Hischak retired from full time teaching in New York State and now teaches theatre part-time at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, USA. He is the author of over 30 non-fiction books on theatre, film and popular music.
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