Here At Last

There are days that Lynda Carter still feels like Wonder Woman, her well-known TV alter ego, and one of those was earlier this month when she discovered that her new jazz-tinged CD At Last
had hit the Billboard charts. “As someone who started out as a singer, it’s always been a dream to be on the Billboard chart,” says Carter. “When I found out, I just danced around my room for a minute.”

At Last shows off Carter’s supple vocalizing on a host of standards, ranging from Cloudburst to Summertime, James Taylor’s The Secret of Life, Where Did Our Love Go, and the title tune, all of which she’s performed in various nightclub acts and concert venues. Her song selection, while eclectic, is always based on what speaks to her — whether it’s the melody or the lyric. “It’s really about the whole vision of the story I’m trying to tell,” says Carter.

She first began planning the CD when she returned to nightclub singing in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, and did some studio recordings there — and then further developed the CD after meeting up with producer John Carter Cash in Nashville. “I liked the more open sound John brought to arrangements,” she says. “I’m always afraid that things can sound a bit monochromatic in recordings.”

As it happens Carter originally envisioned a career as a singer, but that part of her life has been on the back burner for a long while. “When I started acting, people told not to tell directors I could sing,” she says. “And then once I became famous as an actress, people saw me as an actor who wanted to sing rather than a singer. Then, once I had my kids, I didn’t want to be on the road doing shows. But I love live performing, especially because I get to be with other people on stage. There’s not that same kind of interaction when you do television.”

Not surprisingly, Carter has already started thinking about another CD, although what songs will end up on it are still to be determined. “There are so many songs I want try out, but I have to see if there’s a special way I want to do them,” she says. “For example, I vowed to never sing ‘The Look of Love’ again after having done it in so many lounge acts; but one day, I was listening to this flamenco guitarist, and I came up with a new and sexy way to sing it. So you never know.”

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Neil Bartram and Brian Hill are the first to admit how lucky they are that their small-scale musical The Story of My Life
has been preserved on CD (by PS Classics), especially considering its Broadway run lasted exactly 24 performances (counting previews). Still, if they could have recorded all 90 minutes of the show, it would’ve been pure perfection.

“One reason we wanted a record of the show was to entice other people into doing productions,” says Hill, the show’s book writer. “We’re already getting emails from people who only know the show from this CD and they love it.” Yet, as composer-lyricist Bartram notes, the challenge of what to fit in just 70 minutes was somewhat daunting for the pair. “It was bit like our version of Sophie’s Choice,” he says. “And we actually wondered if listeners would indulge in any kind of dialogue at all — but we wanted to give a complete picture of the show, not just a collection of its songs.”

Two songs from the score attracted the lion’s share of attention on Broadway — and the CD is only likely to enhance their appeal. The first, “Mrs. Remington,” a great story-song about an influential teacher, is sung by the bookish Alvin (played by Malcolm Gets), while the second one, “The Butterfly,” is sung by the writer Thomas (played by Will Chase).

“We actually discussed cutting that song when we were out-of-town, and our director, Richard Maltby, had a lot to do with making it indispensable to the show. We really needed it for Thomas to show his growth as an artist,” says Bartram. “But it still works out of context — and I am always shocked that one of my songs can be done out of context, because I never think about how a song is going to live outside a show.”

Bartram isn’t taking all the credit for the song’s popularity, however. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Will really nails the song,” he notes. “I’ve never written a song for a specific actor, although sometimes I imagine someone’s voice while I’m writing. That wasn’t true here, but Malcolm and Will ended up being as close to my dream cast as any two people I could imagine.”