BOOK REVIEW: Bruce Kimmel’s Album Produced By…
For anyone who’s wondered what it’s like putting together an original cast recording or a vocalist’s CD, Bruce Kimmel’s new memoir, Album Produced By…, provides a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of this aspect of the recording industry.
The book charts Kimmel’s arrival in the business in 1993, with a brief stint at Bay Cities before he began conceptualizing and producing musical theater-related recordings for the Varese Sarabande label (such as Unsung Sondheim and Liz Callaway‘s Anywhere I Wander) through to his creation of his personal Kritzerland label. In the process, he provides terrific details about the personalities involved with many of these recordings.
His choice anecdotes include ones about Elaine Stritch, who’s heard on his studio recording of the Broadway flop Drat! The Cat!, Carol Channing, with whom he worked while recording the cast album for her 1990s tour of Hello, Dolly!, Donna Murphy, whose performance in the Broadway revival of The King and I is preserved on a Kimmel-produced disc, and Stephen Sondheim, a frequent collaborator and supporter of Kimmel’s, including the jazz albums from The Trotter Trio based on the songwriter’s work.
It’s all breezy, chatty, and filled with an exceptional generosity of spirit. What may impress most is that Kimmel has the ability to not only make the technical details of producing an album readily accessible to a layperson, but also the knack to make his tales of celebrities’ foibles or shortcomings sound factual, rather than bitchy.
Further, as many of the personalities with whom Kimmel worked have since passed away, it is heartwarming to read his accounts of working with such late, great Broadway performers as Laurie Beechman and Dorothy Loudon.
Kimmel proves a bit more cutting in his assessments of business deals that have soured during his life in the music industry. He does not shy away from critical assessments of both his colleagues at Varese and of the individuals who helped found the short-lived Fynsworth Alley label.
But even when his fortunes take a turn for the worse, Kimmel’s spirit remains committed to the music he so clearly adores. Indeed, what ultimately, may make this book most fun are the details that he provides about the concepts for songs on the albums he’s produced. It’s a bit like reading the director’s commentary that’s now part of any film’s release on DVD.
Above all, many readers will simply find themselves reaching for Kimmel’s recordings as they go through this highly enjoyable book.
Click here for more information and to buy Album Produced By…
