Fanny Brice (1891-1951) - Straight From The Heart
I was curious about the original of 'My Man' - it was sung by Fanny Brice in the 'Ziegfeld Follies' of 1921.
Blew my socks off!
The period sentimentality of the arrangement and style of singing was irradiated away by being sung so honestly straight from the heart - the intimate almost-just-talking towards the end is particularly powerful and affecting. I think.
So I looked for other things and found, in a complete change of pace, the next clip, more in the vein of ...
... in which Fanny Brice does a 'cuckoo, swan wanna be' number in the film 'Be Yourself' (Barbara Streisand did somewhat of a re-make of this in 'Funny Girl' as everyone knows) ...
Finally, a satire on an opera singer ...
... which would get the crowd going, super big time ... in any gay club I've ever known!
On radio in the 40s, she was Baby Snooks whose brother, Robespierre, talked gibberish that only she could understand. I mean...Robespierre!
ReplyDeletehey jason
ReplyDeleteyeah, i think the photo captures the zany side of fanny brice - which had many guises.
must search out some of the Baby Snooks stuff - i know there's a lot on YouTube
good to hear from you!
nick
As a kid, I used to listen to the Baby Snooks show every week - it came as quite a shock to me when I found out it was actually a grown woman - I have an old LP album from the 50s that was Fanny singing torch songs - it was a whole other side to her talent
ReplyDeletehey anon
ReplyDeletei know what you mean - curiously (and slightly differently) there was a guy on radio here who was known as the 'man with a thousand faces' cos he could conjure them up in the audience's mind with his voice - but when his face became known (when he moved to tv) he was down to one and his career evaporated!
did you like the opera singer satire - thought it was funny in a the wancky streisand kind of way
take care
nick
Was "My Man" originally a French song? I've heard it sung in that language and it works superbly - like a Piaf torch song.
ReplyDeletehey victor
ReplyDeleteyes it was - 'mon homme' as you'd expect. it was composed in 1920 by four guys (Jacques Charles, Channing Pollack, Albert Willemetz and Maurice Yvain) and then used the next year in the follies with brice singing it
take care
nick