Customer Reviews

Frank Loesser (Yale Broadway Masters Series)

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This book is just the biography Frank Loesser deserves. It analyzes his wonderful music very thoroughly, as well as his lyrics, which were always conversational and always expertly crafted.
However, he book does not get all that in depth regarding Mr. Loesser's personal life, which was certainly colorful being that he worked with talents such as Cy Feuer, Bob Fosse and most importantly, Abe Burrows as well as mentoring up and coming songwriters such as Jerry Herman, Richard Adler, Meredith Wilson and Stephen Sondheim. However, not conetrating on that very much doesn't make the book bad. The analyisis of his work makes up for it in spades. I can hardly wait for the other titles in this Yale Broadway Masters series to be released as Kander and Ebb, Kurt Weill and the other songwriters who will be written about in future volumes deserve equally exceptional biographies.

This book was awkwardly organized and makes what had to be an interesting life sound sort of academic. The writer has no gift for anecdote and no flair. There are lots of absorbing show business biographies out there and this isn't one of them.

There were only two reviews here to guide me and one loved the book, while the other was disappointed and now I have to tip the scale toward the disappointed end. I was looking forward to a book that would compliment Susan Loesser's bio on her father and perhaps give some more pertinent professional and creative information, but what I got was a mostly boring academic study of only a few of his shows by an academic who seems to have never really SEEN any of this show or have a real sense of the Broadway landscape during the period. I was turned off early by the author's assertion that Guys and Dolls is set in the 1920's when it was clearly a contemporary show at the time set in 1950 when it was produced. Miss Adelaide distinctly sing in Take Back Your Mink about "late '48". How could the show be in the 20's? Take a look at the photos and you can see the style of dress. But that is a small point which only proves that the author is quoting other books and not really knowledgeable about his subject. I was totally bored with the musical examples and found myself skimming those chapters. Knowing all the songs and shows well, I was hoping for some kind of background not found in other books or at least a brilliant analysis of Loesser's work. I did enjoy it on a superficial level and it has made me go and listen to all my Frank Loesser records and cd's and re-explore his complete lyric book, but it is not an essential book and I fear for the rest of the series if books are being assigned to this kind of "academic" writer, rather than a true writer with an affinity for musical theatre or at least someone with a tasty sense of what was wonderful and fun. Now, the question is do I buy others in this series and hope for the best...hmmm....