Will Holt

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Will Holt (born April 30, 1929 in Portland (Maine) , † May 31, 2015 in Los Angeles ) was an American singer-songwriter , librettist and songwriter . He was first and foremost known as a folk performer in the 1950s when he made early and influential recordings of songs such as Sinner Man and Lemon Tree , for which he wrote the English lyrics. He later became known as an interpreter of the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and made significant contributions to Broadway theater in the 1970s .

Life

Will Holt was born in Portland, Maine , but grew up in North Bridgton and took piano lessons as a child. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Williams College, and then studied with the folk singer Richard Dyer-Bennet at the School for American Minstrels in Aspen, Colorado . Around 1950 he toured Europe by motorcycle , collecting folk songs and performing in music clubs before returning to do his military service in the US Air Force . After he married the singer and actress Dolly Jonah (1930-1983), with whom he also performed and recorded, they settled in the West Village , Manhattan . He sang regularly in clubs in New York City , St. Louis , Las Vegas and elsewhere, recorded his first LP The World of Will Holt for the Coral label in the mid-1950s , and later released on various record labels including Elektra , Stinson and Atlantic .

In the 1950s and 1960s he was primarily known as a folk singer and interpreter of songs by other authors, including songs by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in performances and recordings with the soprano Martha Schlamme . His 1956 recording of Sinner Man with the Les Baxter Orchestra was the first version of this song under this title, although it is based on an older spiritual , and was the template for later recordings by The Weavers and Nina Simone , for example . His song Lemon Tree from 1957 added an English text to the Brazilian folk song Meu limão, meu limoeiro , and was later u. a. Recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary , The Kingston Trio , The Seekers , Sandie Shaw and Trini Lopez . Holt also wrote the song Raspberries, Strawberries , which was recorded by the Kingston Trio in 1960. This song has partially French lyrics.

In 1963, his off-Broadway show The World of Kurt Weill in Song , which he performed with Martha Schlamme, was an unexpected success with the critics and at the box office, which opened up a new audience for him, and through which he began composing von Brecht and Weill was associated. He also wrote one-act plays and short pieces that were performed off-Broadway, including 1965 That 5 AM Jazz . In the same year he wrote a tribute show for Leonard Bernstein's incidental music. His Broadway debut was the 1969 musical Come Summer , which was panned by the critics, but had success with The Me Nobody Knows , which was based on stories written by New York children. The show ran for nearly a year and earned him the Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Musical Writer and a Tony nomination for Best Lyrics.

In 1974 Holt wrote the book for the musical Over Here! for two of the Andrews Sisters , a nostalgic look at the home front in WWII , with songs contributed by the Sherman Brothers . The following year he co-wrote, with singer and actress Linda Hopkins , on the revue Me and Bessie, about the life and career of Bessie Smith . In 1976 he worked with George Abbott and Richard Adler on Music Is , an adaptation of William Shakespeare's What You Want . He also wrote the lyrics for the 1978 musical Platinum , which features Alexis Smith as a movie star trying to make a comeback as a rock singer. His last Broadway project was the 1979 revival of A Kurt Weill Cabaret , in which he both appeared and translated some of the lyrics. In 1988 he won the Los Angeles Dramalogue Critics Award for A Walk on the Wild Side , a musical based on Nelson Algren 's novel of the same name. JFK: A Musical Drama was produced in 1997 in Dublin , Ireland .

Holt died on May 31, 2015 in Los Angeles at the age of 86 from complications from Alzheimer's disease .

Discography

  • The World of Will Holt (Coral, 1957)
  • The Exciting Artistry of Will Holt (Elektra, 1959)
  • Pills To Purge Melancholy (Stinson, 1959)
  • On the Brink (with Dolly Jonah) (Atlantic, 1961)
  • A Will Holt Concert (Stinson, 1963)
  • A Kurt Weill Cabaret (with Martha Schlamme) (MGM, 1963)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Colin W. Sargent, "Music Man - Songwriter Will Holt," Portland Monthly , 2013 , accessed July 23, 2015
  2. ↑ a b Will Holt at Allmusic (English)
  3. ↑ a b c d e Will Holt, Obituary, Los Angeles Times , June 6, 2015 , accessed July 23, 2015
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Bruce Weber, "Will Holt, Who Wrote 'Lemon Tree' and for the Musical Stage, Dies at 86", New York Times , June 4, 2015 , accessed July 23, 2015
  5. ^ "Sinner Man", The Originals ( Memento from June 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Get, Will
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holt, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer-songwriter, librettist and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Portland (Maine)
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 2015
Place of death los Angeles