Album Review: CRYER & FORD HIDDEN TREASURES, 1967-2020 Represents Past Glories & Present Triumphs From Musical Theatre's First Feminist Team

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow readers, welcome back to Bobby's CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week's album entry in the BobbyFiles, my dearlings, comes from an inimitable musical theatre writing pair, Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford, two of the first women musical makers to break through as a team on the order of ... well all the male pairs that came before them. Having made their first mark in 1967 with their Off-The-Broadway produced musical NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN, which ran 111 performances, the way was paved for a female writing duo to stand up and be counted, and, so, they did with their very next endeavor - THE LAST SWEET DAYS OF ISAAC, a show that starred theatre legend Austin Pendleton in the titular role where he won an Obie Award. Fast forward to the present day and Pendleton provides this album's very intelligent forward. ISAAC, having premiered in 1970 was an early entry in the rock musicals of the decade, only this one was by two women. This time C&F's efforts more than quadrupled the run of GOOD MEN, and they gained enough attention before the decade's close to land a slot at the most prestigious of all the East Village theatres, The Public, and at a moment in the 70s when Joe Papp was at the peak of his powers. The Public was THE place for a female writing team to produce the first-ever feminist musical, I'M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD, one of the most enduring and empowering Off-The-Broadway musicals of all time, and an unqualified hit that ran from '78 - '81 with over 1100 performances. It ran long enough that, after the original cast that included Cryer herself in the lead role of Heather, the role saw the likes of Cryer's pal, Nancy Ford, Betty Buckley, Betty's fellow 1776 alum Virginia Vestoff, Phyllis Newman, and the creators' colleague, fellow female composer of BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE, Carol Hall, rotate into the show. The albums for ISAAC and GETTING MY ACT... are readily available in the streaming sphere, and, for many years, were staples of brave theatres not afraid to send C&F's feminist, anti-war messages out into the world. Through the years, for Cyer & Ford, there have been more musicals, lots more songs, and a show on The-Broadway titled SHELTER. This brings us to the reason Bobby has called you all here today... CRYER & FORD HIDDEN TREASURES, 1967-2020.

This 3-disc/66 track collection brings together a few recordings from the past with more recent live and studio cuts that include the full scores to SHELTER, the team's first and only Broadway endeavor, the GETTING MY ACT sequel STILL GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER, and THE FABULOUS PARTY (or ELEANOR), a "musical fantasy" about Eleanor Roosevelt, who else? Peppered in amongst these full-score recordings are songs from GETTING & STILL GETTING MY ACT..., LAST SWEET DAYS..., and NOW IS THE TIME... with much of this work having not been available in the main, and certainly not all in one place, until this collection. Not that they have in anyway been idle since the ladies have performed their own works, put together evenings, and given lovely, bite-sized samples here and there in NYC, but this collection gathers up so many of the roses in the Cryer & Ford garden that it is easily designated THE ESSENTIAL Cryer & Ford. Part of what is essential is the time capsule it provides, since we get to hear the duo from back in the day and today, side by side. Yes, they are to the shadier side of 4 score years now, and while voices have aged, they still wrap themselves around songs bravely and with abandon. Their vocals are still tuneful and heartfelt and... well, womanly. The rest of the singers in the present-day recordings may also rank as senior members of the profession, but there ain't no pro like an old pro, my dearlings.

Now, about the collection... Highlights from this enormous library include: Disc 2's CHANGE DOESN'T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT, which features Gretchen & Nancy playing and singing together, as well as performing the scene-lets between musical verses of this feminist timeline song following a mom and her daughter. This composition tells the story of a single mom working too hard to work hard at the feminist movement. Wanting to empower her daughter, she is continually choosing the cause over their home, until her little girl is grown and is, now, free to be anything she wants, but what she wants is to be a stay-at-home mom and not a singing astrophysicist. This is followed by HERE TO SAY I LOVE YOU - Gretchen and David Ippolito sing a mother's song TO her daughter. Like her pal, the late great Carol Hall, GC's story-from-the-heart lyrics is where her words really shine. They move characters forward in ways that take the audience with them, and married to Ford's soulful notes, this time with a slight country/folk feel, the song goes right to the heart. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX is a funny novelty song of older (65+) women looking for someone inappropriate/younger... but not too young. If Robert Redford is unavailable, someone 45, who is slightly off, mentally, perhaps like Geoffrey Rush in the movie SHINE - this is really funny and features Gretchen singing with Andrea Frierson and Heather MacRea... And speaking of Heather MacRea: her silky, lyrical voice on the gorgeous ballad EASY LOVE (RANDY) stood out amongst the many solos in this collection. There is a real tear in MacRae's voice, reminiscent of the 60s/70s pop singers Bobby grew up listening to, so we had to love her.

We could go on plucking at songs from this library for pages and pages, but that would serve no one, not even this rainbow writer. We do have to pluck just one more, though: in recent years, the ladies have written a musical titled THE FABULOUS PARTY/ELEANOR about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt in her afterlife. Basically, Mrs. R. has passed and is up there with the likes of Franklin and her cousin Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Cryer), who is throwing her the fab fete referenced in the title, where Longworth is parading the scenes of the first lady's life in review. The song A FEELING IN MY CHEST employs the talents of Cryer & Ford's old pal Austin Pendleton (LAST SWEET DAYS OF ISAAC) as Einstein and Gretchen's former husband, David Cryer. AP's voice is filled with anxiety, as he works to make time travel a thing so they can change things that went wrong, even though they are all deceased. It's funny, fast, and feels like a "novelty" number at first but, as the words and music spin the listener around with science babble and universal theory, it becomes a discovery of life's purpose in the afterlife. Pendleton is so excited about changing the past, making things right, and making the world a better place, and is doing what he does best - filling his pleasantly aged voice with the kind of raw nerve that pulls the listener in.

There is so much on this album that makes it well worth the time and expense to have it in our collections. Disc 1 delivers the score to SHELTER and Disc 3 is dedicated to THE FABULOUS PARTY/ELEANOR (for the most part), bringing together a collection of wonderful songs and equally wonderful singers. We hope that CRYER & FORD HIDDEN TREASURES, 1967-2020 will wind up in your streams because ...

This one gets 4 Out Of 5 Rainbows

Put CRYER & FORD HIDDEN TREASURES, 1967-2020 In Your Spotifies: HERE

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