Interview: Amanda McBroom of the New Single SEND IN THE CLOWNS

Amanda McBroom is adored and admired by many in the music industry... by singers who perform her songs, by audiences who enjoy her shows, by colleagues who share in her artistry, by friends who crave her company, and while all that adoration is acknowledged by the singer-songwriter, it often isn't understood. It turns out that Amanda McBroom is one of those sweetly humble artists of show business who blushes when her accomplishments are mentioned and giggles when she is complimented - a refreshing reaction to get from an icon, to say the least. Boy, she would hate that I just called her an icon, but right now many people reading this are nodding their heads because they agree that Amanda McBroom is an icon - she just doesn't know it.

With a career spanning more than four decades, Ms. McBroom skyrocketed to fame by writing the lyrics and the music to a little song titled "The Rose" and she has not stopped working since. Well, she did get the last year off... for obvious reasons. Her original dream of acting was a little sidelined by her music writing, but not entirely, and she has had many opportunities to embody characters in musicals written by legendary Broadway composers. It is the songwriting, though, that has kept her busiest, as she has written songs for herself and others to perform on the concert and cabaret stages of the world. Amanda has shared a partnership with equally beloved and brilliant songwriter Michele Brourman for a few years and, together, they have composed theme songs for some twenty-ish animated feature films.

These days, though, Amanda is celebrating the release of a gorgeous new single, a fresh arrangement of the Stephen Sondheim classic "Send In The Clowns." The recording, created a few years ago but hidden from view for a time, brings Amanda together with Ms. Brourman and Stephan Oberhoff and has been released as a tribute to the legendary composer in celebration of his ninety-first birthday, an occasion that has had all of Broadway raising their voices in recent memory. Longing to hear about the new release and how an actress of her stature approaches a song that everyone has sung, I got on the phone with Amanda for a lengthy chat, most of which is featured below. What isn't featured below, heartbreakingly, is the sound of Amanda McBroom's laughter - one of the sweetest sounds on earth. If, indeed, Amanda McBroom released a CD just of her laughing, it might just be her biggest seller yet, because that laugh is music for every day.

This interview has been edited for space and content.

Hello!

Hi Amanda! How are things out there? Are the vaccines rolling out fast enough for everybody?

They're not rolling out fast enough for everybody; it's still inequitable but it's better than it was. My husband and I, and all our dear friends seem to be covered right now, so hooray for us, but I ache for everybody else.

They've broadened the restrictions here, so we're getting more people covered here.

Good! You know, there are so many people here who are in service, whether it's restaurants or agricultural. There are so many people working in the strawberry fields and they are essential workers!

It's true. The strawberry and avocado workers are essential, we need them.

They certainly are.

Speaking of essential workers... teachers are essential. You and Michele have been teaching quite a lot of teaching lately; how is that going?

Oh, we have a wonderful time! We teach songwriting and we are working with the Society of Composers and Lyricists mentoring some of the young film composers, which is incredibly exciting, about writing for animation because Michele and I have done, whoo!, nineteen or twenty animated features so far. We're loving the teaching - it's so inspiring and we learn so much from the young artists, whoever they may be, however old they may be. It keeps our chops up and keeps us responsible. We LOVE it.

Had you done a lot of teaching prior to this?

I've taught performance quite a bit but I've never taught songwriting, so this season seemed to be about the songwriting aspect of things, which I enjoyed greatly. And working with Michele is always amazing because she's so smart. She's by far the smart person of our duo.

(Laughing) I'm sure she would say that about you.

(Laughing) Well, she'd be lying! (Laughing)

There is a Stephen Sondheim song called "Children and Art"...

Yes.

...that talks about the philosophy of what's important to leave behind when we die.

Yes.

As an artist and as a teacher, has the last year given you any insights into that dogma?

Oh boy. You know how we were talking about essential workers? To me, artists are essential workers. The fact that we... well, I will include myself, although I'm not sure how much of an artist I am.... Really fine artists help us focus, bring us hope when there's despair, help us analyze what is going on, help us try to figure out what is important... and I think this last year has brought.. at least to the forefront of my vision, what is important. Scrambling like a mad thing for auditions, for cuts on an album, for television or film play... What is more important - living a life that's peaceful and beautiful in the garden, or scrambling like a mad thing to see if you can get yourself out in the world? I think when you're younger, scrambling is a good thing; when you're older and have to sit down and be quiet, which I've done this year... I appreciate what I have done but I don't need to run the way I used to run. Sometimes I chide myself about that: "Oh, you're losing your ambition" and that's not the case. I think I have more perspective about how valuable time is and how to spend it. And considering that the universe said, "Here, you want some time? I'm gonna give you some time - figure out a worthwhile way to spend it."

You just mentioned doing auditions - you work as an actor and as a songwriter.

I'm doing more work as a singer and songwriter than acting these days. Of course, if somebody said to me "Would you like to do Mrs. Lovett again?" I'd say "Hell, yes!"

Is there an audition process for songwriters?

I'm in a really strange place in the songwriting world in that, aside from the things that I write for animation (which are on assignment) I'm always just writing for myself. I'm not writing for Beyonce, I'm not writing, like Diane Warren, for film, god bless her. I'm just writing for my own amusement and fortunately, some people want to sing my songs. People identify with it and say that what I write for myself speaks to them as well. So, I'm kind of an odd duck in that I'm not a 'get out there and hustle' songwriter.

A moment ago, you said "I'm not sure how much of an artist I am" ... are you aware of the gravity that your name holds in the business? People revere you.

(Laughing) That's such a mixed metaphor for me. I am thrilled that people love my music. That's my purpose in life, I realize now: when I discovered that I was not going to be Liza Minnelli and that songwriting was going to be the thing that I do that meant something to people. But I have a really hard time grasping the fact that so many people seem to love what I write. My husband is always on my case about this, saying "Don't you want to take responsibility for what you do so well?" Yes. Nevertheless, I am totally surprised when people that I've met in London or Ireland, or I get an email from Switzerland that says, "I love your songs" and I go, "You've heard my songs? Really?" I don't mean for it to be false modesty, I just find it astonishing that people in a lot of places have heard my stuff and like it.

I understand. I believe I'm the same way, and I don't think - for either of us - that it's false modesty. I think it's old-fashioned garden variety humility.

Ooooh! Ok! I'll take that!

So we've mentioned Stephen Sondheim twice. We talked about "Children and Art" and how you've played Mrs. Lovett - Stephen Sondheim is actually the reason we are talking today. You have a brand new single out, your take on the song "Send In The Clowns."

Yes.

What brought you to this moment in your life where it was time to record this song?

It's because of a wonderful gentleman in London named Desmond Carrington. He was the voice of BBC2 for fifty years, and he became a really dear friend of me and Michele. Every time we would perform in London he would come see us. He would play some of our songs on BBC, and that was ASTOUNDING to me! Oh my god! We're on the BBC! Woohoo! At one point he said to me, "I would like to ask you and Michele and your husband George Ball to record some of my favorite show tunes that I can play in one of my last shows" because he was about to retire. One of the ones he requested was "Send In The Clowns." Michele and I said, "Oh boy" because I'd played the role but I had never recorded the song. Michele and lovely Stephan Oberhoff wrote THE most BEAUTIFUL arrangement! It just blew my socks off and I said, "This is special" - and we recorded it. Desmond played it on the radio, then it just sat in a drawer for a couple of years, and I said that's just wrong. It was this beautiful arrangement and I wanted the world to hear it, Michele and Stephan did such a glorious job on it. We realized it was Mr. Sondheim's - god bless him - ninety-first birthday this year, so let's release it so that the world, more people than the BBC, can hear this beautiful rendition.

You mentioned the arrangement, which is breathtaking.

ISN'T IT GORGEOUS?! Didn't they do a beautiful job?!

Did you play no part in that? Did they just bring it to you and you went with it?

We sat in the studio - this was one of the fastest arrangements EVER - we sat in the studio and Michele started playing that beautiful figure and Stephan picked up his guitar and began playing that beautiful figure and I started, sort of, warbling along; then four minutes later we all just said, "WOW. Ok. This is really special." So they laid the track down and I went in and sang it!

I'd love to know about your relationship with the song "Send In The Clowns" - do you remember the first time you heard it?

I think that would've been Judy Collins. I hadn't heard the Broadway version, I heard the Judy Collins version, then I heard the (Broadway) recording, then I got to see the play. I thought, "Oh, that's a lovely song" but it was the melody that got me. And, of course, being an actress I totally got the vibe with the premise of being an older actress. When I got the chance to play the role - that's when it sank into my body.

I remember when Judy Collins sang it as a pop song and they played it on the radio all the time but nobody knew what it meant: did you know what it meant?

Yeah. But the older I got the more I understood what it meant. By the time I did the role, that's when I said "OH!" You know, there's layer upon layer upon layer in that song. As simple as it sounds, it's really complex. It's a song for a mature person. When you're young you fall in love with the melody of it and the lovely bittersweet song but when you get older it really resonates.

When a song like this resonates with you as a person and you get on stage to sing the song in character, what's the best way to approach the material?

On one level it's an easy song to sing - melodically - the thing that I found, the big challenge is not to go morose - not to go tearful. It's the old thing, "If you cry, they won't" so I tried to play the irony and let the listener put the feeling into it. It's a subtle song.

And now you've released the single in honor of Stephen Sondheim's ninety-first birthday...

Yes.

But there's the added layer of this last year - does that, in any way, add to the meaning of the song?

I think so. Absolutely. You know the title "Send In The Clowns" is to distract people from the tragedies that are going on around them. It's the term they used to use whenever somebody fell off the highwire in the circus. Distract them from the tragedy that they're looking at - I think it's very timely today.

When you're approaching a song as iconic as this, how do you keep the pressure off?

(Laughing). That's tricky! You're absolutely right, this is SUCH an iconic song. It's like trying to sing "The Man That Got Away" - don't go there! I think it takes a lot of balls to say "I'm going to go there!" It is SO iconic. What I felt was, what is my version of the story? How does the song relate to my emotional life? I try to make it as specific to me as possible because I'm such a firm believer (that) in performing, if you are really specific to your own emotional arc of the song, everybody else will identify with it as well.

Did having Michele with you when you recorded it ground you?

Oh, always. ALWAYS! She's a treasure. She's my bestie. I call her my sister wife - that annoys her greatly. (Laughing) A LOT. We've been together since 1974, we've been writing songs together, we've done everything together, she's my best friend.

To have that sisterhood with someone with whom you collaborate so closely must be a boon to your work.

I can say on so many levels that I would not be anywhere near where you say I am today if it wasn't for Michele. On so many levels.

So the vaccines are rolling out and we will all hopefully be going back to work sometime soon.

Yes!

Do you see yourself doing a new Sondheim role?

Offer me the job, baby, and I'm there!

(Laughter from both.)

For years there has been a story circulating about a list of songs that Stephen Sondheim says he wishes he had written. Do you have a list like that?

Of songs that I wish I had written? By other people?

Yes.

YEAH, I have a list of songs that I wish I had written! John Bucchino's "Grateful." And "Sweet Dreams." I consider him a genius. Michele's "My Favorite Year." Any of a number of Eagles tunes. Glenn Frey and Don Henley are.. well, Glenn's gone but Don's still with us... BRILLIANT writers.

Are there any songwriters that, if you met, you would be starstruck?

Don Henley. God bless him, Jerry Herman's dead. Mr. Sondheim. Dear Sheldon Harnick. I think the contemporary writer of the moment that really gets me is Taylor Swift: she writes a great story, she's terrific at her craft, and she can get inside the head of a character.

Did you enjoy doing Jerry Herman musicals?

I did Mame three times, it's one of my favorite roles ever. And it changed my mind about Jerry Herman. I was a Sondheim freak. And, you know, if you're a Sondheim freak you're over here, and Jerry Herman was over there. It wasn't until I started performing his work that I realized how incredibly sophisticated, how incredibly joyous he was. We need Jerry Herman shows desperately because they make you happy. They make you leave the theater happy and singing along. Sondheim shows, you leave the theater with your hair blown off. Being able to sing his lyrics - the first time out, singing his lyrics is hard. Jerry Herman is not hard. He's so wonderful but deceptively simple, and not simple at all. I liken him to Johnny Mercer.

Didn't you write the song "Everybody Wants To Be Sondheim But Me"?

I didn't write that. Alan Chapman wrote that and I stole it from him IMMEDIATELY.

I remember you singing that in one of your shows.

Oh, I love that! I love to make people laugh! And that song makes any person who's been to the theater HOWL. God bless Alan Chapman, who is an incredibly clever writer!

You write a lot of ballads, yet you love to make people laugh - do you write big comedy numbers like that?

I write HUGE comedy numbers all the time!

I guess I'm just listening to all the ballads... like my favorite Amanda McBroom song is "Best Friend."

OH! Thank you! The thing is, I don't record the funny things - they are difficult to record because once you've heard the joke twice, people don't want to hear it again. But I perform the funny things all the time because that's how I buy my ballads. In recordings, you want to listen to the sad stuff, the sing-along stuff. But in live performance, you've got to have the funny stuff. Michele and I have written a lot of really funny material.

I guess I need to get out more... or you need to play New York more.

That's very true.

You and John Bucchino did a show just before the lockdown. Is there a chance that after the lockdown is lifted, you'll come back and do it again?

God, I'd love to. We were supposed to be doing it in Los Angeles, right around now, until everything hit the fan - so when the theaters open up again (Please Jesus!), if I can still remember how to put on high heels, we're scheduled to do a Bucchino concert out here. I call it McBucchino because it's a combination of his stuff and my stuff, and we have the best time doing it.

Do people know what a funny girl you are?

Hopefully, the people who come and see me know that, I don't know if people who haven't heard my funny stuff think I'm funny! (Laughing)

The laughter is what keeps us going

Exactly!

So, "Send In The Clowns" is already available - could this lead up to a possible new album?

You know what, it may very well. I've been talking to my couple of my besties, John Bucchino and Ann Hampton Callaway, and some other people... but CDs have a hard time selling right now because so many people are into downloading and streaming, and just putting up singles. This is my first attempt at putting up a single, hoping that eventually this will be maybe the title tune of a new CD... but CDs are expensive. And if you're your own label (which I am) you can only afford to do it once every five years, maybe more, and CD sales are not what they used to be. So it becomes sort of like the art of cabaret - you do it for the love and not for the money.

And artists need to make money as well. Can singers and songwriters make money off of streaming?

No. Not unless you're Taylor Swift.

So I guess when you record a song and put it on the streaming platforms, it's to get people to come to see your show.

That's part of it, absolutely. If they hear it and they want their mother to hear it, and their mother doesn't stream, they can download it for 99 cents and send it to their mom, if she has a computer and she can enjoy it that way.

I think everybody AND their mother will want to download "Send In The Clowns" - it is truly beautiful

Oh, thank you! You know, that's the other thing - I don't do other people's material very often, and it's something that I need to do because one of the ways to get people interested in you is if you sing something that they already know. That's fine, too, because there's an awful lot of great songs out there that I did not write.

Why is it that you don't usually sing other people's material? Is it just that your connection to your own music is stronger?

A lot of people do a lot of the standards REALLY well. But if I want the world to know my music, I have to perform it. I always make sure in a show that I do that I have some Cole Porter, some Johnny Mercer, a ballad that people hear that lets them relax, and also to let them know that I have my own spin on a classic. But nobody's going to hear my new material if I don't do it first.

So you're a walking advertisement for Amanda McBroom music.

Exactly! (Laughing) How can people record it if they haven't heard it?! (Laughing)

You've got all these fans out here, so I guess they just need to pick up some more Amanda McBroom CDs.

I think that's brilliant!

Are all of your CDs available for purchase still? They haven't gone out of print or circulation, have they?

No, no, no. I got a garage full, hon.

(Both laughing)

If you could get one of the big artists in music today to sing some Amanda McBroom songs, who would you like?

Wow...

Who do you think would be a great interpreter of Amanda McBroom music?

I always loved Judy Collins. Of the contemporary women, I would love for somebody in the soul world to cut The Rose. Aretha would have been my dream, but Jennifer Hudson would be a thrill. I would love to get that into yet another milieu. Let's see who else... Tricia Yearwood.

I'm interested in what you just said about the women that you'd like to have sing your songs... do you consider yourself a writer for women?

Well, let's put it this way. I'm a writer for me. It always starts out as something that I would like to sing. And so a lot of (my songs) have feminine colors, but more and more guys are singing my stuff, which makes me REALLY happy.

Do you think that's because of the fluidity that is more prevalent these days?

I think that that's part of it, yes. A lot of people in the gay community like my material and sing it beautifully, which makes me VERY happy. The fluidity of what you're allowed to say and sing now is so much more wide-open a field than it used to be. Oooh! Josh Grobin! I'd love for Josh Grobin to sing one of my songs! Audra McDonald and Kristin Chenoweth - Yes, please! I love these people!

So, you know this is Women's History Month.

It is!

How does it feel, being one of the female leaders in the industry?

(Laughing) Thank you for saying that. I would say I'm very proud of where I am and what I've accomplished. You know, back in the day when "The Rose" was first coming out, I could not get a record deal with anybody, because they would say, "Oh, we already have a Bernadette Peters, we already have one Liza Minnelli. We have one Bette Midler..." So I started my own label. And I was one of the first women to start my own label.

See? A female leader in the industry, breaking barriers.

(Laughing) I don't know how to respond to that (laughing). I'm just delighted that people liked the material!

And that brings us back to the Amanda McBroom humility. (Amanda laughing) So it's like a humorous circle that we've got going on.

Yeah, it's a circle! (Laughing) It's the circle of life, darling!

That's a good title for a song.

Oh, indeed! Somebody'll probably write it before I steal it! (Laughing)

Well, this was a real treat, a charming, charming chat. Thank you so much for talking to me.

Always! Thank you, Stephen, I appreciate your time.

Congratulations on the wonderful single, and take good care until we all meet again.

You too, honey. Stay well!

"Send In The Clowns" is available on iTunes HERE and on amazon HERE

Visit the Amanda McBroom website HERE

Amanda McBroom's headshots are by Mary Ann Haplin.

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