| Smokey Joe's Cafe | |
| The Songs of Leiber and Stoller | |
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| Original Cast Recording | |
|---|---|
| Music | Jerry Leiber Mike Stoller |
| Lyrics | Jerry Leiber Mike Stoller |
| Book | Revue |
| Productions | 1995 Broadway 1996 West End |
Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues songs written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The Original Broadway cast recording, Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs Of Leiber And Stoller won a Grammy award in 1995.
After a Los Angeles tryout, the revue opened on Broadway in 1995, running for 2,036 performances, and had a London run in 1996.
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In revue format with no unifying theme the 39 songs are presented by various members of the cast in various combinations, with no dialogue. There are novelty songs ("Charlie Brown"), romantic ballads ("Spanish Harlem") and infectious melodies ("There Goes My Baby").[1]
Lyrics and music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (unless otherwise noted)
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Smokey Joe's Cafe was conceived by Stephen Helper, Jack Viertel, and Otis Sallid.[2] Presented in a revue format with no unifying theme, it showcases 39 songs, sung by members of the cast in various combinations, with no dialogue.[3] The musical had its world premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles where it ran from November 1994 to January 22, 1995.[4]
The revue opened on Broadway on March 2, 1995 at the Virginia Theatre and closed on January 16, 2000 after 2,036 performances. Directed by Jerry Zaks with choreography by Joey McKneely, the nine person cast featured Brenda Braxton, Victor Trent Cook, B. J. Crosby, and DeLee Lively. Throughout its run, there were special appearances by many popular singers, including Pam Tillis (April 1999), Gladys Knight (May 1999), Tony Orlando (June 1999), Lou Rawls (April 1999),[5] Gloria Gaynor (August 1999)[6] and Rick Springfield (October 1999).[7] Gladys Knight also appeared in the tour when it played Boston in February 2000.[8] The final performance was filmed and later released on DVD in 2001.
It premiered in the West End at the Prince of Wales Theatre on October 1, 1996 and ran through January 1, 1997. Zaks directed and McKneely choregraphed, with some of the Broadway cast (Cook, Lively and Crosby) repeating their roles.[9][10][11]
The theatre critic for the magazine Variety, in reviewing the Los Angeles tryout, noted that "the songwriters, director Jerry Zaks and choreographer Joey McKneely don't do enough packaging of the material, don't go far enough taking songs first heard on transistor radios and re-imagining them for the stage...There are a couple of halfhearted attempts at structure. The show opens and closes with the 1974 obscurity "Neighborhood," which suggests this will be a scrapbook of memories."[4]
Ben Brantley, the theatre critic for The New York Times wrote that the revue "is a strangely homogenized tribute to one of popular music's most protean songwriting teams...There has obviously been a decision not to go for literal period nostalgia, so the songs are freed from their distinctive original contexts...Too often, though, the performers are simply singing into space without any ostensible reason for being there."[12]
The theatre critic for the The Guardian (London), noted that the London cast consists of "acting singers rather than singing actors, which suits a show where there's almost no acting to be done. Whew - no pesky plot development or subtexts, just a glut of glowing pop tunes...There's no attempt at chronology, or even biography."[10]
According to the theatre critic for the Washington Post, Peter Marks, the revue "never quite attained smash-hit status", but it made popular the musical fashioned on the existing work of "pop composers already beloved by baby boomers."[13]
The original cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album in 1996.
   | Smokey Joe's Cafe official website - (mt) Media Temple - Web Hosting Services |
| | The Coasters (who originally recorded several of the above songs) - The Coasters Web Site - Those Hoodlum Friends, by Claus Röhnisch |
| | Entry at Internet Broadway Database - Smokey Joe's Cafe | IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information |
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