Call Me- a Musical Comedy

In the spring of 1993, I started writing the draft of a script for a musical comedy entitled CALL ME.  It started with a single song "I Will Be Dancing Alone" and soon thereafter became a series of songs, an overture and dozens of pages of dialogue. 

This is the largest project that I was involved with during my time at Berklee College of Music.  In the spring of 1995, with the help of audio engineer Brian Dinkins, I recorded several of these songs, and the overture, with a group of about 40 musicians that I begged, borrowed, paid, cajoled and otherwise bribed to help me out. 

The Following songs were recorded in the Berklee Performance Center with me conducting the orchestra.  Later, the vocals were overdubbed in another of the Berklee studios, where it was also latter mixed. 

Enjoy!!!

Call Me
(Opening Sequence)


This song comes right after the Overture and sets up the storyline.  Boy meets girl.  Boy falls in love with girl.  Boy can't get back in touch with girl.  Boy starts to doubt that girl ever liked him.  Boy fights off depression.  You know... the usual.  : )  Little does he know that she feels the same way.  Part of the musical theme that the lead male sings in this song is taken from the next song I Will Be Dancing Alone.  This song was inspired by the sequences in West Side Story, and in Sweeney Todd, where multiple musical themes are played out on top of each other to create a new song.

I Will Be Dancing Alone


I Will Be Dancing Alone is the first song that I wrote for the show.  Actually, to be fair, I wrote the song before I got the idea to write a show, and the show kind of developed around this song that is a profession of love and hope for the future.  I also included this song on my album "It's You I See", which was recorded in 1999 in Los Angeles, CA.  So, this song is kind of speacial.  I recorded it on the east coast (Boston) with a 40 piece orchestra, and on the west coast (LA) with a jazz quartet. 

My Advice


This song is a clever tounge twister.  Very wordy and done in the style of Bernstein/Sondheim.  MY Advice is sung by the best friend of the female lead in the story.  She is trying to get the couple back together again by handing out advice, but nobody is listening to her.

Love is Mad


This song is very introspective, and shows a dark side to my writting.  I tried to balance beauty in the melody and harmony with pathos in the lyrics.  I'm happy with the result.  Again, I borrow a musical theme from the song Call Me in the lyric "Why can't I reach her, is there some problem, does she avoid me, should I forget her?"

They Want Nothing
(More Than Everything We've Got)


This song is a nod to Rodgers and Hammerstein.  It's your typical man song complaining about women in the tradition of "Dames" from South Pacific, "Luck be a Lady" from Guys and Dolls, or even "Fie on Goodness" from Camelot.  It's a whimsical release of tension in the show where our protagonist gets to let off some steam with the other men in the cast.