Merry Christmas 1975 (Remastered) Harvey Schmidt

• 1 I Feel a Song Coming On (From "Every Night at Eight") 03:07
• 2 Yesterdays (From "Roberta") 03:47
• 3 Looking for a Boy (From "Tip-Toes") 02:12
• 4 You Are Beautiful (From "Flower Drum Song") 02:34
• 5 My Favorite Things (From "The Sound of Music") 03:01
• 6 Babes in Arms (From "Babes in Arms") / Our Love Affair / Do the Conga (From "Strike Up the Band") / Babes on Broadway (From "Babes on Broadway") 03:02
• 7 They All Laughed (From "Shall We Dance") 04:46
• 8 The Sweetest Sounds (From "No Strings") 02:00
• 9 Lucky Day (From "George White's Scandals of 1926") 02:10
• 10 No More Waiting (From "Androcles & the Lion") 02:34
• 11 Oh, Kay! (From "Oh, Kay!") / Broadway Melody (From "Broadway Melody") / Bring On the Beautiful Girls (From "Ziegfeld Follies of 1946") 02:59
• 12 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (From "Meet Me in St. Louis") 04:09
• Total Runtime 36:21

Info for Merry Christmas 1975 (Remastered)

Composer Harvey Schmidt and his writing partner, Tom Jones, created some of our most iconic musicals. Their first, "The Fantasticks", is a perfect musical and one of the most performed pieces in the United States and throughout the world. The team of Jones & Schmidt also wrote the smash hit "I Do! I Do!" as well as "Celebration" and a host of others. But what many people don't know is that in addition to being a wonderful composer and a professional visual artist as well, Schmidt was a brilliant pianist with his own inimitable style. Which brings us to "Merry Xmas 1975". The title tells it all: it's an audio Christmas card! Schmidt played solo piano on a variety of songs from the Golden Age of Hollywood and Broadway. Originally released on LP as a gift to lucky friends of his, the record has been a collectors' item for decades, and now, with the late composer's approval and encouragement, it can be enjoyed and savored by everyone.

Don't be fooled by the title, though. There is just one bona fide Christmas standard, Hugh Martin's perennial hit, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," introduced by the radiant Judy Garland in M-G-M's Meet Me in St. Louis. But there are many, many more terrific songs by the masters of the Great American Songbook: Everyone from Cole Porter to Rodgers & Hammerstein, from George and Ira Gershwin to Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. DeSylva, Brown and Henderson share grooves with Harry Warren. It's a delightful grouping of unforgettable music.

Harvey Schmidt, piano

Harvey Schmidt
Though his music was first heard on Broadway in 1963, Harvey Schmidt had already become a fixture three years before for composing the music for The Fantasticks, the musical that never hit Broadway but that ran for forty-two years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York, from 1960 to 2002.

With his longtime collaborator and lyricist, Tom Jones, Harvey Schmidt first came to Broadway with 110 in the Shade, a musical based on the play, The Rainmaker, by N. Richard Nash. Jones and Schmidt were nominated for a Tony® in 1964 for best words and music.

Harvey Schmidt paired up with Tom Jones again in I Do! I Do!, the 1966 musical adapted from Jan De Hartog’s The Fourposter. The intimately scaled work, which included only one set and two actors, was Schmidt and Jones’s most successful foray into Broadway, with a production starring Robert Preston, who won a Tony® for his performance as Him, and Mary Martin, who garnered a Tony® nomination as Her.

Schmidt and Jones’s last work on Broadway was a musical entitled Celebration. The production ran for 109 performances in early 1969.

They continued to work together off Broadway, creating such works as Colette (1970), Philemon (1973), Mirette, Grover’s Corners (based on Thorton Wilder’s play, Our Town), and, most recently in 2002, the off-Broadway musical, Roadside.

Booklet for Merry Christmas 1975 (Remastered)