Claibe Richardson and Kenward Elmslie | "Chain of Love" from The Grass Harp / 1971

my favorite broadway musical songs: “chain of love“

Composers. Claibe Richardson and Kenward Elmslie

Performers: entire cast and Barbara Cook

Complete original cast recording, 1971

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ-pkArxYEI

Composers: Claibe Richardson and Kenward Elmslie

Performers: Cast and Barbara Cook

Stolen songs from the last performance of the musical, 1971

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmsaGLJMDO4

Composers: Claibe Richardson and Kenward Elmslie

Performer: Barbara Cook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gCql8CAuGs

Composers: Claibe Richardson and Kenward Elmslie

Performer: Susan Watson, 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qobMzqX4n8

Composers: Claibe Richardson and Kenward Elmslie

Performer: Haley Jane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giNWlbYAy3o

 

It’s quite strange that the wonderful Broadway musical, performed at the Martin Beck Theater of only 7 performances in 1971, should have become one of the favorite of lost musicals ever. It’s cast, after all, consisted of the remarkable Barbara Cook (after her The Music Man, Candide and other major Broadway performances), which included Carol Brice, Karen Morrow and numerous others, was based on Truman Capote’s wonderful tale, which was later made into a movie. The music by Claibe Richardson, a rather remarkable composer who died in 2013, and the wonderful American poet and librettist, highly influenced by his lover of several years, John La Touche, who produced several wonderful songs such as “Dropsy Cure Weather” and the driving percussionist piece “Yellow Drum.” In this case I’ve included the entire original Broadway cast recording just to give a sense of the remarkable songs in this work.

     The great stand-out, however, is “Chain of Love,” which isn’t even titled that in the list of original songs in the current listings. But anyone who has sung it, including Cook and Susan Watson has titled it that in their wonderful appearances.

     Of course, Cook sings it best, but it has yet to be discovered by hundreds of others who might turn its beautiful lyrics and music into something else. This is a musical just waiting to be rediscovered. With lyrics that Elmslie wonderfully created, how can you not fall in love with Dolly Talbo, even if she has never herself discovered it for herself:

 

If love is a chain of love

As nature is a chain of love

With link after link after link

Then I’ve always been in love I think.

…..

Yet, I’ve always been in love I guess.

 

The sad after thoughts of “I think,” and “I guess” represent Dolly’s impossible comprehension of what she has been missing, even though she truly realizes it in simply the “links” of her relationships with other human beings. And her final determination to take to the trees in protest for what has been denied her, is so brilliantly expressed her new comprehension that love is something more that she has quite experienced, represents what this performance is all about. Why the critics so abused this lovely, if slight, musical is incomprehensible. This musical should be celebrated, not shunned and even less forgotten.

 

Los Angeles, December 31, 2017