Hey There, you with the stars in your eyes
John Raitt, a singer with a voice known to lovers of Broadway musical theater everywhere, has also died. Raitt created the role of Billy Bigelow in Rogers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, in which he sang the stunning “Soliloquy.” A song that, coincidentally, I listened to earlier tonight, though unfortunately not a Raitt recording (Sinatra’s not so bad, tho).
He also played the lead in the musical Pajama Game, a role which he repeated in the unfairly obscure big screen version, opposite Doris Day. In both, he sang the gorgeous standard “Hey There” in a clever bit of stagecraft. In the first part of the song, the character is dictating into a tape recorder as he sings, in the second, he plays it back and joins himself in a duet.
Raitt was the father of the bluesy singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt. They occasionally performed together and recorded at least one album from which I once heard a couple of excerpts. I remember thinking that their styles didn’t mesh particuarly well on record, but it’s good to read in the MSNBC obit (linked above) that he took such pride in her accomplishments.
