Amanda McBroom's Blog

Amanda McBroom talks about her new record Chanson, and why she recorded an entire album of Jacques Brel’s songs.  Interviewed by the wonderful singer and actress Anne Kerry Ford.

Brel Stories

I am off-Broadway!  I am in JACQUES BREL at the Village Gate in the amazing  Village of New York.  Even in TEXAS I knew the Village was THE place to be.  I have never seen anything like it.  There is Tie-Dye everywhere.  There are people who are neither Latin Americans nor Baptists.  There are people who don’t say “You All” and occasionally say “Youse  Guys”.   Who knew????

Oh, it’s glamorous.  The jack hammers, the flower shops, the smell of Italian sausage sandwiches, the drunks peeing out the window above the  theatre.  It’s the big time!
I have finally joined my boy friend George in the  run of Jacques Brel in New York.

I am over the moon!

After OUR show downs stairs every night, there are shows UP stairs.  With people like Nina Simone (cranky!) and  a young up and coming singer/songwriter named Harry Chapin, who keeps coming down and asking us to PLEEEEESE come up and clap for him because there is an agent in the house.  We are delighted to oblige.

And THEN, one night, as we walk out on stage, who is sitting at the prime table but Bob Hope!  We all try to pretend we don’t see him.  Hard to do. We give a smashing show, I say modestly.  He seems to like it.

Afterwards he himself comes back stage to the teeny tiny dressing room we share and RAVES about the show and us and invites us all out to Luchow’s for dinner.

LUCHOW’S!!!  I have read about Luchow’s.  High cotton, Luchow’s.
So we go, and he is the warmest, kindest, most interested person and wants to know all there is to know about each one of about us.
He used to live down the street from me in Toluca Lake.  He lived in the mansions on the side of the lake where the swans were.  I lived where the mud hens swam.  But I always felt we were neighbors, though we had never met.
We finally met, and he gave us all a night we will never forget.
God bless you, Bob!

Brel Stories

I am in Amsterdam for the very first time. I own a passport!!!! I have flown in a plane for more than four hours! People are speaking a language that SOUNDS like English, only with words like “astyublieft”. That’s how it sounds to me. (I THINK that means, “you’re welcome”. It could mean, ”Come sleep with my horse.”)

I am a member of the International production of “Jacques Brel Is Alive…”

Two big old Dutch stars and my flame, George Ball, and me.

The man is a smallish Ian Holmsian actor named Henk VanUlsen. Very big in Dutch Theatre. And Dutch drinking institutions.

.The lady is the Liza Minelli of Holland, a long and gorgeous drink of water named Liselore Gerritson. Voice like Marlene and legs like Uma Thurman. I like her a lot. I have no idea what she thinks of me. I always feel Europeans look at me as if I were an untrained golden retriever. Cheerful and in need occasionally of a slight whacking with a rolled up newspaper

Our first day of rehearsal, I am BEYOND intimidated. Here are people who minimally speak five languages. You HAVE to if you live in Holland. I have barely learned New York. (Three years of high school Spanish is of no help here. Dutch is NOT a romance language.)

We sing through the score…watching each other with that cautious camaraderie of a first day rehearsal with people you have never met…from another COUNTRY! There is good coffee and interesting carbohydrates on the table.

The band is rocking. Comforting to know that Dutch musicians are just as crazy, and STONED, as New York musicians. The 70’s, remember? Hallucinogenics are almost legal over here in the land of impossibly long summer nights and impossible short and bitter winter days.

Liselore sings through all her numbers. She is the Star and is supposed to get all the great songs. After the break, she says to me “Here. YOU take all the beautiful songs. They don’t sound good in Dutch.” She’s right. They sound like a sore throat.

I am delighted to have songs like MARIEKE and NO LOVE YOU’RE NOT ALONE. She’s doing all the ballsy stuff.

THEN I find out SHE is going to sing CAROUSEL , the fastest and most insane number in the show, in DUTCH, and I have to sing back up for her, also in Dutch. And there are LOTS of words in the back up arrangement for this song. Most of the words sound like a person gargling razor blades. I seem to recall the words IN DER ZONE being repeated over and over. I am not IN DER ZONE at all. Learning Dutch phonetically is a pitiable experience. I sweat bullets over this one throughout the rehearsal process. All the Dutch folk keep throwing very strange looks at me. Are my vowel sounds inappropriate? Can I even make one over all the saliva produced by their consonants????

Miraculously, on opening night, I was tight, I was right, I was perfect! I got a hug from her and a large beer from Henk and realized I was now officially an international entertainer. Whew!

(AND I learned how to say “FAR OUT” in Dutch. It came in very handy throughout the city and the 70’s.)

Brel Stories

October 1969

San Francisco. The Marines Memorial Theater.

The Summer of Love has passed into the Autumn of  Amusement!

San Francisco is ALIVE with flower power, tie dye, free love , vegetarianism, long hair,  wide bell bottoms . I have never seen anything like this. I have just come from TEXAS, where hippies still have to run for their lives.

Even Willie has short hair!

I have been in the National production  of “ Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well…”for just over two months now. I have my Equity Card. I am in deep, SERIOUS love with the leading man My first time to really be in love with anyone but myself.

I am having the time of my life.

So one Saturday, between the matinee and evening shows, a dear friend and  a fabulous actress working at the American  Conservatory Theatre, comes  over to join us for dinner between shows. She brings her famous pumpkin bread. I like pumpkin bread. I find out it is NOTORIOUS pumpkin bread,

Nutmeg is not the ONLY spice in this pumpkin bread. Need I say more????

Any way, I decide about half way through the second show, to have a slice, thinking it will  come to life as soon as the show goes down. (This is the 60’s right? When THC is a Vitamin.)

I neglect to take into account  the ADRENALIN of performance. How it speeds up everything, including digestion.

So I come out to do my REALLY BIG , REALLY  COMPLICATED, REALLY FAST 11 o’clock number “CAROUSEL”.

And my, the lights are lovely!

And wow, the music is terrific!

And gee, my shoes look so sparkly!  You get the drift,.

I make it through the song, only a half a measure behind the band, without swallowing my tongue  and utterly terrified.

And to this day, I have never gone on stage with anything stronger than  a lemon cough drop in my system. Fools and little children….

Brel Stories, Stories from the Road