Playbill CD Review:
On the Record: Green Songs
June 15, 2003
By Steven Suskin
"PUT A LITTLE LOVE IN YOUR MOUTH" [Hook Records 5557]
There is a photograph of a somewhat wary Adolph Green on the beach, balancing a four-year-old on his shoulders, in the liner notes of "Put a Little Love in Your Mouth." The photo accompanies a song called "Daddy's Shoulders."
"Put a Little Love in Your Mouth" is a compilation revue consisting of songs from various projects with lyrics - and in some cases, music - by Amanda Green. (The title song is about dentistry, although the author admits that it could be misconstrued.) Recorded live during two performances at Second Stage and Joe's Pub, the CD has been issued by an outfit called Hook Records. Daddy Adolph, ten years before Fade Out - Fade In, joined with Betty and Jule to write a boisterous song called "Captain Hook's Waltz" - with which I supposed he serenaded his kids. "Who's the creepiest creep in the world," it goes...
Ms. Green sings many of the tracks, with a little help from her friends. Green's friends are a talented bunch: Jessica Molaskey, Billy Stritch, Mary Testa, Brooks Ashmanskas, Mario Cantone, Jonathan Dokuchitz, Kim Lindsay, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Quite a lineup of contemporary musical theatre talent, accompanied by the Tom Kitt Band.
But there is more here than that. Green - or, I suppose I should say Amanda - is a good lyricist. She takes after her father, certainly, in that she is literate and witty and brings a sense of the unexpected. In some ways, though, her writing seems closer to that of Dorothy Fields. Green's female characters - and many of them are female - think and express themselves like women, which is not always the case around Broadway. And she can sing, too.
An interesting writer, this Amanda, and an interesting CD. From the evidence of "Put a Little Love in Your Mouth," Broadway might have another Green in the wings.
-Steven Suskin, author of the new "Broadway Yearbook 2001-2002," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books.
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