‘Once in a Lifetime’ Showcases Singer Newley’s Sense of Drama

ANTHONY NEWLEY: *** 1/2

“Once in a Lifetime:

The Anthony Newley

Collection”

Razor & Tie

This Englishman has always been a strong vocal stylist who brings an aggressive theatrical flair to every aspect of his work. Even in a recording studio, Newley sings as if he’s in front of the footlights, injecting enough attitude into the vocal to reach the last rows of the theater.

So it’s only natural that composer and sometimes lyricist Newley and his songwriting partner, Leslie Bricusse, focused on music designed for the stage or screen --be it “On a Wonderful Day Like Today” and “Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)?” from “The Roar of the Grease-paint, the Smell of the Crowd” or “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “Gonna Build a Mountain” from “Stop the World--I Want to Get Off.”

Newley’s versions of those songs are contained in this 15-track retrospective--along with such other stage or film successes as “The Candy Man” (from “Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”) and “Talk to the Animals” (from “Doctor Dolittle”).

But Newley’s sense of drama carried over equally well to his treatments of songs by other writers, as demonstrated in the album by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “This Time, the Dream’s on Me” and Jerry Livingston, Marty Symes and Al J. Neiburg’s “It’s the Talk of the Town.”

In the liner notes, author-critic Will Friedwald raises the point about Newley’s approaching a song like an actor reading a script.

“That’s exactly what I think about the lyric,” Newley responds. “I think the lyric of most songs is a story, and if you can’t hear that, I don’t know what the point is to singing the . . . thing. That’s one of the things I have against rock ‘n’ roll: that there seems to be no point in trying to rhyme the first and third lines unless you are going to hear it.”

Ironically, one of Newley’s key early career moments came in 1959 when he was cast as a rock star in the British film “Idle on Parade.”

His version of the ballad “I’ve Waited So Long” made him a pop star in England. Among the other hits: a novelty version of “Pop Goes the Weasel” that also broke into the Top 100 in the U.S.

But you’ll have to look elsewhere for those records. This package includes recordings from as far back as 1960, but only those that played a part in the evolution of his artistic vision.