Flower Drum Song musical
vinyl LP album front cover with signatures
photo by Styrous®
Today is the birthday of Pat Suzuki, an American popular singer and actress, who is best known for her role in the original Broadway production of the musical Flower Drum Song, and her performance of the song I Enjoy Being a Girl in the show.
I met her on October 2 of 1999 during the production of the Golden Ring Awards (link below) for the Asian American Arts Foundation at the Theater in the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California. I had been hired by Jeff Adachi, who was later to become the San Francisco Public Defender.
I wrote the theme music and was music director for the event. There were many art luminaries being honored that evening and I brought the record albums of some the celebrities being honored and had them autograph them. Ms. Suzuki was one of them. She was delightful and very gracious; she signed the front of the album twice because she realized her signature was not legible the first time.
Suzuki is a Nisei or second-generation Japanese American, and was born Chiyoko Suzuki on September 22, 1930, in Cressey, California. Her father, Aki, was a musician who played traditional Japanese instruments.
In February 1942, a few months after the United States entered World War II, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under XO 9066, the Suzuki family and more than 110,000 other Japanese American residents of the U.S. Pacific coast states were forced to evacuate their homes and enter American concentration camps. The Suzukis were sent to the Merced Assembly Center and later, the Granada War Relocation Center in Colorado. The Suzuki family left Granada to work on a sugar beet farm and returned to California after the war.
date & photographer unknown
During the early 1950s, she attended five colleges and graduated from San Jose State University, earning teaching credentials
for elementary and secondary schools. After deciding against a career
in education, she decided to travel to Europe, but ran out of money in New York, so she obtained a part in a touring production of the play, The Teahouse of the August Moon. While touring with the company, Suzuki took on gigs singing in nightclubs to cover her expenses, and ended up becoming a local celebrity at the Colony Club in Seattle in 1955, appearing for three years and more than 2,000 consecutive performances. Bing Crosby attended one of her shows at the club in 1957. Her singing so impressed him he helped her obtain a recording contract with RCA Victor. She recorded several albums for RCA Victor, including her 1958 debut album, Pat Suzuki. She does a cover version of How High the Moon (music by Morgan Lewis and lyrics by Nancy Hamilton) on the album; it is very slow and kind of south-sea island sounding (link below).
She received national exposure after appearances on several network television programs, including her television debut on The Lawrence Welk Show, The Frank Sinatra Show on ABC and Tonight Starring Jack Paar (March 1958).
After appearing on Jack Paar, Richard Rodgers called Suzuki to offer her the role of Linda Low, one of the leads in the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway production of the musical Flower Drum Song in 1958. She actually turned down the role at first ("I thought it was too big for me"), for which she later won the Theatre World Award for an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, in 1959. Suzuki's rendition of I Enjoy Being a Girl is deemed to be the definitive recording.
Pat Suzuki ~ Pat Suzuki
vinyl LP album front cover
After appearing on Jack Paar, Richard Rodgers called Suzuki to offer her the role of Linda Low, one of the leads in the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway production of the musical Flower Drum Song in 1958. She actually turned down the role at first ("I thought it was too big for me"), for which she later won the Theatre World Award for an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, in 1959. Suzuki's rendition of I Enjoy Being a Girl is deemed to be the definitive recording.
Flower Drum Song musical
vinyl LP album front cover details with signatures
detail photo by Styrous®
Pat Suzuki (left) and Miyoshi Umeki (right) was directed by Gene Kelly (center) for Flower Drum Song on Broadway in 1958.
© Sony Music Entertainment Courtesy Sony Music Archives
Flower Drum Song musical
vinyl LP album back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®
The music from the show ranges from the lyrically beautiful to the dramatic to the comic. Miyoshi Umeki, as Mei Li, sings the quietly beautiful song, A Hundred Million Miracles. While Juanita Hall and Key Luke sing the wonderfully ironic, The Other Generation, "How will we ever communicate without communication?" (links below)
Flower Drum Song musical
vinyl LP album front cover details with signatures
detail photo by Styrous®
Flower Drum Song was the eighth musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on the 1957 novel, The Flower Drum Song, by Chinese-American author C. Y. Lee. Lee's novel focuses on a father, Wang Chi-yang, a wealthy refugee from China, who clings to traditional values in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Rodgers and Hammerstein shifted the focus of the musical to his son,
Wang Ta, who is torn between his Chinese roots and assimilation into
American culture. The team hired Gene Kelly
to make his debut as a stage director with the musical and scoured the
country for a suitable Asian – or at least, plausibly Asian-looking –
cast.
After
the release of the 1961 film version, when it was put on the stage,
lines and songs that might be offensive were often cut.
According to Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest, Rodgers, Hammerstein and Fields had hoped to engage Yul Brynner as director. However, he was busy starring in The Sound and the Fury. Instead, they hired actor and dancer Gene Kelly,
who had never directed on stage before. Kelly felt that the work would
not be one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's best, but "as long as I crammed
the show brim-full of every joke and gimmick in the book, I could get
it to work".
Joshua Logan recommended a young Japanese actress, Miyoshi Umeki, whom he had discovered and cast the previous year opposite Marlon Brando in the film Sayonara (for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar); she was cast as Mei Li. They cast Keye Luke, well known as the Charlie Chan "Number One Son", as Master Wang. Robert Russell Bennett orchestrated the score.
Flower Drum Song opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on December 1, 1958. Sets were designed by Oliver Smith, costumes by Irene Sharaff and lighting by Peggy Clark.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
A1 - Overture 4:15
A2 - You Are Beautiful 4:06
A3 - A Hundred Million Miracles 4:29
A4 - I Enjoy Being A Girl 3:40
A5 - I Am Going To Like It Here 3:54
A6 - Like A God 1:37
A7 - Chop Suey 2:41
A8 - Don't Marry Me 4:10
Side 2:
B1 - Entr'acte 1:36
B2 - Grant Avenue 2:36
B3 - Love, Look Away 3:35
At The Celestial Bar (5:07)
B4a - Fan Tan Fanny
B4b - Gliding Through My Memoree
B4c - Grant Avenue (Reprise)
B5 - The Other Generation 3:19
B6 - Sunday 4:25
B7 - The Other Generation (Reprise) 2:05
B8 - Wedding Parade And Finale 2:28
Credits:
Artwork – Stubis*
Directed By – Gene Kelly
Ensemble – Baayork Lee, Betty Kawamura, David Lober, David Toguri, Denise Quan, Fumi Akimoto, George Li, George Minami, George Young (6), Helen Fumai, Jo Anne Miya, Jose Ahumada, Mabel Wing, Marion Jim, Mary Huie, Maureen Tiongco, Pat Griffith, Paula Chin, Robert Lorca, Shawnee Smith (2), Vicki Racimo, Victor Duntiere, Wonci Lui, Yuriko (3)
Liner Notes – George B. Dale*
Lyrics By – Oscar Hammerstein 2nd*
Music By – Richard Rodgers
Producer [For Records] – Goddard Lieberson
Screenwriter – Joseph Fields, Oscar Hammerstein 2nd*
Vocals – Anita Ellis (tracks: B4), Arabella Hong (tracks: B3), Baayork Lee (tracks: B7), Cely Carrillo (tracks: B7), Conrad Yama (tracks: A3), Ed Kenney (tracks: A2, A6), Jack Soo (tracks: B4), Juanita Hall (tracks: A2, A3, A7, B5), Keye Luke (tracks: A3, B5), Larry Blyden (tracks: A8, B6), Linda And Yvonne Ribuca (tracks: B7), Luis Robert Hernandez (tracks: B7), Miyoshi Umeki (tracks: A3, A5, A8), Pat Adiarte (tracks: A7, B7), Pat Suzuki (tracks: A4, B2, B4, B6), Rose Quong (tracks: A3), Susan Lynn (tracks: B7)
Notes:
A New Musical, opened at the Shubert Theater in Boston on October 27, 1958 and in New York at the St. James Theater on December 1, 1958.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Matrix / Runout (side A matrix): x"LP"44876
Matrix / Runout (side B matrix): x"LP"44877
Matrix / Runout (side A runout stamped): XXLP44876-1FA
Matrix / Runout (side B runout stamped): XLP44877-1AA
Matrix / Runout ((var. 1) side A runout stamped): XXLP44876-1FG P Λ
Matrix / Runout ((var. 1) side B runout stamped): XXLP-44877-1CJ P
Rodgers & Hammerstein In Association With Joseph Fields – Flower Drum Song
Label: Columbia Masterworks – OL 5350
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono
Country: US
Released: 1958
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Musical
Viewfinder links:
Bing Crosby
Side 1:
A1 - Overture 4:15
A2 - You Are Beautiful 4:06
A3 - A Hundred Million Miracles 4:29
A4 - I Enjoy Being A Girl 3:40
A5 - I Am Going To Like It Here 3:54
A6 - Like A God 1:37
A7 - Chop Suey 2:41
A8 - Don't Marry Me 4:10
Side 2:
B1 - Entr'acte 1:36
B2 - Grant Avenue 2:36
B3 - Love, Look Away 3:35
At The Celestial Bar (5:07)
B4a - Fan Tan Fanny
B4b - Gliding Through My Memoree
B4c - Grant Avenue (Reprise)
B5 - The Other Generation 3:19
B6 - Sunday 4:25
B7 - The Other Generation (Reprise) 2:05
B8 - Wedding Parade And Finale 2:28
Credits:
Artwork – Stubis*
Directed By – Gene Kelly
Ensemble – Baayork Lee, Betty Kawamura, David Lober, David Toguri, Denise Quan, Fumi Akimoto, George Li, George Minami, George Young (6), Helen Fumai, Jo Anne Miya, Jose Ahumada, Mabel Wing, Marion Jim, Mary Huie, Maureen Tiongco, Pat Griffith, Paula Chin, Robert Lorca, Shawnee Smith (2), Vicki Racimo, Victor Duntiere, Wonci Lui, Yuriko (3)
Liner Notes – George B. Dale*
Lyrics By – Oscar Hammerstein 2nd*
Music By – Richard Rodgers
Producer [For Records] – Goddard Lieberson
Screenwriter – Joseph Fields, Oscar Hammerstein 2nd*
Vocals – Anita Ellis (tracks: B4), Arabella Hong (tracks: B3), Baayork Lee (tracks: B7), Cely Carrillo (tracks: B7), Conrad Yama (tracks: A3), Ed Kenney (tracks: A2, A6), Jack Soo (tracks: B4), Juanita Hall (tracks: A2, A3, A7, B5), Keye Luke (tracks: A3, B5), Larry Blyden (tracks: A8, B6), Linda And Yvonne Ribuca (tracks: B7), Luis Robert Hernandez (tracks: B7), Miyoshi Umeki (tracks: A3, A5, A8), Pat Adiarte (tracks: A7, B7), Pat Suzuki (tracks: A4, B2, B4, B6), Rose Quong (tracks: A3), Susan Lynn (tracks: B7)
Notes:
A New Musical, opened at the Shubert Theater in Boston on October 27, 1958 and in New York at the St. James Theater on December 1, 1958.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Matrix / Runout (side A matrix): x"LP"44876
Matrix / Runout (side B matrix): x"LP"44877
Matrix / Runout (side A runout stamped): XXLP44876-1FA
Matrix / Runout (side B runout stamped): XLP44877-1AA
Matrix / Runout ((var. 1) side A runout stamped): XXLP44876-1FG P Λ
Matrix / Runout ((var. 1) side B runout stamped): XXLP-44877-1CJ P
Rodgers & Hammerstein In Association With Joseph Fields – Flower Drum Song
Label: Columbia Masterworks – OL 5350
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono
Country: US
Released: 1958
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Musical
Viewfinder links:
Bing Crosby
Net links:
Pat Suzuki Discography
YouTube links:
Pat Suzuki -
How High The Moon
Pat Suzuki Discography
YouTube links:
Pat Suzuki -
How High The Moon
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