User talk:Garygeld

GARY GELD, American composer of Broadway musicals as well as pop songs was among the first independent record producers in the early 1960s. Born in Paterson, N.J.,Gary lost both his parents at the age of 3 and grew up in an orphanage in Clifton New Jersey. And it was at the age of 3 that he sat down at a piano, never having seen a keyboard, and played “My Country Tis of Thee” with two hands- astonishing everyone in the room. He had a remarkable memory and could play a melody back verbatim after only one hearing. Early years

A graduate of Clifton High School, he wrote the class graduation song in 1953.

Having saved his money from his teen years (he started working at 11) as a seller of Good Humor ice cream, a chauffeur to a textile company executive, a seller of haberdashery as well as band uniforms, Gary started attending NYU on a music scholarship.

No longer wanting a career as a classical pianist, he switched from music at NYU to School of Commerce receiving a Bachelor of Science Degree in 1957 while attending school full-time all day, and then working full nights as an NBC page in Rockefeller Center. On weekends he crashed.

Subsequent to college, he played cocktail piano at the Left Bank a restaurant across from the old Madison Square Garden. There he was heard by the casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein who introduced him to Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard, who was in need of a rehearsal pianist at Tamiment in the Poconos. Following that summer of 1959, Gary began writing songs in earnest.

Pop Songwriting period

He formed a collaboration with Peter Udell in 1961 and that team had 45 of their songs recorded the first year without a single success. They then borrowed 9,000 from Peter’s uncle, hired musicians, booked a studio and went into that studio with Brian Hyland who they had met in the famous Brill Building. Brian had just had a major success with Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny…Bikini. , a novelty song, and was unhappy with the follow-up his record company wanted him to record; another novelty song.

Gary and Peter produced 4 songs that they had written at that one session and two of them namely Ginny Come Lately (which went on to become a Top 5 song in nearly every country of the world in a multitude of languages) as well as its follow-up Sealed With a Kiss which reached Number 3 in America and Number 1 in numerous countries. The recording received for the writers their first Gold Record. Following this they formed Geld-Udell Music and G-U Productions, publishing their own songs and recording their own hits as well as managing the artists.

Sealed With a Kiss had continued success in later years with Top Five recordings by Bobby Vinton as well a Gary Lewis &amp; the Playboys. The original Hyland recording was re-released in the U.K. in 1987, some 25 years after the original, and became a Top 5 hit all over again. In the 1990s the song was recorded by Jason Donovan in England and went quickly to Number 1. Other number 1 hits in this period include Save Your Heart for Me by Gary Lewis &amp; Playboys as well as Hurting Each Other by the Carpenters. C&amp;W Top 5 includes Getting Married by Dottie West and He Says the Same Things To Me by Skeeter Davis.

When his songs had difficulty getting airplay after the introduction of the Beatles and the English pop invasion to America and discouraged that he could not get a hearing with Broadway producers who thought of him as strictly a “pop” songwriter, Gary moved to Los Angeles in 1969 It was shortly after moving that he received a call from producer Philip Rose who had heard his early R&amp;B successes with Jackie Wilson and Linda Hopkins asking him if he would be interested in coming back to New York to write the music for a musical version of Purlie, an Ossie Davis play Rose had produced ten years earlier as a straight play. Rather than move back – by now Gary was married with a then 1 year old son - he wrote the music in L.A. and phoned &amp; faxed it all in until casting and rehearsals began, moving to New York only for the rehearsals and previews.

Broadway career

Purlie had its previews right on Broadway at the Broadway Theater without benefit of an out of town tryout and went on to garner 5 Tony Award nominations, one for its composer and winning 2 for its stars Cleavon Little and Melba Moore. “I Got Love” was its standout song and Gary &amp; Peter produced the original Cast Album, for which they received a Grammy nomination.

The show was the first of a string of black musicals in the 70s and 80s and its success led to other black musicals being able to get produced such as The Wiz, etc Purlie, which ran 1 1/2 years on Broadway brought a new demographic into the theater as black audiences who had rarely attended Broadway became a major new audience factor. Its music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic in concert.

While Purlie was running, the Carpenters released one of Geld-Udell songs called “Hurting Each Other, which went to Number 1 and was rewarded with a Gold Record, the team’s 2ndGold after Sealed With a Kiss. During this time more hits were scored in the Country &amp; Western field with 2 Top 5 country songs by Skeeter Davis (He Says the Same Things To Me) and Dottie West (Getting Married Has Made Us Strangers.) Geld and Udell also produced the number one “Im Gonna Be Strong” by Gene Pitney.

Following its Broadway run Purlie was videotaped with Gary as its Music Director and won a Cable Ace Award as best musical recorded for TV.

Purlie was followed up in 1975 with “Shenandoah”, one of the first film to stage transfers and went from a highly successful tryout at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut straight to Broadway, opening at the Alvin Theater-now the Neil Simon -and running some 1,050 performances bringing Gary his 2nd Tony nomination as Best Composer and winning a Tony for its book and star John Cullum. “Freedom”from Shenandoah accompanied the re-dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Once again, Gary produced the Original Cast album for which he received his 2nd Grammy nomination Both Purlie and Shenandoah are on all lists of longest running Broadway musicals.

Unable to agree with his collaborators on future musicals, Gary reluctantly agreed to score Angel, a musical version of Look Homeward Angel.The show was closed very quickly after some 9 performances and Gary returned to Los Angeles at the age of 42 and retired, exhausted from the LA to New York trek for nearly a decade.

His songs are still performed with new recordings coming from many countries every year. Most recently in 2012 he enjoyed hearing his very first success Sealed With a Kiss performed on American Idol – some 50 years after that song’s introduction.

(Garygeld (talk) 13:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)).