The song of the day for Monday, January 14, 2013 is Soon It’s Gonna Rain.

About Soon It’s Gonna Rain

This song is from the 1960 Off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks, with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. The production opened on May 3, 1960 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, where it played for 17,162 performances before closing on January 13, 2002.

The Fantasticks was important to this author, who developed her love of the theater in a large part from listening to the cast album for this show over and over again in her suburban home during her teens. In 1972, when I was studying drama at Birmingham-Southern College, a major touring company of The Fantasticks came to Birmingham and dedicated a performance to Dr. Arnold Powell. It was only then that I learned that Dr. Arnold Powell, the chairman of the Drama Department, was instrumental in the success of The Fantasticks. In June 1960, he was traveling to Europe for a sabbatical; he stopped in New York and caught a performance of The Fantasticks and immediately fell in love with it. At that time, the ticket sales weren’t that good and the producer, Lore Noto, was concerned they might have to close the production. Dr. Powell came backstage, raving about the piece and said that he wanted to produce it at Birmingham-Southern College immediately after his return from his sabbatical. His enthusiasm revived the spirits of the team and they vowed to keep it running. And thus a small liberal arts college in Birmingham, Alabama opened the first production of The Fantasticks after than the original production.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded Soon It’s Gonna Rain in March 1962 for the planned On The Glory Road album. The music was arranged and conducted by Ralph Sharon. Chico Hamilton, who had appeared on Bennett’s 1957 The Beat Of My Heart, returned to play for this album as well. On The Glory Road was not released until its inclusion the 2011 Complete Collection.  However, it was used on Mr. Bennett’s 1964 album The Many Moods Of Tony, along with another song from On The Glory Road, Caravan.

Soon It’s Gonna Rain, as well as the full The Many Moods of Tony and On The Glory Road albums are available at iTunes.

And for a trip down my memory lane, here’s Soon It’s Gonna Rain from the original 1960 cast album of The Fantasticks.