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Don Black’s love letter to New York
From the Heart at Garrick Theatre features a wide range of the songwriter's hits, performed by a guest cast
A stunning tribute to the talent of Don Black features a selection of the multi-award-winning lyricist’s songs. In From the Heart at the Garrick Theatre the audience is transported to one of Don’s favourite places, an off-Broadway cabaret club where a cast, hand-picked by him, brings to life the musical numbers that hold a special place in his heart.
Don describes the show as his love letter to New York and the cabaret evenings he has experienced over the years where “three girls and two guys along with a pianist would bowl me over with an evening of sensational music”.
Don’s talent and versatility shines through in the show’s selection of songs. Guessing Alone is a poignant love song to Don’s beloved wife Shirley, who died in 2018, contrasting with the fun-filled number Doctors, sung by the wonderful Clive Rowe.
Every night a surprise guest star comes to the stage. At one performance it was Michael Ball appearing to sing Love Changes Everything, at another it was Marti Caine.
Don is that rare someone about whom everyone has only good things to say. He is not only hugely successful but immensely popular, one of the show’s stars, Caroline O’Connor, flew to London from her native Australia so that she could be in the cast.
The story of Don’s meteoric rise to success starts in London’s East End, more than 80 years ago where as the youngest of five children he lived with his parents, Russian Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.
“I loved all music. My uncle was a rabbi,” says Don,” and this instilled in me a love of Jewish music. It was a part of my upbringing, and the tunes and melodies were so beautiful. ”
Don credits the Broadway composers, many of whom were Jewish, in being his teachers. “I would listen to their songs, and they were masters at their work, and it taught me to understand what makes the lyrics of a song great.
“My favourite was the Al Jolson story. I saw it 32 times. It was very relatable and very emotional. The story of this young Jewish boy who wanted to be a singer.”
As a youngster Don had no idea that he was destined for songwriting success. His first job was as an office boy working for the New Musical Express newspaper. Its offices were in Denmark Street (aka Tin Pan Alley) in the heart of the music industry.
“In a street full of music publishers, where everyone was talking about songs, I decided to have a go at writing the words for a couple of songs. I was friendly with a singer called Matt Munro who was looking for work. Music publishers paid £5 for a demo – a lot of money in those days – so I wrote him some lyrics for a song titled Walk Away.”
The hit not only launched Matt Munro’s career, but it changed everything for Don. He became Matt’s manager, and he went on to achieve huge success writing the lyrics for films including Born Free, five James Bond movies and for stars including Lulu, Barbra Streisand, Shirley Bassey, Michael Jackson and Michael Ball. There were collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber on four musicals. He has been showered with awards including an Oscar, five Academy Award nominations, six Ivor Novello Awards, a Golden Globe and numerous platinum and gold discs. He has lost count of the number of songs he has written but knows it runs into thousands. And, despite his phenomenal success in song writing, Don has still never learned to play a musical instrument.
Family is tremendously important to Don and his son Clive is producer on From The Heart. Despite his fame and success, he stays true to the values he was brought up with, eschewing the trappings of the showbiz world and preferring to lead a simple life. A youthful 88-year-old, he lives in Holland Park and is still busy writing songs. He is working on a dozen songs with Van Morrison, hosts a radio show every Sunday evening on Boom Radio and is still being asked to write songs for the popstars of today.
From the Heart runs until 18 October at The Garrick Theatre thegarricktheatre.co.uk
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