Saturday, May 16, 2020

Hair: The Musical

An exciting event in 1970 was going to see Hair at the Royal Alex Theater in Toronto. It was great to finally see a hit musical on stage rather than at the movies or in amateur productions. Hair was the first rock musical to reach the big time on Broadway. The music was written by Canadian composer Galt MacDermot, who was an avid student of African Bantu rhythms and made powerful use of them in Hair, as well as adding variety by incorporating as many different rock styles as he could. We enjoyed this variety, played the album a lot and loved to sing many of the songs:


It is interesting to dig down into the McLeans Magazine Archive for 1970 and read some of the articles on Hair, such as this one about the Canadian cast and the show's writers Ragni and Rado coming to oversee the Toronto production while staying with the cast in suites at the Royal York Hotel:




Dr Wonderful was more than happy to provide a...


Galt MacDermot died in 2018, one day short of the age of ninety, but his website is still lovingly maintained and has a great page on Hair featuring a cavalcade of Hair posters:





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