WESTSIDER JOE RAPOSO
Golden boy of American composers
2-23-80
Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud, sing out strong
Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad
Sing, sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song.
Joe Raposo wrote those words, along with their music, on a January morning in New York City, about 10 years ago. "It was," he recalls, "as succinctly and as economically and precisely as I could embody a philosophy of life in a song. 'Sing' is my philosophy of life, period. … I remember leaving the studio and walking up Sixth Avenue saying, 'If that isn't a hit song, I know absolutely nothing about it.'"
The boyish, roly-poly, 40-year-old songwriter, whose incredibly crowded career has included the writing of five movie scores and more than 350 songs recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett and Tom Jones, was right about "Sing." When Karen Carpenter's single went platinum in 1974, that was only the beginning.
"It's one of the most recorded songs in the world," says Joe. "I think there are something like 180 versions of it, in just about every major language. … Lawrence Welk recently did this hit parade of songs of the decade, and the number one song of the decade was 'Sing.'"
We're riding in a limousine along Fifth Avenue. Joe has requested to be interviewed while he attends to some gift shopping. Because of a temporary leg injury, he has hired a limousine for the afternoon. As we go from store to store, Joe greets the merchants by name, then answers questions into a tape recorder while waiting for his merchandise.
Long noted for his musical versatility, Raposo grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, the only child of a classical musician father and a piano playing mother. "I learned counterpoint at the age of 6 or so by wandering around the concert hall as my father rehearsed Mozart." His parents taught him piano, violin and bass viol. At Harvard University he began to write and direct his own musicals. Soon after moving to New York City in 1966, he had all the work he could handle as musical director, composer and lyricist for both television and the stage. He is the recipient of three Emmy Awards and an Oscar nomination. As a record producer, he has won four Grammy Awards.
"It's Not Easy Bein' Green," one of many songs he wrote for the Sesame Street TV show, has become the international anthem for the Girl Scouts of America. Another Raposo hit, "You Will Be My Music," brought Sinatra out of retirement several years ago. His Sesame Street Fever disco album has sold more than a million copies.
An album of all-Raposo music recorded by the Boston Pops in 1976 led to a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra for an orchestral and choral work. The result is a 12-to-14-minute oratorio titled From the Diary of Johann Sutter, about the man whose quiet farm became the epicenter of the California Gold Rush.
"It's the darndest story ever. Because it tells how a man who's a tremendous idealist came to this country from Switzerland to found a new utopian agrarian state, with cattle and fields of grain, and vineyards. … When the Gold Rush started, Sutter's whole society was ruined. And it is an incredible parallel for our time, in that our pursuit of material goods tends to make us forget all the natural, beautiful things that surround us.
"Sheldon Harnick has done a wonderfully literate libretto. It premieres this spring in Boston. Sheldon and I have been talking about the possibility of expansion, but we have a musical to write first based on It's A Wonderful Life, the Frank Capra movie."
At the same time, Raposo is collaborating with Hal David on another musical and writing songs for a sequel to The Muppet Movie. But with all his success, Joe admits to having "a trunk of songs that are unrecorded, and many of them I feel are right up on a par with anything I've ever done. But they sit there and nobody grabs them. You have to wait. … A lot of people think, 'Oh, if I only had the talent to write a hit song.' But writing a great song isn't enough: you have to get the right recording at the right time."
Apart from being a creative artist and a practical businessman, Joe has an active family life. Married for the past four years to beautiful Pat Collins of ABC-TV's Good Morning America, he has custody of two sons from a previous marriage. The eldest, 16-year-old Joseph, is already making waves as a bass player, both electric and orchestral. Joe and Pat also have a 3-year-old daughter of their own.
An admirer of President Carter since 1975, Joe wrote the music for Carter's campaign song the following year, and has done so again for 1980.
In his infrequent spare time Joe loves "tinkering — banging nails into
things, and building stuff. I'm a pretty handy carpenter, a fair electrician."
With a mischievous smile he adds: "As a matter of fact, sometimes I think
I should go into that full-time, because the music business is chancy."