Rants Log-in | Search Rants | Account Info

“Blues, Booze and Attitude” came after my very talented collaborator Tommy Dodson (pianist, singer, composer, arranger) and I had passed through the reality crucible of attempting to stage our first musical, “Playing the Game.” “Blues, Booze and Attitude” is a one-man musical, tailor-made for Tommy Dodson, which we will stage in Los Angeles (Glendale) on May 10, 2008. The particulars appear below.

Apart from an unfinished opera and legally prohibitive, aborted attempts at one-person musicals based upon past celebrities, Tommy and I put a lot of effort in our first musical, “Playing the Game,” which unlike the one-man piece “Blues, Booze and Attitude,” is built around a full cast of singer-actors. Shortly after embarking upon “Playing the Game,” Tommy was contracted as a featured artist with a major cruise ship line. For the next 3 years, the collaboration took on an around-the-world remote character of creation. Once, with both composer and lyricist aboard, it continued throughout an entire cruise.

“Blues, Booze and Attitude” is based upon Tommy’s original concept, which I developed into the libretto and lyrics for “Blues, Booze and Attitude.” This period piece suggests the predicament of choir director Thad Johnson in juggling the seeming contradiction of his alter ego Spats Dollar, a bawdy house piano plunker.

Tommy and I began collaborating shortly before the turn of the century. This proximity to the Year 2000 was the catalyst for our first joint output in Tommy’s “Millennium” CD, which features the raucous title song that honkytonkorilly recounts major events of the 1900s. Our first joint, single-song effort, “We’re Still Together,” also appears on that album.

There is a plethora of other songs, covering a variety of genre, that we have wrought, with great sensitivity to the subject at hand. Some of these renderings have been incorporated in other of Tommy’s albums, and others languish on the shelf, awaiting appropriate application.

Tommy Dodson will appear in “Blues, Booze and Attitude” on Saturday, May 10, 2008, at 8:00 p.m,, at the

Days Inn Glendale
450 W. Pioneer Dr.
Glendale, CA 91203

A reeception will follow the performance.

Ticket Price - $20
For ticket information call (323) 259-5900 or (619) 239-4622
E-mail ticket inquiries or orders should be sent to
edgeofeden@sbcglobal.net or curlon@aol.com
Many out-of-town guests as well as some locals are planning to stay
the weekend at the Days Inn where the performance is taking place.
If you wish to do so, you may call Days Inn at (818) 956-0202. Give
the reservation code EDGE for a special corporate discount rate of
$82.00 per night.