Marshall Barer
Encyclopedia
Marshall Barer - Born Marshall Louis Barer, Astoria, New York City, 19 February 1923. Lyricist, librettist, singer, songwriter and director. Died Santa Fe, New Mexico, 25 August 1998.
Marshall Barer began his career as a lyricist and song writer in the late 1940s while working as a very successful commercial artist/designer in New York. His most-heard song is the Mighty Mouse
Theme (Here I Come to Save the Day) for the famous cartoons.
He began by writing special material for supper club artistes like Celeste Holm
and Dwight Fiske and then graduated to writing "pop" songs with Alec Wilder
for such stars as Harry Belafonte
, Sarah Vaughan
, and Nat King Cole
. He was later hired by Golden Records, for whom he wrote over 100 songs.
In 1951 he met Dean Fuller and they began collaborating on songs for the musical theatre, beginning with the revue Walk Tall in 1954. They also wrote special material for Bing Crosby
and Sid Caesar
.
Barer began his own cabaret act in the 1970s, playing in clubs in Los Angeles and New York, where he would often reinterpret the lyrics of his own songs.
Marshall retired on August 25, 1998 (at age 75), in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his home, after living many years in Venice, California. Although a prolific writer, Marshall was largely unknown except to aficionados of "lost" musicals.
Artists who still feature Barer numbers in their shows include Michael Feinstein
and Andrea Marcovicci
. Both often attended his legendary Sunday night soirees at Venice Beach for other singers and songwriters.
Marshall Barer began his career as a lyricist and song writer in the late 1940s while working as a very successful commercial artist/designer in New York. His most-heard song is the Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse
Mighty Mouse is an animated superhero mouse character created by the Terrytoons studio for 20th Century Fox.-History:The character was created by story man Izzy Klein as a super-powered housefly named Superfly. Studio head Paul Terry changed the character into a cartoon mouse instead...
Theme (Here I Come to Save the Day) for the famous cartoons.
He began by writing special material for supper club artistes like Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement , as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable and All About Eve...
and Dwight Fiske and then graduated to writing "pop" songs with Alec Wilder
Alec Wilder
Alec Wilder was an American composer.-Biography:...
for such stars as Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, and Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
. He was later hired by Golden Records, for whom he wrote over 100 songs.
In 1951 he met Dean Fuller and they began collaborating on songs for the musical theatre, beginning with the revue Walk Tall in 1954. They also wrote special material for Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
and Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
.
Barer began his own cabaret act in the 1970s, playing in clubs in Los Angeles and New York, where he would often reinterpret the lyrics of his own songs.
Marshall retired on August 25, 1998 (at age 75), in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his home, after living many years in Venice, California. Although a prolific writer, Marshall was largely unknown except to aficionados of "lost" musicals.
Artists who still feature Barer numbers in their shows include Michael Feinstein
Michael Feinstein
Michael Jay Feinstein is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an interpreter of, and an anthropologist and archivist for, the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for celebrating American musical theatre songs...
and Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci is an American actress and singer.- Biography :Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Helen , a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead...
. Both often attended his legendary Sunday night soirees at Venice Beach for other singers and songwriters.
Popular Marshall Barer songs
- River Run
- La Ronde (This Is Quite a Perfect Night)
- Scratch My Back
- Roller Coaster Blues
- Intoxication
- In a Little While
- Shy
- Normandy
- Very Soft Shoes
- Song of Love (I'm In Love With A Girl Named Fred)
- Christmas long Ago
- What'll I Do With All the Love I Was Savin' for You?
- Warm Winter
Musicals/Stage
- Walk Tall (1954)
- New Faces of 1956 (1956)
- Ziegfeld Follies (1957 starring Beatrice Lillie)
- Once upon a Mattress, with music by Mary RodgersMary RodgersMary Rodgers is an American composer of musicals and an author of children's books. She is a daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy Rodgers, as is her sister, Linda Rodgers Emory...
(1959) a comical rendering of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale "The Princess and the Pea" - Dancing on the Air (an adaptation of Shaw's The Devil's Disciple) with Dean Fuller
- Around the World in Eighty Days with music by Michel Legrand
- A Little Night Music (never produced)