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Sound Clip: FDR and Louis by Michael Roth
Michael Roth composes music and sound design for theatrical productions in North America. This 2008 recording is from You Can’t Take It with You. He writes,”The director, Warner Shook wanted to open the play with the classic Louis Armstrong recording of “Sunny Side Of The Street” – but, especially given my own politics, I wanted to create an overture to the song and the play that created a surprisingly political context for the production, given that the play, though certainly a comedy and a very funny one, was taking place during and was a response to the depression in the 30’s, and more so simultaneously given what our country and the whole world was going through particularly in the fall of 2008. And as we are still of course reeling from the recession, so did the Vanderhof family in the play continue to deal uniquely with the ongoing depression.
I tracked down online recordings of FDR’s fireside chats, edited them together, aiming to whittle them down to a clear and concise message, cleaned up the sound quality, put a click track to it, composed and orchestrated a score around FDR’s voice, using elements of “Sunny Side” as well as my own music, and recorded it with the great players in Seattle. The sound challenge was pretty exacting – they are archaic archival recordings of pretty dubious consistency. But, combining two FDR chats (March 9, 1937 and March 12, 1933), with the particular help of Brendan Hogan, we finessed the eq and dynamics to make it as consistent as possible, and ultimately laid out the chats so they would make their point and be, for want of a better term, musically as well as politically clear – and always trying to remember of course that this to be an introduction to a comedy.
The recording posted here is of my intro, segueing to Louis’ recording (always worth listening to). The result proved to be pretty rewarding, mainly I hope politically, as my respect for FDR grew enormously, listening to him deal with the way things were and talk to the American people as if we were adults, clearly and patiently (if you’ve never listened to them, I urge you to track them down). And of course, the irony of it all in 2008-9, hearing a ghostly president’s voice from 70 years ago admonish bankers who showed themselves “either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s funds” was not lost on me, nor on the Seattle audience – it got applause at most every performance, the first applause of the night it would seem – not bad.”