The First Baron

Okay, so first i'd like to share my latest discovery. :D Well, he's not really a discovery to the actually world, he's been around for a while, but I have to honor him some how because of his astonishing voice and I wish he was appreciated a bit more.

So I was watching that awesome video of Brent Barrett and Michael Jeter (RIP, but he's not the center of todays piece, although i might do one on him later) dancing like a madman in the Tony performance of Grand Hotel, I wiki'd up the musical and realized that the sexy Brent was in fact NOT the original Baron (although he did a damn good job playing it).

The original Baron was this man named David Carroll, whose last production was in fact, Grand Hotel. He left the show pretty early due to sickness. 2 years later when the song-writers finally settled their bitching over song rights, They finally decided to make the cast recording of "Hotel". By then, Carroll was already very ill with the late stages of HIV. This poor man literally DIED the day recording for the OBC of Grand Hotel started... in the bathroom of the recording studio... Very sad.

So i tried to search him up, finding this video of him sing "Anthem" from Chess (again, as the original cast member). Most of you know Chess from the 2008 concert version with Adam Pascal and Idina Menzel, and "Anthem" being sung by THE Josh Groban. I thought it couldn't get better than Josh. I was SO wrong. Originals kick ass, and this was GORGEOUS. Whoever caught it live was one lucky cow. One of the very few of the dying species that is "the musical theater baritone".

And who better to obsess with me about David Carroll than our very own Seth Rudetsky! For those who don't know Seth... well you should... or you have been deprived of all MT awesomeness. Anyway I'll let you see for yourself. Seth explains Carroll's death then goes on to do a deconstruction of his song "Love Can't Happen" from - guess what - Grand Hotel. Listen to the last note. and look at Seth's face when David hits that note xD.

This song was so good i actually bought it off iTunes. RIP David Carroll. Your beautiful voice will ring forever in my heart.

That aside, below was a small side discovery of a video i found from the user who posted the Chess song. An awkwardly cute song that makes me smile. And yes, that's Anthony Rapp (the 3rd RENT-y i mentioned today).

Senior Retreat tmr... yay... i have to wake up EARLIER than i do on school days... My head is exploding from self-produced stress. I'm a sad person. Ah well, Sheehan will pull me out of my my misery tmr. He was seriously on a ROLL today with the jokes during the workshop. Love him to bits.

Peace out,

Tenshi