Interview with HAIR Creator, James Rado!

James Rado (left) and Gerome (Jerry) Ragni (right) - co-authors (book & lyrics) of HAIR. Photo courtesy of James Rado's website: www.hairthemusical.com

Finally! The other HAIR interview I've been promising - James Rado, co-author and creator of HAIR! For the backstory on HAIR, check out my earlier post: http://jeffircink.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post.html. And coming soon - listen for my interview with Jim in its entirety on GABCAST (see right panel)! Now, let's talk with James Rado:

Jeff
Hey - Jeff again. As you might already know from previous posts, this month – October – marks the 40th anniversary of the Broadway opening of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical –

Jim Rado
– the Off-Broadway opening…

Jeff
– the Off-Broadway opening, thank you – James Rado, who is my guest. He is the co-author of HAIR, which became a smash hit, running on Broadway for six years and I’m honored to be speaking with Jim from...are you in New York?

JR
Well, I’m near New York – New Jersey.

Jeff
New Jersey. Well, hello Jim. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it.

JR
Yes. You’re welcome.

Above: Jim, Jerry and Galt McDermott, composer of HAIR. Photo courtesy of Michael Butler's website: http://www.michaelbutler.com/hair/.

Jeff
YouTube has a video of the West Coast cast on The Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour – I wasn't aware this video existed for the public's consumption and watching you and Jerry Ragni – who was the co-author (you guys wrote the book and lyrics and conceived the idea, and Galt McDermott wrote the music) - you looked like you were having a lot of fun in that you were living in the moment. How has HAIR changed in the last 40 years?

JR
Well it seems I’m still living that HAIR moment in a way. It goes on…everyday there’s another HAIR aspect that comes to light or some development that someone such as yourself, who’s calling me to ask some new insight into something that’s so very old. But it seems to have a life of its own and I’m just surfing with it.

Jeff
People who aren’t former cast members like myself (who did it in 1994) or who aren’t “into” HAIR might not know that you originated the role of Richard in the Broadway play, The Lion in Winter and you and Jerry did a number of other things prior to HAIR, yet all these years later, you’re still associated with HAIR. Is there a downside to that?

JR
No. I think it enabled me to become a hermit, in a way, so – not really, I’m kind of kidding, but I really gave up on the idea of becoming an actor at that point only because I wanted to create scripts and my acting was carried out in creating scenes. Jerry and I wrote another show, besides HAIR, called Sun (an environmental musical about politics, pollution, the rain forests being cut down, and the like), and it’s a wonderful, comic piece, very pertinent to today. I think eventually it will see the light of day…I hope.

Jeff
I look forward to hearing more about that project, and I have some other questions about projects you’re currently working on besides Sun. Now, the play within the musical HAIR, as well as the lyrics and music, really spoke to what was going on in our country at the time and with the youth culture - what they were experiencing, what they were feeling – you being a part of that. 40 years ago, what in particular, made you say, “We have to tell this story".?

Above: Playbill from The Cheetah in New York, the Off-Broadway venue where HAIR ran in 1967, prior to moving to Broadway. Photo courtesy of Michael Butler's website.

JR
Well, the whole thing that we were experiencing – in the parks, in the streets, meeting the people, seeing the sudden outburst of hair from the heads of men. And this was all extremely exciting and theatrical, we thought, and would prove to be exciting on stage. That’s why we devised a story within this setting and with this hippy philosophy – this root of peace and love and a whole new kind of consciousness that was emerging out of the youth of things like LSD and so forth. It was just a tripped out period and we tried to dramatize it and I guess we were pretty successful at doing it. Recently it was in Central Park –

Jeff
Yes.

JR
We had three performances there and 2,000 seats and it was absolutely stunning. The audience was absolutely so very moved by it, it seemed, and – yes, it was brilliant. I was just so amazed – it seems to work today. It worked at an emotional level more than Across the Universe – which I saw recently and which I loved, but I thought that by the end of Across the Universe it was kind of an apathetic reaction by the audience; there didn’t seem to be any kind of welling up of some kind of emotional catharsis the way HAIR, which was created 40 years ago, elicited at the park a month ago or so.

Above: Jim and Jerry. Photo courtesy of Dagmar's site: http://home.flash.net/~akstudio/dagmar.html

Jeff
When I did HAIR in 1994 – talking about that cathartic experience – I remember being on stage during the finale, singing “The Flesh Failures” and – I’m blanking…

JR
“Let the Sunshine In”.

Jeff
Yes – and I remember getting choked up on stage and realizing, for whatever reason – whether it was what the play or music was saying or what I was going through in the moment or what the emotion I had hoped the audience was experiencing – I got choked up and thought, “Wait a second, Jeff, you have to sing here.” It was a very cathartic experience. It was very moving.

JR
It’s actually a tragedy. It functions in the real Greek sense of a tragedy, and it’s funny, because it is a comedy in the earlier parts and it transforms into a tragedy; but what I think you felt was the classic cathartic experience of a tragedy.

LA premiere night ticket to HAIR, produced in part by Tommy Smothers (Smothers Brothers fame) and Ken Kragen (We Are the World, Hands Across America), who I know. Photo courtesy of Michael Butler's website.

Jeff
The collaboration between you and Jerry Ragni and then between you two and Galt McDermott…I had heard that you heard a few melodies he put to your lyrics and immediately decided to work with him. Did you come to Galt with the songs in tow or did you have some songs completed and write some as you worked with Galt?

JR
Basically it was all written. We did create some other things, I’m sure, as we went along, but the things that we heard that we liked (from Galt) were our lyrics that he had set to music.

Publicity photo from 1968-1969. Photo courtesy of Dagmar's website.

Jeff
Speaking of lyrics, I’m only singing this to you because then I can say before I’m gone that I got to sing lyrics from HAIR to the co-author, so you’ll have to grant me that indulgence. (Jeff sings stanza from Donna):

“Oh, once upon a looking for Donna time she was a sixteen-year-old virgin,
Oh Donna, oh, oh Donna, oh, oh, oh, looking for my Donna.”

Jeff
Who is Donna?

JR
Donna is Italian, I think, and means, “lady” or “woman”, so she really represents Woman. But Donna was a real person to this hippy that we met one afternoon when we were – well, this is an example of a song that wasn’t written when we teamed up with Galt. We went out for lunch one day at The Public Theater when we were at rehearsals or maybe it was casting perhaps, and – I think we were already in rehearsal actually – and this…little bit older hippy with very long and ratty hair came up to us at the table where we were sitting…he had this gnarly tree branch with him, embedded in it were stones and coins and ribbons from various places he had been traveling around the world and he said that he was looking for his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Donna – “she got busted for her beauty” – that’s an actual quote from his mouth (and a lyric in the song). This is the girl he was looking for – the girl of his dreams. She had a tattoo and it was such a colorful description that we went back immediately and wrote the song.

Jeff
I wasn’t sure if there was a story behind it but I had to ask and I wanted to sing to you –

JR
It’s a real story.

Jeff
I was fortunate to have sung the duet, “What A Piece of Work Is Man”, and we rocked the house. It’s such a poignant song and it comes at such an appropriate moment during the show. For those who don’t know, it’s from Hamlet. Did you know that or did you guys scour through Shakespeare and happen upon it?

JR
Yes we knew that. We - I think Jerry pulled that out. It’s from that famous speech and we adapted it to a certain extent.

Jeff
Well it’s a wonderful song.

JR
Yes.

Jeff
And I enjoyed doing it. You know – I remember a lot of the lyrics from the show and I can sing many of the songs by heart. It still resonates with me and you can’t get it out of your head. Four or five of the songs that were in HAIR went on to become Top 40 hits on the radio. So if the public wasn’t aware of the musical, they were aware of some of your via the radio. When you hear one of your songs, does it just blow your mind –

JR
Well…

Jeff
– that they’re still playing the stuff?

Photo courtesy of James Rado's website.

JR
Yah, I guess it does. Yah, my mind is blown every day. It’s quite a feat, I would say.

Jeff
It is.

JR
Because I always wanted to be a pop song writer. Even before I met Jerry, I was an aspiring pop song writer and I wanted my songs to be in the Top 40 and I wanted hit singles and I wrote a lot of songs and finally when HAIR came along, you know - I never thought in terms of suddenly those songs would become hits but they did and that was really exciting. I had always wanted to have that and suddenly I had it in abundance, you might say.

Jeff
I especially like The Cowsills' version of HAIR, especially with that drum pitter-patter in the beginning…but I thought it was wonderful.

JR
Yes…I thought so.

Jeff
Before I forget I wanna tell any listeners that your website is http://www.hairthemusical.com/ and people can go there and read about the back-story of HAIR - there are pictures, videos. It’s really a wonderful site if you want the straight poop from the horse’s mouth, sort of say.

JR
Ha.

Jeff
The last thing I wanted to ask you about – earlier you alluded to your musical, Sun – was The White House Haunted –

JR
The White Haunted House.

Jeff
Yes – what is that about?

JR
It’s about war – a soldier goes to The White House to see the President.

Jeff
Is it a musical?

Left. A 3rd floor room in New York City were some of HAIR was written. Photo courtesy of James Rado's website.

JR
It is.

Jeff
And Billy Earth?

JR
Billy Earth is The White Haunted House now. I wrote the music for it; my turn had come to write a show in its entirely. My brother has co-authored the book with me.

Jeff
That’s right.

JR
I wrote music and lyrics.

Jeff
When can we expect to hear more about that?

JR
As soon as I get a producer who wants to put up the money for it. I think it’s great; it’s strong and powerful and funny and cathartic.

Jeff
I’m sure it will be and I look forward to hearing more about it. Jim, I just wanted to tell you it’s really been an honor for me to talk to you. I’ve always said – even before I did HAIR – that my top three musicals were HAIR, West Side Story and – I can’t think of the third one, so maybe I’ll just say –

JR
Oklahoma.

Jeff
No, no –

JR
That was before your time.

Jeff
Yah – no, it was Superstar (Jesus Christ Superstar).

JR
Superstar, yes.

Jeff
And you know, oddly enough in looking back at past cast members who did HAIR, there was at that time in the late 60’s a lot of jumping around of actors who did HAIR, Superstar and West Side Story –

Above photo. Jim in the back, and sitting are Jerry and Galt. Photo courtesy of Michael Butler's website.

JR
Well, West Side Story was a decade earlier.

Jeff
Maybe - no it was Godspell. Godspell, Superstar and HAIR.

JR
There you go. Yah – Godspell. Well I wanted to say it was nice speaking with you.

Jeff
Yes. Thank you. I wish you the best, Jim. HAIR meant a lot to me – I think about it every day. I’m watching you right sing HAIR with Jerry on YouTube as we speak. It’s just a joy. You made my – I wouldn’t say “day”, maybe “year”, and I wish you the best on all your future projects.

JR
Thank you. I made your century. Great!

Jeff
There you go!

JR
Alright. Nice speaking with you.

Jeff
Nice speaking with you, too. Take care.

JR
You, too

Jeff
And I’ll be in touch and get a copy of this to you, OK?

JR
OK.

Jeff
Thanks, Jim.

JR
Thanks, much.

Jeff
Take care. Bye.

There he is - James Rado of HAIR. What a thrill. I could of talked to him all day (could you tell?). My interviewing skills need a tweek, but I got some cool stuff from Jim. Very nice man - very intelligent and well spoken. And he thought the name of my blog was very interesting. By the way, you can find some of his other plays, as well as some of mine, on the website: http://www.doollee.com/

Peace & Love.