Robbie Rozelle: Christine! Nice to be
talking to you again! How are ya?
Christine Andreas: Weary, but ok…
RR: How’s your run at the Carlyle going?
CA: I can’t believe it’s my last week, but overall it’s been
pretty great.
RR: Did you make any changes to the set from last time?
CA: Yeah. It was Valentine’s Day, so that informed the set a little
bit. I put some Rodgers and Hart in it. I put “My Funny Valentine”
in. I ended up doing Pal Joey last year, so I put “Bewitched, Bothered
and Bewildered.” I put in “To Keep My Love Alive,” which I did
last time.
RR: I love that song.
CA: Yeah, I didn’t record it. I had “It’s Got To Be Love,” too.
So I had four Rodgers and Hart tunes right up front. I had had “What
Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life,” but I have taken that out of the
set. I opened with “He Loves Me,” right into the Rodgers and Hart
songs. Sounds good, doing that live.
RR: It’s been a hell of a year for you.
CA: Well, I’ve done a number of things. Yeah, I’ve been busy.
RR: Your disc, “Here’s to the Ladies…” was a USA Today Top 10,
and then “The Carlyle Set” was too...
CA: Wasn’t that great? That Elysa Gardner is a big fan.
RR: She’s lovin’ you…
CA: She’s lovin’ me! She came opening night, and brought her mom. It
was really nice.
RR: Last time I saw you was at “The Maury Yeston Songbook” signing,
I think.
CA: Is that when it was? Yeah…
RR: I love that track.
CA: “By The River”? I was thinking of that the other day. I
haven’t thought of it in a long time.
RR: Such a great song for you. Did Tommy [Krasker] just call you and…?
CA: Yeah, Tommy just called me and said “This would be great for
you.” He’s real smart that way. I was intrigued by it. It’s odd,
and unusual. I would never have thought of that and Maury Yeston. I
didn’t know he did that kind of writing.
RR: He’s all over the place, isn’t he?
CA: Yeah. I really did like that. It was good.
RR: And you did Pal Joey…
CA: Well, I’ve been to Philly now, like…
RR: You’re a fixture.
CA: I’m a national treasure! What’s a city treasure? An urban
treasure? What do you call it?
RR: [laughing] I guess so! You’re much loved in Philly. In fact, you
won the Barrymore Award for it.
CA: Yeah, in fact, it just arrived yesterday.
RR: Really? So, you didn’t go there to get it?
CA: I did go there, and sang for the awards. And I won it, but you
didn’t receive it that day. They had to make them up. It just came in
the mail yesterday. I guess it came sometime last week, but I stay in
the city when I’m performing there.
RR: You stay at the Carlyle.
CA: Yeah, they give me a suite. Because it’s so much to do, to go back
and forth. [yawns] It’s challenging. Listen to me now, and it's my day
off!
RR: You’re working hard…
CA: Well, I have a double life, because I’m a mom and a performer.
RR: You also did “Here’s To The Ladies” in Philly.
CA: Yeah, and then this January, I went back and did “The Carlyle
Set” for New Years. I did four or five nights. I had my four guys.
RR: Same four guys who did the album?
CA: No, I didn’t have my reed player. He was off in Japan with John
Tropia. We had Kenny Hitchcock, who’s great. That’s the only person
I didn’t have. Like tomorrow night, I’ll have all my four guys, Lee
Musiker, Dick Sarpola, Ray Marchica and Lou Marini. I had seldom have
them all together.
RR: Seldom?
CA: Like Dick fell on the ice, so he was out all last week. Marini
wasn’t available the first two weeks. When you have these ace guys,
they have these other commitments. But it doesn’t matter, because I
work with some other great musicians. So now I have my first, my second
and my third guys that I work with and they’re all great. I’m
partial to my original guys, because I know them better. But they’re
all great.
RR: It’s a gorgeous cd, “The Carlyle Set.”
CA: Thank you, you liked it?
RR: I did... I’ve had it for a year, since Marty [Silvestri,
Christine’s producer and partner] sent me the rough mix. You went back
to the studio and re-recorded some parts.
CA: Yeah, I wasn’t so happy with some of the vocals. I wasn’t happy
with “Italy,” it wasn’t intimate enough. It wasn’t warm
enough. There was just something a little removed in it. I wasn’t
happy with sections of “At The Ballet…”
RR: You re-recorded the speech in the middle.
CA: Now, it’s even different that what’s on disc. The truth is, when
you work something live… See, I didn’t really… I did it live, at
the Carlyle for three weeks. Then we recorded it some months after
that. But it’s in the doing of it live that it becomes more second
skin. And so, even now, if I would listen now, I would go, “Oh…
I’d do that differently.” I’d sing less in a lot of places.
“What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life,” I thought was the
quintessential reading for me. Now I listen to it and I go, “Eh…
it’s ok.” I would make the expression come not from the bigness of
the sound but from something else. I guess that’s what I’m learning
more and more, from working with these guys, and doing this kind of
music in an intimate setting. The intensity can come from a different
place. When you come from a Broadway background, a lot of it is in the
sheer force of your voice. In that setting, in the Carlyle, it comes
from the lyrics. And I know how to read a lyric well, I think. As Lee
Musiker said, learning from Tony Bennett, “You can
always go deeper.” So… that’s my motto, I guess.
RR: "You can always go deeper."
CA: Well, according to Tony. I didn’t come up with it. It’s
like anything. Your sense of truth becomes finer as you make a deeper
commitment. As you get more and more out of your way. The song, “I’m
A Fool to Want You” is a tough one for me. It’s a point of pain that
I’m not immediately familiar with, although I’ve been there. But not
quite like Frank was there for Ava. So, to go to that place, I really
gotta try to let it go, and… I don’t know… let something work on
me instead of trying to force something. So that’s gotten deeper. Some
songs, if they’re not my immediate experience, the tendency might be
to force them a bit. Instead, I’m not doing that.
RR: Just learning to let them under your skin?
CA: Yeah, because I chose them for a reason. I chose them because they
do move me.
RR: I find it very interesting that you’ve done three very different
albums…
CA: They are really different.
RR: Yeah. What made you go in each of these extreme directions? You did
an album of all love songs, a tribute to the great ladies of the stage,
and then this one, which is so eclectic.
CA: Well, I mean, it’s all circumstance. The first one was the result
of early collaboration with Marty. Right after Fields of Ambrosia,
I was asked to sing at the White House, and I didn’t have a set I
liked. So, we put together what was the core of “Love Is Good,” but
it was only a 35 minute set. So 35 minutes of that was all used in the
CD, ultimately. That was just songs I particularly liked, and then we
found stuff together. Because it was from live performance, it was
eclectic, but I guess the viewpoint is always love. I’m a
romantic, so therefore, it’s gonna come from a love and a kind of
transformative place. People try to enrich their spirits, like
“Bernadette.” Those healing kind… without getting really preachy.
Songs that address our own humanity and growth. The need to be
the most human you can be. I like those kind of songs, they inspire me.
Like “Listen Here.” Even a song like
“And So It Goes.” When I first heard it, I didn’t even get the
depth of it. We were actually beginning to go together, Marty and I. We
were in Mystic, Connecticut. Billy Joel’s version came over the
radio in the car, and we just had to move over to the side of the road,
so I could listen to it. We couldn’t drive and listen to it. I said,
“Oh my God! I have to sing that!” All those songs came along as I
was falling in love with Marty. I guess that’s “Love Is Good.”
RR: Then “Here’s To The Ladies?”
CA: Then, “The Carlyle Set” was second, although it was released
third. I just liked the eclectic idea. That room was in my head,
and in Marty’s head. That level of sophistication… New York
elegance. That was all in our heads. That basically informed that set.
And then, “Ladies” came about because they wanted a theme. And I’m
kind of “anti-theme” by nature. But I thought, “What if I honor
the ladies that I love?” And I didn’t even really want to do that,
but that was the idea that seemed do-able. And then it became a real
kick.
RR: Choosing the songs?
CA: Yeah, because I certainly knew who the ladies were! That came
together really quickly.
RR: In our last interview, you said I would really love them both, and
you were right! Are you looking to do another volume of “Ladies?”
CA: I don’t know, I kind of want to do something softer. Something
easier to listen to, where it doesn’t go into something real swingy.
RR: Kind of like a return to “Love Is Good?”
CA: Yeah, but without the “Clear Day” and stuff. I don’t know what
it will be yet.
RR: Now, when you go through and pick songs, do you just sit in a room
with Marty?
CA: No, we just live, and the songs invite themselves into our lives. I
thought of a couple more the other day… what did I hear? We just got
satellite radio in the car, so I’m sure I’m gonna hear stuff that I
wouldn’t necessarily hear. And I’m singing with the Boston Philharmonic
in March.
RR: Oh, really?
CA: They’re doing Gershwin. A hundred pieces behind me. So maybe that.
Or my version of “My Funny Valentine,” or “Bewitched,” although
that does get awfully large. So I don’t know.
RR: You should probably preserve it.
CA: Oh yeah. I don’t know what it will become yet. It hasn’t become
urgent enough in my head.
RR: I seem to recall reading that you were recording a live album at
some point.
CA: Oh, I was recording at the Algonquin. You know, I wasn’t happy
enough with it.
RR: Sometimes live albums just don’t work.
CA: The show just wasn’t enough in my bones. I didn’t really own the
songs enough. I wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t awful or bad,
and we worked hard. We recorded four nights, and they came out well, but
I didn’t feel they were definitive. Somebody will probably pirate it
somewhere along the way, and I’ll be pissed off…
RR: That’s just the way it goes, right? On “The Carlyle Set” you
cover two of the roles you sang earlier in your career.
CA: Isn’t that wild? In very unique ways.
RR: It must have been great fun to revisit the material after a period
of time.
CA: It was. And to rip away the character, and just do it. With four
guys.
RR: It doesn’t sound like four guys, sounds like so much more.
CA: Yeah, they’re marvelous.
RR: You seem to be working all the time.
CA: It’s nice, I’m starting to do some cruise work, so that the kids
can travel with us. We just got back from the bottom of the world. The
very southern most tip of South America. It was so exotic. It was
great. You do like one and a half shows, and then you have ten
days to play. We decided to do them so that we could take the kids
traveling and see parts of the world they would never get to see
otherwise.
RR: Our last interview, you were in the lounge of the airport on the way
to France.
CA: That’s right! I was taking Emilie. Mac hasn’t gone to France
yet. It’s not his cup of tea. I think we’re going to Italy. I have
to do gentler trips with him. We’re taking him to Cape Cod.
That’s more his speed.
RR: What else is going on?
CA: You know Marty has a new musical.
RR: Johnny Guitar! I know… I’ll follow the Fields guys anywhere.
CA: It’s very interesting. Keep your fingers crossed.
RR: You weren’t involved, I’m assuming?
CA: I contemplated doing the part. It’s Joan Crawford. Just a
little edgier that who I am really. I didn’t want to put on that coat.
There’s other people who would do it easier than me. As it got closer,
I kept thinking “Am I wrong?” I thought, “Nah…”
RR: That opens next month?
CA: Previews on the 4th, and opens on the 23rd. They have Rob Evan in
it, from Jekyll & Hyde.
RR: So, I’m pleased that the CD is doing so well, people seem to love
it. Let me just read you a quote from USA Today: “…this girl singer
is never just a pretty voice. At a time when posers such as Rod Stewart
are reinforcing the ignorant perception of traditional pop and Broadway
standards as lounge-lizard fare, it's refreshing to hear this
material handled with the intuition and class it deserves."
CA: That’s sweet. I’m lovin’ it!
RR: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me again…
CA: Of course! I hope to see you soon!
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