The King's New Clothes (Frank Loesser)5.05
Jessica Martin & Mark Steyn, dialogue and vocals
with orchestra arranged and conducted by Kevin Amos Mark & Jessica Martin recreate a beloved children's classic adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale. Frank Loesser was worried that purists would dislike the way he’d downgraded Andersen’s emperor into a mere king. “When you get home tonight,” he told a reporter from The Boston Herald, “you try to make up a song with the word emperor in it, and then you’ll see why I had to use the word king instead. I’ll probably start a couple of wars when the picture opens, but I just couldn’t do it the other way.” He needn’t have worried. The song became an instant favorite, and this lavish budget-busting recreation of song and story features a cast of thousands and a spectacular royal parade. Mark plays the King, with Jessica as the Queen, the little urchin boy, selected duchesses and Cockney townfolk, and many more. Fans of Frank Loesser may also notice some sly evocations in the military parade of appropriately martial music for the artillery ("Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition"), the navy ("Sit Down, You're Rockin' The Boat"), the cavalry ("I Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle"), the foreign legion ("Sand In My Shoes") and others - and even a mischievous quotation of "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
Please be aware that this is an audio performance. In the forthcoming video, Mark will be wearing the King's new clothes.
First heard on Mark's centenary salute to Frank Loesser, this performance is now available via digital download and is also available in old-fashioned CD form on Mark & Jessica's disco EP A Marshmallow World - Disco Fever!. |
