Welcome to the second part of my conversation with Don Black about his bestselling memoir The Sanest Guy in the Room. In Part Two we hear Don's songs as recorded by everyone from Matt Monro and Shirley Bassey to Queen and Eminem.
Don has won just about every award out there, from the Oscar to the Olivier Award presented to him just a few weeks back by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and Andrew Lloyd Webber (at top right). But in this interview Don talks about more introspective matters, such as his fears for the loss of the standard song, and the death of his wife Shirley after sixty years of marriage and "the best line about grief" in any lyric.
Click above for a second hour of songs and conversation. To hear Part One of this On the Town special, please click here.
There are a couple of references along the way to Don's friend and composing partner Geoff Stephens, who wrote "Winchester Cathedral", "The Crying Game", "There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)" and many more. Geoff died on Christmas Eve, and we will be paying to tribute to him in the days ahead.
~On the Town is made possible through the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. For more on the Steyn Club, see here.
There's a whole cavalcade of musical delights over on our Netflix-style music home page, where you'll find easy-to-access live performances by everyone from Herman's Hermits to Liza Minnelli; Mark's interviews with Chuck Berry, Leonard Bernstein and Bananarama (just to riffle through the Bs); and audio documentaries on P G Wodehouse's songs, Simon after Garfunkel, and much more. We'll be adding to the archive in the months ahead, but, even as it is, we hope you'll find the new SteynOnline music home page a welcome respite from the woes of the world.
