John Bucchino (born 1952) is an American songwriter of both lyrics and music, an accompanist, a cabaret performer, and a teacher. He has been called "super-talented".[1]Stephen Schwartz said his songs have "insightful lyrics and gorgeous melodies", "rich harmonic textures and subtle…inner voicings." His music has "beautiful intricacies."[2]: 5
Career
Bucchino was born in South Philadelphia, son of an accountant; his family moved to Palm Springs, California when he was 12. He started writing songs in high school. After college he moved to Los Angeles.[3] He never had music lessons of any sort. He does not read music,[2]: 6 and he taught himself to play the piano by ear.[4]
Bucchino did not seek out a career as songwriter for musicals; he "wanted to be a singer/songwriter/piano player ala Billy Joel or Elton John or Joni Mitchell".[3] Bucchino has been an accompanist for Holly Near starting in the mid 1980s,[5][6][7] and for the Australian singer David Campbell.
"He composes at the piano and makes cassette tapes which he gives to friends. For years, those amateur Bucchino tapes have been legendary among insiders in the music business, as singers and song-writers passed them around to each other with words of glowing praise."[4] This was how he came to the attention of both Stephen Sondheim and Stephen Schwartz.[8] Schwartz called him in 1987 and suggested he write for the theater.[9] Bucchino relocated to New York in 1992. He has at times struggled; he was reported in 2000 as playing the piano in office-building lobbies at lunchtime.[10]
Urban Myths (1998), with book by James Waedekin, an English teacher and director of the theater program at El Segundo High School,[13] is a series of seven short musical pieces based on tales of the peculiar, urban myths, like the woman who dried her dog in the microwave.[3] That show received a production, with no press, at the Century II theater in Wichita, Kansas, in 1998.[13][14] An article on Bucchino from 2000 says that it "had its premiere last season in Kansas City;"[4] perhaps that is the same performance. A 1999 interview says it had "five readings" in New York.[15] The only documented performance (as of 2019) was before an industry-only audience of musical theatre producers, at the 10th Annual Festival of New Musicals, New York, 1998.[16] Three songs from Urban Myths were published in 2000 in the volume Grateful. The Songs of John Bucchino, with accompanying CD.
"Temporary" has "the outlandish setting of a mother flushing her son's baby alligator down the toilet, but was a touching lament about the ephemeral nature of life and its contents."[14] It has also been published in TTBB arrangement.[17]
"My brother died of AIDS in 1992 and I wanted to create an urban myth which was an AIDS story…a story we would like to see perpetuated into an urban myth. I wrote a song called "Not a Cloud in the Sky," ...and the line "You're not really about to die" just came out of nowhere; I didn't know it was coming! But once that line came out, I realized it could be the opening number for the AIDS myth."[3]
Far and away Bucchino's most popular song is "Grateful".[18] (Lyrics for "Grateful" .) "Not too long after that I wrote 'Grateful' and I thought 'Oh my God! This could be the closing song!' Then we had the difficult task of deciding what was going to happen between the two songs and who the characters were. That section turned into a beautiful story about a man who's dying of AIDS whose lover, the one who sings 'Not a Cloud in the Sky', is very clenched and in denial about the situation. Towards the end of the piece, when his lover asks, 'What do we have to be thankful for?', the man who's covered with lesions and dying sings 'Grateful'. So it's pretty powerful and makes his lover cry for the first time during the story. The piece is called 'Last Supper' and the man who's dying has requested a meal of all of his favorite foods, after which he's going to kill himself. And what happens is that his lover's tears fall into the food and it miraculously cures him."[3] "Grateful" has been issued as a children's book, called "Grateful, A Song of Giving Thanks" created with Julie Andrews and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, published by HarperCollins. The book includes a recording of the song sung by Art Garfunkel.[19]
One section of Urban Myths, one legend, was "Lavender Girl", which became part of the following production.
The one-act musical Lavender Girl (2000), originally part of Urban Myths, is the story of a Princeton student, out looking for a conquest in a "night of reckless pre-college abandon," who falls in love with the mysterious title character when he almost runs her down with his car. It is set during the jazz era, in 1927 Alabama, because, Bucchino says, "I thought it would be fun to write a Charleston—we have a big Charleston number at a party in the show. [The Charleston is "We've Got Time".] And I wanted to write the sort of romantic, melodic songs that were written in the '20s, like classic Irving Berlin songs, or Jerome Kern. It's just a really colorful, beautiful world."[13]
Lavender Girl was presented in 2000 as one of three one-act works produced, under the title 3hree, by Hal Prince at the Prince Music Theater.[20][21] A song from Lavender Girl, "Dancing", is included in Songs of John Bucchino (above).
Bucchino made his Broadway debut as composer/lyricist of A Catered Affair (2008), featuring four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein as bookwriter and co-star. Fierstein sought out Bucchino, whose "songs had become something of a hot property in New York's cabaret scene".[9]A Catered Affair concerns a working-class family in the Bronx in 1953; there is family conflict over the cost of a huge banquet for the eldest daughter's wedding.[9] After a try-out in San Diego, it opened on Broadway on April 17, 2008, and closed July 27, 2008; there were 116 regular performances and 27 previews. It won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical.[22][23] The show has received subsequent productions by Chicago's Porchlight Music Theatre, the Atlanta-area Aurora Theatre,[24] the Hattiesburg Civic Light Opera,[25] a community production in Helena, Montana,[9] and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Esaura, 2013. In Denmark. "The musical is based on local Danish history, more precisely on a Danish novel by Carl E. Simonsen called Abraham Fournais. It takes place around the siege of the town of Fredericia in 1849."[26] "It tells the story of two young lovers divided by war and religion and their parents' past set in the time of the siege of Fredericia in 1849.[27] Bucchino's description: "an enormously emotionally powerful and completely universal love story against the backdrop of war that anyone can relate to."[28] The first Danish musical.[29] In English. Music and lyrics by Bucchino. Bucchino was recommended to the producers by Steven Schwartz.[28]
Concerts of John Bucchino songs
It's Only Life is a revue of his songs, presented at Lincoln Center under the direction of Daisy Prince on January 27, 2006.[30][31]
Recordings
Songs of John Bucchino
Listed here are recordings consisting completely of Bucchino songs.
It's Only Life (2006). Tracks and singers: "The Artist at 40" (All), "Unexpressed" (Gavin Creel), "Painting My Kitchen" (Brooks Ashmanskas), "Sweet Dreams" (Jessica Molaskey), "Playbill" (Billy Porter), "That Smile" (All), "Love Quiz" (Andréa Burns) "A Contact High" (Gavin Creel), "What You Need" (Billy Porter), "When You're Here" (Jessica Molaskey), "It Feels Like Home" (Gavin Creel). "A Powerful Man" (Billy Porter), "I'm Not Waiting" (All), "Progression" (piano only, John Bucchino), "It's Only Life" (All), "Love Will Find You in Its Time" (Andréa Burns & Gavin Creel), "If I Ever Say I'm Over You (Brooks Ashmanskas), "This Moment' (Andréa Burns), "On My Bedside Table" (Brooks Ashmanskas), "I've Learned to Let Things Go" (Jessica Molaskey), "Taking the Wheel" (Gavin Creel & All), "Grateful" (Billy Porter), "A Glimpse of the Weave" (All). John Bucchino accompanies on the piano. Sheet music of the songs not already published in the Grateful collection has been published as a book.ISBN9781423457084
Grateful, A Song Of Giving Thanks (children's book). Art Garfunkel sings the song on an accompanying CD. ISBN006051633X.
3hree (2001) (original cast recording)
Solitude Lessons (cassette, 2000). Recorded a decade before it was released, "it was originally intended for use as a demo tape and to sell after the concerts in which he played for singer Holly Near."[20]
Joseph, King of Dreams (DVD). All songs, but not score, by Bucchino.
On the Arrow (cassette tape, 1985). Contents: "You're so blasé", "What you're lookin' for", "On the arrow", "That smile", "Come home alone again", "The time and the wine", "Running red lights to you", "It feels like home", "A contact high", "Living in the belly of a dinosaur", "Never catching up, never giving up", "I will not be left behind". Bucchino sings and plays.[34] Sheet music of the songs has been published as a book, ISBN0634020005
"Something as Simple" (45 rpm single, 1981). Bucchino sings and plays.
Beatles Reimagined (CD, 2016). Solo piano improvisations.
On Richard Rodgers' Piano (2003). Bucchino plays piano interpretations of Rodgers' songs on Rodgers' own Steinway. Voted Best Instrumental CD by Show Business Weekly.
John Bucchino as accompanist
This list is limited to albums on which Bucchino is the only accompanist.
Patty Zeitlin; Marcia Berman; Anne Lief Barlin Rainy day dances, rainy day songs (cassette and LP, 1975, CD, 2003) (juvenile)
Other projects
In 1993, Bucchino served as musical director of Holly Near: Fire in the Rain.[37] He wrote the songs (music and lyrics) for the DreamWorks picture, Joseph: King of Dreams (2000), produced and orchestrated by Daniel Pelfrey. The film won a Film Advisory Board Award of Excellence and Bucchino's Better Than I won the 2001 Video Premiere Award for Best Song at the DVD Exclusive Awards. Bucchino wrote the lyrics for the children's musical adaptation of Simeon's Gift, a book by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton. The work, with a score by Ian Fraser, was performed by the Louisville Orchestra in 2008 conducted by Fraser, with costumed vocalists and Ms. Andrews as "storyteller."[38] As part of their Julie Andrews Collection, HarperCollins published a children's book titled Grateful, A Song of Giving Thanks (based on Bucchino's song/album Grateful), which was awarded the Parents’ Choice Gold Award. In 2010, Bucchino was commissioned by Danish producer Søren Møller to compose the music and lyrics for the musical Esaura, with a book by Mads Æbeløe Nielsen.[39]
In January 2016, Bucchino's It’s Only Life premiered in Paris, France, performed in concert version by American Musical Theatre Live in the presence of the composer.[40]
Group award, from the Gay and Lesbian American Music Awards (GLAMA)
Shared award with Michael Callin, Holly Near, Cris Williamson, and Arnold McCuller, for the song "They Are Falling All Around Me," from the album Legacy.[41]
