New York City is filled with many old buildings, many of them over 150 years old. The above building has to have changed hands many times, so the 1873 and 1906 markers above the windows no longer have much meaning in today's world. Was the company who built this building founded in 1873, and moved to this building in 1906? So much history in this city has been torn down, paved over, or altered beyond recognition.
This weekend, RQS and I went to see an off-Broadway play called "A Sign of the Times." It's plot (or what little you can call a plot) is there to tie 1960's era songs together to tell a little tale of a small town girl who comes to NYC in the 1960's and finds the world much different than she expected. As much as I love 1960's music, I'm not sure of what to make of this play. RQS enjoyed the music very much. But I was underwhelmed about how the songs were assembled. Although I loved the songs and enjoyed the performers singing these songs, I felt that many of them were flat - because of how the people who orchestrated this piece of fluff changed the feel of some of these songs.
Would I recommend seeing this play when in NYC? Yes. Like the outside of the above building, the music from the Brill Building keeps getting reworked for better and worse. All the casual listener of 1960's music will remember may be the original performances and maybe occasional covers of these songs. But these were great songs, with only one clinker (in my humble opinion) in the bunch. And I'm glad that someone has put them together for a new audience....
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