Fats Waller Had A Whorehouse Musical
It’s still morning and I’ve already learned something: there’s a Broadway show about a whorehouse in Martinique with music by Fats Waller (pictured). John McWhorter informs us: ‘“Early to Bed†was actually a big hit when it opened, in 1943, but the show ran in the middle of a musicians’ strike against American recording companies, and therefore there was no cast album—not even recordings of single songs. All we have from that year are a few tracks of Waller, who died just as the show settled in for its yearlong run, playing and singing a handful of the songs himself. And then, “Early To Bed†also opened the same year that “Oklahoma!†kicked off the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, introducing the new, grown-up Broadway musical, with a story that made basic sense and songs that advanced the narrative instead of just decorating it. “Early To Bed,†however, epitomized the old way: the plot, such as it was, operated more on the level of televised variety shows like Carol Burnett’s. The writer, George Marion, Jr., was a top-class craftsman of that form—he had previously done the script for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’s breakout film “The Gay Divorceeâ€â€”but times change, and scripts like the one for “Early To Bed†do not beckon for a revival.
