Michael Kantor: So tell us who first came up with the idea of doing a show called Hair, and tell us how they approached you. Just give us a very brief background on those two guys.
Galt MacDermot: Jerome Ragney and James Rado, they’d written a show, they’ve written the words and the story of hair, and they’d taken it to a guy called Matt Shapiro, who I knew as a writer. He wrote a book called Hear Me Talking to You, with Matt Handoff. And he was a jazz, like a jazz officiant or whatever. And they thought he was our Broadway producer, so they took it to him to see if he would produce it. He said, well, where’s the music? And they said, well, we’ll make up the music when we get into production. So he said, no, you can’t do that. I’ll get you a composer. So he called me and said, do you want to meet these guys and see if you want do this? And I did. So I met first Jim and then I met Jerry later.
Michael Kantor: What is hair about?
Galt MacDermot: Well, I guess you could say it’s about kids, you know, young people in the 60s trying to deal with, you now, living in America with a war on and a draft, there was a draft. Although those things didn’t seem apparent to me. It seemed to be more about hippies, you knowing, growing their hair long and living and wearing different kind of clothes, so that they didn’t… Like everybody else.
Michael Kantor: Why do you think it was revolutionary in terms of Broadway musical theater?
Galt MacDermot: Broadway. Well, you know, I had never seen a Broadway musical when I wrote here, so it didn’t seem to me unconventional. It just seemed funny. It made me laugh. There was a kind of a disrespect in the language, not the language of what the kids said about everything. They just didn’t like the conventional approach to anything, sex, music, drugs, anything. And I think that’s really what made it sort of striking when people first saw it.
Michael Kantor: Great, these are great answers. Let’s come back to, you know, give us the names of the two guys who approached you and they asked you to write music and what were you trying to do with your music?
Galt MacDermot: Well, you know, I’m from Canada originally, but I lived in Africa for three years and studied music there. And I like the African style of music. I was going to try to use that plus what I knew about rhythm and blues and jazz to make a really kind of music that I like. I’m not really a Broadway fan at all. I like funky music. So that was sort of, and when they said, well, we want a rock and roll score, I said, Well, to me, that’s f- But I do. It really isn’t quite the same thing, but close enough.
Michael Kantor: Do you remember how hair was billed? It had a sort of interesting line, and do you think that reflects what it was?
Galt MacDermot: A love, a tribal love rock music? Well, that was sort of tongue in cheek, you know, tribal loverock, although that had an effect. You know, the guy who ultimately produced it on Broadway, Michael Butler, saw that subtitle and he saw the original record, which was a bunch of Indians with Jerry and Jim’s faces in, two of them. And he thought it was about Indians, tribal loverocks. So he came down to see it. And then when he saw it… He realized it wasn’t about Indians, it was about kids, but that’s why he went.
Michael Kantor: So would you say that, you know, the music in it is not really rock or?
Galt MacDermot: Well, you know, I don’t even know what rock is. You know, it’s rhythm music. Certain songs use, well, at the time Motown was very big, you know and so certain songs like White Boys is a Motown type song. And then there’s a little bit of country music. There’s a bit of African music. It’s a mixture of stuff. You can’t write a whole show on one rhythm. You’ve got to, you’ve got to keep going for two hours with different stuff. So Jerry had done shows with Joseph Cheek in the open theater. And that was, as I understood it, that was his background. He’d also worked with Jerome Robbins, studying whatever Robbins was teaching. But Jim had been on Broadway. He’d won a prize for a lion and a winter. He got, I think, a Tony Award or something for that. So in a sense, they were from different traditions, but they were very… Trained actors, they knew everything about theater. It wasn’t like one thing. But Jerry’s taste was more along the lines of the outrageous and the revolutionary and subversive. Jim, I think, was attracted to that, but that wasn’t his initial thrust, really.
Michael Kantor: Describe the kind of music that, you know, you moved to New York to come do the show. At that time, places in the mid-sixties, what was the music?
Galt MacDermot: The music scene was fantastic. I came down in 1965 from Montreal, and I’d been seeing these bands, these rhythm and blues bands, black bands come up and play in a little club up there called the Esquire Club or something. And they were just great. So when I came I used to, I would listen to the radio every night. And this stuff was on the, it was all new songs, new feel to the music. And I got into recording. What they called demo records for the publishers and the record companies. And I met all these musicians and that’s how I really learned the orchestration business of rock and roll, working with those demo musicians. Well, they weren’t demo musicians, I was doing demos, they were doing everything.
Michael Kantor: Did you feel like coming here in 65, you were thrown into the middle of this chaotic, you know, revolt and riot and, you know real social unrest? Here’s the question. Come, how did it feel coming to New York in 1960?
Galt MacDermot: It felt absolutely great. I thought this is normal life. I’d spent most of my life in Canada or England or South Africa. And I never felt normal. In New York, with the musicians and the music, and there was no revolutions at that time. I mean, there was not threat. I didn’t even really know there was a war on. I didn’t have a television set. And I don’t read papers. So I heard about Vietnam, but I didn’s know what that was. So it just seemed like a lot of fun going on.
Michael Kantor: When they drew you into creating the show, I’m sure you very quickly learned about how people felt about Vietnam.
Galt MacDermot: Not quickly. I mean, Vietnam was, I mean the draft is a major plot point in the show, but it’s not a major factor. And even at Joe’s, at Joe Papp’s, there was this question, should Claude die at the end or not? That hadn’t been decided. And then when we went to Broadway, they decided to make him die at end. So the war wasn’t really the main thing. The main thing was the lifestyle. And I liked that. Well, when I was brought, the reason I was brought on as a legit thing, I mean it wasn’t just speculative because they had taken the play to Joe Pat. Joe Pat was teaching at Yale in those days and Jerry said, I’m going to get Joe on the train between here and New Haven. And he did. And he said to Joe, I’ve got this great script because Jerry was a great salesman. Joe said, well, I’ll read it. And he, he did read it And he said, well, where’s the music? And Jerry said, we’ll get the music. He said, if I like the music, I’ll do it. So then they called me and said, we’ve got to write the music so I did as fast as I could. And then we went and sang it to Jim, to Joe.
Michael Kantor: Tell us about that. What did you write and what did you sing? And mention Joe Papp again.
Galt MacDermot: You know, I don’t remember what I wrote. I know we didn’t have Aquarius at the beginning. The opening of the show was Ain’t Got No. And there were a few songs that I wrote that we didn’t use like reading, there was one called Reading or Writing which was about, you know, stuff in the subway. But most of the score was written. And Joe is great. Joe loves, or loved music and he just got into it and liked it. He said, sure.
Michael Kantor: Tell us about where he did it. Wasn’t this a sort of big moment for Joe Papp as well?
Galt MacDermot: It was, because he had just been doing theater in the park, and he’d bought this building downtown to start a real theater of American type plays, and we were the opening act. He said, yeah, I’ll open my theater with this. Then he had a few second thoughts later on, but ultimately he did it. I don’t know enough about the history of Broadway to know, you know, about that, but it did change a lot. Well, we got a different director. Gerald Friedman had done it off Broadway for Joe, and when Michael Butler took it over, he wanted a completely new show, and so did Jerry and Jim. So we got Thomas Horgan, who they had actually had in mind all along, because he was avant-garde and, you know, more revolutionary. And we wrote a lot more songs. We let the sunshine in on a few songs that hadn’t been in the show downtown. And the story changed, and the style changed a lot. Tom’s style of show was different.
Michael Kantor: How did Tom O’Horgan and you all cast hair? What was important in terms of, when it came to cast?
Galt MacDermot: You know, casting was a very important thing. Raynor and Ragney had told me, because I didn’t know much about anything, they told me that they wanted a different kind of singer. They didn’t want Broadway-type singers. And that was fine with me because Broadway music was not my thing. I wanted pop singers and soul singers. So there was several things involved. One was the look of them. They wanted people with long hair, real long hair. They didn’t want to put wigs on. I wanted people who could sing, at least sing in tune or sing the right melody. But the main thing was to get the right style that, you know, And some of the people that we got, the girl that did Frank Mills, they picked her up out of a nightclub. She was the hat-shirt girl. And they said, do you sing? And she said, yeah. So they put her in the show. Luckily, she could sing. But the main thing from them was the look of them.
Michael Kantor: Apparently there was a special role created to bring good luck to the show. What was the role and how did that help the show?
Galt MacDermot: What do you call that person who does horoscopes?
Michael Kantor: Astrologer.
Galt MacDermot: She was the astrologer.
Michael Kantor: So let’s start once again. There was a company.
Galt MacDermot: There was a company astrologer, I forgot her name already, but she read the stars apparently and told Michael when to open, although I don’t know what else there was to do besides open. But anyway, she was a factor. She was on Salway, I guess.
Michael Kantor: So there was a lot of sort of mystical, I mean there are some words about mystical revelations.
Galt MacDermot: Oh sure, well this was the sixties you know, meditation and all that stuff was rampant. And the idea of the stars, you know guiding us and all, that was very much a part of the thinking. It’s disappeared but now that you mention it I remember it.
Michael Kantor: It’s in New York Magazine this week. Big astrologers, anyone need one? Hair moves to Broadway, describe what Tom O’Horgan does that’s really unusual for a show on Broadway.
Galt MacDermot: Well, he used bodies in a physical way. He, his sets, I mean, we had a set by Robin Wagner, which was a couple of totem poles, supposedly. And, but Tom used people’s bodies to make pictures. And instead of just having them talk and be human beings, they were, he put them into groups that were, you know, that was his style. I would say that was the main difference with his style, but also he broke out. Dialog, he would put it between different voices and you know, he tried to make it different.
Michael Kantor: What about the breaking the fourth wall? When you saw that happen, does that feel unusual? Because it was a breakthrough, really.
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, I guess it was, it wasn’t to me. I mean, they had the kids running down and talking to the people and everything, and it was I guess, yeah, in Broadway that was unusual. That was the idea. The whole idea here was to be unusual, and so the fact that they did that didn’t seem unusual to me. I think maybe, I think people liked it though. The kids were nice. They just, they weren’t rude to people.
Michael Kantor: Do you remember what portions of the show they went out into audience to?
Galt MacDermot: Well, at the very beginning, and then I think during the Hare Krishna thing, the being in the park, they went out into the, and right up into the balcony, and they were giving out leaflets and stuff. And then at the, I think again at Good Morning Star Show, and sometimes they did it, not often.
Michael Kantor: Why do you think, you know, you mentioned the. Hair was closed. It sort of was breaking boundaries. Describe that and why do you think that happened?
Galt MacDermot: Well, it happened because the writers wanted to do it, and they had a— No, but I’m sorry. What happened? Oh, what happened? Well, they tried to close it in Boston. I think that’s really the only thing that did happen. They did close it Mexico, and I think they arrested somebody in Japan, but those were mostly connected with drugs. Boston, they objected to the show. They didn’t want it. But the Supreme Court, I said, I think… Told them they had to do it, they had run it. But I think really, it really isn’t that shocking a show, but what is unusual is the mentality of the writers. They just don’t respect the things that most people respect. I mean, they don’t give any respect to anything unless it deserves it. And as far as they were concerned, nothing deserved it. So I think people found that disturbing sometimes.
Michael Kantor: Great, great answer. Tell me, what do you think the writers respected? What did they respect?
Galt MacDermot: They respected genuineness, I mean, if people were genuine, they respected it, you know, genuine humor, genuine fun, and good music. I mean when a thing is good and really entertains you, I think they wouldn’t put that down, but it’s these false sort of things that go around things.
Michael Kantor: But what about the themes in the show about, you know, harmony and peace? And do you think that was really important? Was that just a no, no, theatrical kind of let’s you know.
Galt MacDermot: No, no, that was very important, the idea of harmony and understanding. But to the extent that they were against anything, they were, they were against conventional views of drugs. For instance, they didn’t see anything wrong. They weren’t really drug users themselves, but they didn t see making laws prohibiting drugs or making laws prohibiting sexual relationships that the government might not like. Or anything along those lines. They laughed at it.
Michael Kantor: Describe the structure of the show, and that this underlying theme was
Galt MacDermot: You could say that the structure was closer to review than to actually a book story play. But there is a story in it, and I would say the theme is individual freedom, freedom in all things, mostly freedom of thought, and the right to say anything in any way that you wanted. And there were There were people that walked out, I know that astronauts walked out of the flag, there was a flag song. And it’s a very sincere piece of patriotism, I think. I think it’s very patriotic. They’re looking at this flag. They’re all stoned on something. And they see that it’s red, white, blue, and it’s got a yellow fringe. And they say so. But the fact that we were in Vietnam fighting a war that everybody in the play certainly disapproved of, made it look like we were an accusation against the country. So some people didn’t like that. But it’s just the way it happened.
Michael Kantor: Um, did you have a favorite song that you within the score?
Galt MacDermot: I always liked Ripped Open by Metal Explosion. I don’t know, I just liked it. But I liked playing the whole show. I played the show for quite a few months. We had a wonderful band on Broadway. We had drummer called Idris Muhammad who went on to become a very famous drummer. And they were all good.
Speaker 3 So, what’s the difference between the Broadway singer who we’re auditioning and the people that you all want?
Galt MacDermot: I mean in the sound well Broadway singers We’re singing the song exactly as it’s written and with a sort of a trained sound. And we wanted to get more like a folk, like a kid is singing a song, totally untrained, and the way he feels it, or she feels it. It’s just a feeling thing, really. But there’s a sound to, in those days they used to call it the legit sound. And, you know, F.O. Merman and those people. We really didn’t want to have that because that puts up a wall between the singer and the audience of training and attitude.
Michael Kantor: You think hair changed Broadway?
Galt MacDermot: I really don’t think so. We had our little day in the sun and then we retired. It may have affected, I think it affected a lot of people. People still come up to me and say that it changed their life. But I don’t know if it changed Broadway very much. So, let’s go.
Michael Kantor: Back on something you said before, what do you think was most shocking about hair?
Galt MacDermot: Well, the truth is, nothing in here shocked me. So it’s very hard for me to speak personally. But I think there was an over, sort of an under, no, an undertone of, of, um. Originality, really, to the mentality of what they said. I mean, if you read it now, it’s still original, the things the kids say to each other. It’s not cliche, and it’s straight to the point. I mean it’s about what they were thinking. I think that shocked people. They weren’t used to hearing people really say something that they believed, and in a way that was fresh.
Michael Kantor: Wasn’t it very much kind of in line with the, I guess that was a big button at the time, question authority, or the kind of, the youth willing to say something different from the establishment.
Galt MacDermot: That came into it, and they had these people carrying signs and protesting the war and this and that. But I don’t think that shocked anybody. They’d seen that on the street. I think if there was a shock, and there was, I think it was some of the ideas had never been exposed before. Can’t think of any right off. One of the guys says, well, I’m not a homosexual or anything like that, but I’d love to go to bed with Mick Jagger. Well, there’s something ludicrous about that. And it’s also, you know, sort of enlightening. It shows you where their head is. And I think you put two hours of that kind of thought onto an audience and they get a little shaken up. Maybe, I don’t know.
Michael Kantor: What about the lyrics from songs like, uh, Hashish?
Galt MacDermot: Or sodomy.
Michael Kantor: Yeah, give me some of the, just mention some of those lyrics, I mean.
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, so to me, I mean, if you’re going to use those words, you know, which you read in sex books, and you put them in a song, there’s something shocking about that, maybe. But it’s just words. And I think that’s what Jerry’s point was. I think he says these words have no intrinsic threat in them, but we provide a threat, and we shouldn’t, or we, you know. It’s silly, too.
Michael Kantor: Can I get you to recite either from hashish or sodomy some of those words?
Galt MacDermot: Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty. Father, why do these words sound so nasty? That’s all I can, and then that’s over.
Michael Kantor: That’s great. Nudity? What about the nudity? When did nudity happen in the show and what was the response?
Galt MacDermot: I’ll tell you why Noody’s in the show. They had seen a being up in the park, which was a protest against the Vietnam War. I think one or two guys took off their clothes and the police tried to catch them and arrest them and the crowd sort of wouldn’t let them and it was a big moment. So I think they said, or they told me that they said we’ve got to have that scene in the… In the play, and they wrote that into the play. But when it came to doing it, Tom decided to put everybody nude, just because it was a better picture.
Michael Kantor: Great. At what point did you realize that Hair was kind of a groundbreaking show? You know, it wasn’t just okay, it’s running. I mean, it was really important to that time period.
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, well, all I knew was it was a hit. I mean, it was people were getting into it, going to it. When I realized it was, a major hit was when Aquarius became number one on the hit parade, which is about a year after we opened. Then it’s, then the audiences were enormous, really. Then you couldn’t get tickets. Took a while though to build it.
Michael Kantor: Let’s talk about Age of Aquarius. Tell us about when you came to write that, what was your creative inspiration and…
Galt MacDermot: Well, they, Ray Don Ragney had read in the New York Times that we were entering into the age of Aquarius, or we were in the dawning of the age Aquarius. So they wrote a song, you know, well, you’ll know the lyric, or at least this is the dawnings of the Age of Aquarius. They gave it to me and they said, this is how we want to open the show. So I looked at it and I thought it should be very spacey type of a tune, you now, with a lot of angular notes and everything. I wrote that. And I didn’t like it much, and they didn’t like it, much. So Jerry said, no, that’s not the kind of tune that the kids would sing. So I went back and wrote the one that you know now. So that was one of the only ones that I really rewrote in the show.
Michael Kantor: What did it feel like to have kind of written the, the song became like the song of the generation.
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, well, I think it’s the words. I think people are interested in that, that this is the dawning of a new age. The Egyptians used to do that, have a new And I think the thought of a New Age at that time was…
Michael Kantor: What was the other big hit in the show and tell us about how that was created?
Galt MacDermot: Well, the other big hit was part of the same record by the Fifth Dimension, Let the Sunshine In. But that poem, that song, We Starved, Look at One Another, was originally a poem. It was going to be read as a poem, and then Jerry says, well, why don’t you put that, a tune to that? So I did, and we came to the end, Let The Sunshine In, and that seemed like a good way to end the show. So that was, I consider that really more of a hit than Aquarius in a way because it’s easier to sing.
Michael Kantor: In a way speak to the fact that it’s a rock musical, but when I think of these songs in particular, there’s a real choral feel to it. You have these different harmonies and so on. Speak to, I mean, I assume that’s your inspiration and speak to that feel and.
Galt MacDermot: Well, things happened for practical reasons. We had a cast full of people. We had 25 or 23 kids. And they all wanted to sing, and they all could sing. So that’s how they ended up sounding choral. They weren’t really written as choral songs. But you get them all singing, and it’s great. So you leave it in.
Michael Kantor: Was it successful with Joe Papp and take it from there.
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, it was successful with Joe Papp. I mean, the first couple of nights it was a little creaky, but after that it was sold out every night. And it was, people liked it. I didn’t know why. I was playing in the band and I watched the audience and you know, but it was small theater. It was the Arnsbacher Theater. Then Michael Butler came down and said, well, I’d like to take this to Broadway. And Jerry and Jim had always intended this as a Broadway show. It wasn’t a surprise to them that that’s where they wanted to end up. To me, I thought, well, it’s successful here, why don’t we just stay here? But they were determined, and so was Michael, and I was very happy to go because we got a phenomenal band, we got the best people, and we recast it pretty much entirely. And what am I saying? I’m saying, why did it go to Broadway? Well, I think the intention was there. I didn’t know that, but.
Michael Kantor: Where did it move to on Broadway?
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, that’s right. Well, we had trouble finding a theater. The Schubert’s didn’t want it. The other ones, the Needlanders didn’t want it, so we ended up going to the only independent theater, which was the Biltmore. It’s quite interesting, really. A tiny little theater, 900 seats, but the guy said, sure, and that’s where we opened.
Michael Kantor: Wasn’t there something to do with the disco that?
Galt MacDermot: Well, before we went there, Joe said, well, I’ll move it uptown, but not to Broadway. We’ll go to the Cheetah. You know, you put a show in the cheetah, which is a disco, and the kids all came in. They didn’t know what the hell we were doing. I mean, the band was there, but then there’d be people doing a scene. It just, you know, it didn’t work. So we closed it down, and then we got Tom Horgan started from scratch.
Michael Kantor: What about, we talked about some of the barriers that it broke, the nudity barrier, language, which was fresh. What about racial? Racially, it was very different for Broadway.
Galt MacDermot: Well, that’s true. In fact, some of the racial jokes were the funniest, were the best. I mean, they hit all the best, and the intention was to have a truly integrated cast. I think maybe we went a little further than just whatever the percentage of black people to white people in America. We went a bit more toward black people because there are a lot of little songs and scenes I don’t know what you’d say about that stereotype, that racial stereotype, but it’s hitting at it, you know. And I like that.
Michael Kantor: Speak to those songs that Sally just mentioned who I know is a huge fan.
Galt MacDermot: It covers the speed.
Michael Kantor: Yeah, there were, let’s put it this way, there are a number of songs written specifically to address issues of civil rights. Which were they and what did they have to say?
Galt MacDermot: Well, there’s a colored spade, which is where HUD lists all the words that are used to address or describe a black person. And the point being that those words have no real meaning or no power on their own. They’re just words. But the guy who sang the song, a guy called Lamont Washington, had a lot of trouble learning those words. He found it pretty distasteful. But he ultimately did it, and he did it great. Then the other one was Prisoners in Niggertown, which is… I never quite understood, because it applied to Vietnam. And I guess they were associating the word [Unrecognized] with the treatment of the Vietnamese, something like that. There are a few other songs or moments that brought in the question of racial relations, quite a lot of that. And, of course, that was, you know… Martin Luther King had just been shot about a month before we opened, so civil rights was a big thing.
Michael Kantor: What about, you know, the Vietnam War in particular? Which songs, I think one was sung at the Tonys, which songs dealt most specifically with the Vietnam war, which obviously was a big thing too?
Galt MacDermot: Well, a prisoner’s in a [Unrecognized] town and ripped open my metal explosion. And we starved, looked at one another, is sort of about America in relation to Vietnam. I don’t think it ever mentions Vietnam in a song. I can’t remember. Well, it’s in Ain’t Got No Vietnam. They mention it.
Michael Kantor: What about 3.5?
Galt MacDermot: The 3500, that’s ripped open, what I call ripped open. But 3500 yeah, 256 Viet Cong captured or something. Yeah, they mention it. Well, there’s a whole war section which covers all of American wars ending with the Vietnam.
Michael Kantor: Tell me just, give me just a piece of that song so that if we show that we can lead in or out of that. Which song? 3-5-0
Speaker 4 Ripped open by a metal explosion Caught in barbed wire, fireball, bullet shock
Galt MacDermot: and I’ve gone, and then I lost it, but it’s really a very shocking description of war.
Michael Kantor: Great, that was great. What was the, what do you think of the legacy of hair? We ran out, I think the legacy is twofold. One is it launched certain performers and if you could give us the names again, that would be great. But two, you mentioned just now totally up-to-date. It lives on in other ways. So the legacy of hair.
Galt MacDermot: Yeah, well, there were quite a lot of great performers that started their careers there, like Diane Keaton, Melba Moore, Ben Borene, I mean, I’m going to forget people. I don’t know if you know Dolores Hall, but there were some very good people, and I’m sure there were others that came in after. I didn’t go on playing the show all through the three and a half or four years, but there was that. It started a new generation of performers, and then what was the other legacy?
Michael Kantor: Well, you mentioned earlier, it’s interesting that somehow hair lives on in today’s culture. How does hair live on in our culture?
Galt MacDermot: Well, that’s a good question, I don’t know. I mean, there is a guy who wants to take it to Broadway.
Michael Kantor: No, I was thinking you mentioned the sampling.
Galt MacDermot: Musically. Yeah, well musically they’ve been sampling hair ever since the 80s, you know, like down with the king you remember that with the They did they took Where do I go and use that for a song and? They’ve used quite a lot of the beats to make songs Some of them I hear about some I don’t But it shows you that the music of that time the 60s still is relevant to what the kids are doing
Michael Kantor: Do you see hair as sort of a watershed in the history of Broadway? Like you talked about tradition. It sort of broke with tradition and brought that new music in. I mean, could you feel that when you were doing it?
Galt MacDermot: Well, we could feel it when you’re in the Biltmore Theater, but I don’t know where else you’d feel it. I didn’t notice much of an influence. I mean, you could say that Aida and those new shows have an influence of pop music. But, you know, popular music in the 60s was a very different thing. It was very, very serious. It was serious music, I mean. And very emotional. And that’s what hair had. It was emotional. I don’t know, I mean, the people would be. Quite carried away by the end.
Michael Kantor: You mentioned, you know, pop music in the 60s was serious. And emotional and speak to how that was the kind of music that you wanted to include in the show that was coming to Broadway.
Galt MacDermot: Well, I loved that kind of music. I mean, I was a jazz fan. I had no interest in Broadway. I just wanted to write music that moved me. And the kind of the music that move me was what I heard on the radio when I came down here, which was this sort of, well, you know what the 60s music was like. It was serious, and it was good. Those people were really great performers and great writers. I don’t, the subject of hair is a serious subject. It’s the freedom of the individuals. Black, white, or whatever in this country. And it seemed to me, I wasn’t thinking about this, but it happened to coincide with my own feelings, that that kind of music suited that show. So it just fell into place, really. I mean, I don’t know if I ever chewed anything like what I could hear on the radio. So those people, and they all disappeared. I mean not all, some people made big names to themselves with a lot of music. You’d hear it once.
Michael Kantor: You mentioned before that some, you know, I’m curious about the, this is sort of a personal question that just occurred to me, but the drug influence. I mean, do you think the creators of Hair from yourself and the others were, how interested were you in the drug culture and did drugs in some way play a part, not just in the show, but in the creation of the show?
Galt MacDermot: Well, you know, I don’t think drugs change anything. They just get you high, which you can do different ways. And I don’t know how much, I mean, Marino and Ragney didn’t use drugs a lot. I don’t use them at all, because they just interfere with what I’m trying to do. But they do give you a point of view. And I think that’s why they used the drug thing, because they were trying to explain. That the point of view that you have when you’re on drugs may be more accurate than the point of view you have under the influence of the media or whatever is influencing it. Because they did use the idea of guys being high. Like walking in space is all about getting high. And in that song, they talk about how the establishment is using kids to fight their wars for them. That’s the point view that comes out.
Michael Kantor: Another homerun, thank you. Do you remember what happened at the Tony Awards, the year that hair was up, did it win the Tony that year?
Galt MacDermot: No, I didn’t win it. We were there and we did something. I can’t remember what we did, but we didn’t won, but it was fun. We had a lot of fun. Zero Mostel was there and he was great. He liked us. And we just did a couple of songs.
Michael Kantor: What about the plays that have been influenced or followed hair like Rent? How is Rent like hair in any way, shape, or form?
Galt MacDermot: Well, I think in the form, it is similar to hair. It’s kids or young people living their life on stage and using popular music, the music of the, you know, today. I don’t think the mentality is like hair. It’s not subversive at all. It’s nothing really in that sense, but it’s just realism, sort of realism.
Michael Kantor: What do you think of the people who just dismiss hair as, you know, as William Goldman did in that book back when or whatever? It’s just a bad rock musical that it’s not a good work of art.
Galt MacDermot: I mean, what can I say? Maybe he’s right. I don’t know. I just do what I do and he does, you know, his thing. I don’t I wouldn’t have the pretension to say it’s a great work of art, but it does say something.
Michael Kantor: Did you feel like at the Biltmore you were attracting the same audience as other Broadway shows?
Galt MacDermot: Well, that’s why I mentioned the thing about Aquarius. When Aquarius got to be number one record, then we started to get young people. Up till then, we’d had Broadway audiences, and you know, Broadway audiences are older. They liked it, but they weren’t young. Then the kids started coming in.
Michael Kantor: How did that change?
Galt MacDermot: It didn’t change the show, but it, you know, no, it didn’t change the shows, just as a fact.
