Easter Parade

Happy Easter, everyone!

My friend, Jackie Hogan, and I accompany Irving Berlin’s 1933 classic — Jackie doing ragtime piano, and me singing in my best “Fred Astaire” style.

In your Easter bonnet,
with all the frills upon it,
You'll be the grandest lady
in the Easter Parade.

I'll be all in clover
and when they look you over,
I'll be the proudest fellow
in the Easter Parade.

On the avenue,
Fifth Avenue,
the photographers will snap us,
And you'll find that you're
in the rotogravure.

Oh, I could write a sonnet
about your Easter bonnet,
And of the girl I'm taking
to the Easter Parade.

Jackie and I have been friends for years, but I only became aware that she played the piano (with a real ragtime flair!) more recently, when she started posting her piano-playing on her Facebook page. I have always loved ragtime piano, and used to play it myself, extensively. So when she posted a delightful ragtime version of Irving Berlin's Easter Parade, I thought it would be a hoot to sing along with it. So that's where this recording came from. (I should add: Jackie loved it!)

Although I knew Easter Parade (like most people) from when I was a kid, I'd never sung it before. So I read the lyrics, and started singing. And I was really happy with the result! It's very rare (like a "hole in one" in the world of golf) to sing a song you've never sung before and do it well it enough that you keep that first version in your arrangement. But that's what you're listening to here: my very first take on the song.

Which is also why I mispronounced the word, "rotogravure" ("ure" should be pronounced like "your", not "oor") — I discovered the mispronunciation after I had completed this recording, and was listening to Judy Garland singing the song. But at least I did look up the meaning of the word, before singing it! Technically, it means a particular kind of printing process (for newspaper photos, etc.). But the sense meant in this song ("the photographers will snap us, and you'll find that you're in the rotogravure") is: "the color magazine of a Sunday newspaper".

The photo of Jackie and me is from around 1992, when we were both living in Natick, Massachusetts.