I've Got The Power

Today we’re revisiting the career of one of the perpetrators of one of the earliest posts on this blog, actor Tony Randall.

Way back in September 2007 I featured The Odd Couple Sing, the dismal tie-in from the two stars of the TV series The Odd Couple, Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. The Odd Couple Sing is a stunningly wrongheaded album, featuring some of the worst performances I've ever come across. Released in 1973, the mismatched pair must have blinded by the huge piles of money on offer – or simply unable to contain their own egos - when they agreed to record this embarrassingly awful collection.

Flash forward six years and Randall was at it again, only this time replacing TV’s Quincy ME with actress Lynn Redgrave.

The Power is You is an utterly bizarre musical project, some sort of self-help album consisting of catchy Broadway-style show tunes about the power of human potential interspersed with preachy narration by the record's celebrity hosts.

Issued by Clarus Music in 1979, The Power is You was written by lyricist Rosemary Caggiano and composer Bernie Fass. The duo also composed the tracks on Randall’s earlier album Children are People Too and co-authored the book and accompanying album The Four Seasons (Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring a Musical Journey for Children Through the Four Seasons With Eleven Songs and Narration). The titles of the songs on The Power is You read like the chapter headings of a particularly poor self-help manual: We’ve Got to Get Back to Basics, Your Power to Dream, There's Always Room for Change, The Power to Love and so on. Apparently this nonsense was designed to be used in the classroom, rather than sold to the general public.

According to the promotional blurb ‘Tony Randall and Lynn Redgrave campaign for the power of human potential in a new recording by Clarus Music called The Power Is You. Ten songs in a modern pop style, and appealing passages by Randall and Redgrave exalt the abilities of the human mind and form.’ That’s probably about as much as you need to know, but here are a couple of tracks from the record for your enjoyment, the opener We’ve Got to Get Back to Basics and the embarrassingly corny Make People Laugh.

If you’re crazy enough to want to hear the whole thing you can find it at http://glorifytheturd.com/?p=1373

Enjoy!