How Alan Bergman kept the music playing
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Honorees Alan, left, and Marilyn Bergman arrive at the ASCAP Film and Television music awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Tuesday, May 6, 2008.
Matt Sayles/Associated Press
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Before teaming up with Marilyn in 1958, Alan worked at a Philadelphia television station. Though both Bergmans were born in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, and often attended the same events, they didn't meet until they worked separately for composer Lew Spence. It was Spence who suggested the two collaborate. The trio wrote several songs, including Frank Sinatra's 'Nice 'n' Easy' and Dean Martin's 'Sleep Warm.'
The Bergmans's first movie song inadvertently described their career. They always found the right approach for the material, and their first song for a movie was the theme for the 1961 drama, 'The Right Approach.' But it wasn't until six years later that they began their streak of cinematic successes.
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In the opening credits of Norman Jewison's 1967 masterpiece, 'In the Heat of the Night' Mr. Virgil Tibbs (
Sidney Poitier, center, in the 1967 film 'In the Heat of the Night.'
United Artists
The song is a blues number meant to evoke a sense of dread. Charles nailed the haunting vocal, and Billy Preston's organ playing added a gospel-like quality. Quincy Jones provided the music that set the tone for this murder mystery, but it's the Bergmans's lyrics that provide the protagonist's innermost thoughts. Tibbs is a Black man who is about to be stuck in racist Sparta, Mississippi during Jim Crow. As the song tells us, he'll have 'trouble wall-to-wall.'
In his memoir 'This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me,' Jewison recalls Charles asking Jones if the people who wrote the lyrics were Black. 'No, Ray, they're white,' Jones responded.
'Can't be, man!' Charles said. 'Not with lyrics like that.'
Indeed, 'In the Heat of the Night' contains some of the most soulful lyrics the Bergmans wrote. It's one of many examples where they understood the assignment. It really does sound like a Black man's lament, setting the stage for whatever will befall Virgil Tibbs as he deals with Rod Steiger's irascible racist, Chief Gillespie.
Proving their versatility, the Bergmans also wrote lyrics for the country songs the Sparta characters listen to on their car radios and jukeboxes. These ditties are as far away from the blues as you can get. Glen Campbell sings a catchy yet hilarious one called 'Bowlegged Polly.'
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The songwriters would take a more serious country music route by writing Charley Pride's 'All His Children' for the 1971 Paul Newman film, 'Sometimes a Great Notion,' but I'm getting ahead of the story.
Steve McQueen in "The Thomas Crown Affair."
United Artists
Though it won best picture, 'In the Heat of the Night' was robbed of a best song nomination for its theme. The Academy made up for it a year later, giving
Regardless, Noel Harrison's original version was a hit, and it was later covered by Dusty Springfield, Sting (for the Pierce Brosnan remake of 'Thomas Crown'), and a very, very anxious Muppet on 'The Muppet Show.' In total, Legrand and the Bergmans would earn seven Oscar nominations and two Oscars.
Conversely, the next Oscar win by the Bergmans wasn't with Legrand, and it was for a song that everyone loves but me. Thanks to their fellow Brooklynite, Barbra Streisand, 'The Way We Were' may be the duo's most famous movie composition. A frequent collaborator, Streisand brought them on for 'Yentl,' where they earned their third Oscar. Streisand also sang the worst thing the Bergmans wrote, that
hideous
hit duet with Neil Diamond, 'You Don't Bring Me Flowers.'
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'The Way We Were''s Oscar win in 1974 capped a three Oscar night for the song's composer,
From left, Ralph Carter, Esther Rolle, John Amos, Jimmie Walker, and BernNadette Stanis in a scene from "Good Times."
CBSAlso in 1974, the Bergmans wrote the famous theme song to the Chicago sitcom, 'Good Times,' with Dave Grusin. The trio had previously collaborated on Donny Hathaway's '
If that wasn't confusing enough, 'Good Times' is saddled with
and
one of those lyrics (the one after 'scratchin' and survivin'') is practically unintelligible. I recall reading an article where Alan provided the lyric that's been misheard for the past 50 years. You can look it up, because I don't believe him!
Grusin was also part of the Bergmans's biggest Oscar year, in 1983. He wrote the music for 'It Might be You' from 'Tootsie,' one of the couple's three best song nominations that night. They were also up with John Williams for 'If We Were in Love,' from the atrocious Luciano Pavarotti movie, 'Yes, Giorgio.'
Their third nod that evening was for '
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I admit it's a bit ironic for me to devote so much time to discussing an Oscar category whose choices are so bad that I wish it would be retired. But songwriters like Alan and Marilyn Bergman and their collaborators remind me why the category exists in the first place.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
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