A Rare Find: Forgotten Gems from the American Popular Songbook ( LML Music ) is the debut disc by Chicago cabaret performer Justin Hayford. Hayford, who is an established arts journalist, began performing his "A Rare Find" series of "forgotten gems" at Davenport's and the now-shuttered Toulouse On The Park a few years ago, unearthing buried musical treasures that he thinks are "so swell." Take a listen to his renditions of Hugh Martin's "I'm Not So Bright," "You're Awful" by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Roger Edens, and Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen's "Humpty Dumpty Heart," and see if you don't agree with this versatile ( and very funny ) cabaret vocalist.
Gregg Shapiro: Since this interview is taking place in your office...
Justin Hayford: Yes, it certainly is. My penthouse office, you meant to say. My corner office ( laughs ) .
GS: Would you please say a few words about your "day job" at the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago?
JH: I am a case manager at the AIDS Legal Counsel of Chicago, which I've been doing for 10 years, and we provide legal services to folks with HIV who can't afford attorneys. We do a ton of discrimination cases. We had a case just last week where a surgeon wouldn't operate on a woman because she had HIV. She can't walk. The surgeon told her, "You have to have a hip replacement; it's your only option left, but I'm not doing it." Twenty years into it and this idiot is still refusing to do surgery and she needs a hip replacement. We also do estate-planning, guardianships, a ton of social security and public aid work. I am a Case Handler so I do everything an attorney does except I can't go to court. We all are colleagues. It's a really great place to work and it's awfully important work to be part of this struggle. It keeps me going.
GS: The songs on your CD A Rare Find were culled from your "A Rare Find" series, which you performed at Toulouse on the Park and Davenport's. How many songs have you performed in the series since it began in 1999?
JH: In all the shows? About 75. Each of the shows has about 25. There's twice that many that didn't get in.
GS: What can you tell me about the song selection process of the, in your own words, "delightfully terrible" songs, such as "You're Awful," for this disc?
JH: The "delightfully terrible" ( songs ) are not on this CD. In every show I would do a medley of the worst songs I could ever possibly find. The typical show is like the CD, which is really great songs that didn't make it. At one point in the show I would do a medley of three or four songs that are like, "Guess why these didn't make it... cause they're horrible" ( laughs ) . Like this great song called "Saskatchewan," which ( the writer ) rhymes with things like "the hill I would catch you on'' or "the train I would fetch you on." Unbelievable.
GS: Is there another Rare Find disc in your future?
JH: There's more Rare Find shows. There's already a "Rare Find 4" sitting and waiting to go because I just have so much more stuff to do. But that's not going to be my next show. I don't know what the next disc will be. I am a little leery of doing two CDs that are exactly the same back to back to start off, but I might. No matter what I do next, recording-wise, it will include lots of rare stuff. It may be some other concept. I think I may be doing a rare Johnny Mercer because I've done about 12 Mercer songs in the Rare Find shows. I almost have a CD's worth of obscure Mercer just sitting, waiting to go. It's just that my little strange fascination is the underdogs. I love them.
GS: I love your rendition of "When Bert's Not Here"...written by Joe Raposo, for Sesame Street. Can you comment on the queer subtext in the song?
JH: ( laughs ) What queer subtext? Oh, I'm not gay. I'm Canadian; I should have made that clear ( more laughs ) . What I love about that song is that it is describing a five-year-old boy, Ernie, missing his very best friend, which is one of the purest, most un-modulated affections a human being ever has. There is no wall between a five-year-old and his best friend. That is the most endearing thing in the world. When I perform the song I think about that, of being a child and missing someone. But I absolutely think of a particular friend of mine who passed away about eight or nine years ago and how he was a very child-like guy and we would be just ridiculous and goof around. My favorite moment was, he used to have a Vespa scooter and we were flying down Michigan Avenue late one night singing the entire score to A Chorus Line at the top of our lungs. It was the silliest and queerest thing, ever, and when he was getting very sick he said, "When I was in the hospital at my worst, I would think of that night as a way to bring back some really happy feelings." I think about that when I perform that song. He was just a friend. But I do feel like the great thing about gay men is that they're not afraid to be crazy about their best friends and to express it, to kiss their best friends and all that stuff. That's absolutely in the song. Jerry Falwell was right.
GS: Wasn't he the one that pointed out that there was something queer about Bert and Ernie?
JH: He certainly was. He was a genius ( laughs ) .
GS: Have you written any original cabaret tunes?
JH: I've tried and tried and tried. It is absolutely a skill set I lack. I get eight measures in and I go, "This is terrible." I wish to hell that I could.
GS: I know you come from a musical family. Did you ever go through a punk rock or folk singer phase as a form of rebellion?
JH: ( laughs ) Not as a performer, but I absolutely went through the punk phase around '80/'81. My best friend Liz, she was heavy-duty, hardcore into it. She had the radio program on our high school radio station...WIRQ.
GS: Where did you go to high school?
JH: Irondequoit, New York. Just outside of Rochester. Liz had the first punk radio program, back in upstate New York, where nobody knew what was going on. I'd listen to it once a week. Me and my mom. We'd be like, "Holy smoke, this stuff is amazing." I would wear the suit with the sneakers and the sunglasses to school. Liz and I formed a band called The Putrids. There was this huge scandal ( laughs ) because word got out about the lyrics [ to one song, "Your Love Is Like Nuclear Waste" ] ...it was a song about "I'd rather crawl through poison ivy and chew on barbed wire then go with you" and the original lyric also had a line about I'd rather do this "and give head to King Kong." We changed it to something else. But there was this screaming clamor and the principal called us in and asked us if we're going to sing it. We said yes, but that we were going to change the lyrics. That was my one punk performance.
GS: What do you think distinguishes the cabaret scene in Chicago from those in New York or Los Angeles?
JH: I don't know those scenes terribly well, but my sense is that in New York, anyway, is that it's expensive as all get out. That a place like Feinstein's can operate and charge a hundred bucks a head, or something, is extraordinary to me. I don't think that could survive in Chicago. But I think the cabaret scene in Chicago, like the theater scene in Chicago, is based upon "do you do good work?" It doesn't matter who you are...is your work honest, good, meaningful, entertaining, solid, well-rehearsed. People will come to see that. With Chicago theater, the littlest, dinkiest, storefront dump has a following, gets the biggest newspaper in Chicago to come review it regularly. The Tribune comes to the littlest, diviest places in Chicago to review. That, to me, is what's so great about the performing arts in Chicago. It's not about buzz, it's not about celebrity. It's just about, "do you do the work?" That's absolutely true in the cabaret world. Try and become somebody in cabaret. Forget it. It's never going to happen. Good. It will always be a small intimate affair, always. I love that.
GS: Why do you think it didn't take off?
JH: I don't know. There was such a disconnect between what the young hipsters were thinking was lounge culture and what was creakily brought out of mothballs and storage as cabaret. That is the danger of cabaret. A lot of it is very musty and creaky. People forget it's not 1963 anymore and you can't perform as though it is. But, it's a good time for a resurgence, I think, because of the scale of this kind of performance. I think we've gone as far as we can with arena performance ... .
So what if I have no vocal training. So what if I can't do all the big vocal pyrotechnics that somebody who is really trained and a belter can do. So what. Put the song across. ( Bob ) Dylan opened this door for people 30/40 years ago.
GS: Since Dylan was writing his own material, what he was saying was important, not necessarily the way he said it. In the same way that a performer's selection of material is a way of getting a message across to listeners.
JH: Absolutely. It's all about what you are trying to get across and will you put yourself on the line to say it. Even if what you're getting across is something simple like, you can fall in love with an ugly person, which what "I Go For That," on the CD is about. "Your dumpy walk/your fuzzy hair/your vacant stare/I go for that." You're a mess, but I love you. It's a little gem of a song. ... We've all been there...on both sides of it, undoubtedly ( laughs ) ...mostly on the receiving side.
GS: Does it raise the stakes when it's not just you? I'm thinking about Karen Mason, who stands in front of the piano and works the room like you've never seen before, but there's a piano player back there. Does it increase the pressure when it's you and the piano?
JH: The nice thing about the CD is that I got to play and then sing. I didn't have to play and sing at the same time. It was a revelation. For me, being out front is much more terrifying than being my own accompanist. As an accompanist, I am perfectly aware of what the s singer is about to do because it's me. So, if I'm doing it, and for the first time, I need a retard right here, for half a measure ( snaps fingers ) ...
GS: You're in charge.
JH: ( laughs ) I'm totally in charge. There's this perfect synch. The problem is that I can't save myself. A good accompanist can save a singer who's having a problem. But if I'm having trouble, I'm going down, the white flag is going up, the show is over. I must say, that's also what I like about live performance in general and cabaret in particular, is that there's going to be a couple of screw-ups at some point in the evening, without question. It's what makes it real...not television, not movies, not a recording. I want it all to be real. I ... If you go back and listen really carefully to your favorite recordings, there's always a screw up in there somewhere.
GS: You have to go back 20 or 30 years.
JH: Listen to Fitzgerald or Sinatra. There are mistakes in there and I think that's what makes it a performance not a product.
