Melissa Errico’s new album ‘I Can Dream, Can’t I?’ includes a Sergio Mendes flip side and a Joni Mitchell classic.
Tony nominated actress, singer, and recording artist Melissa Errico along with accompanying pianist Tedd Firth have taken primarily lesser known songs composed by Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and more and treat them as what Errico describes as “art song rediscoveries.” Their new collection, I Can Dream, Can’t I? includes a version of Joni Mitchell’s 1966 composition “Both Sides Now” and a Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 flip side as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of both the Brasil ‘66 and “Both Sides Now” with Errico discussing those songs, more from her new album, and Stephen Sondheim and Barbra Streisand, with over forty Grammy wins between them.
GOLDMINE:Welcome to Goldmine and congratulations to you and Tedd on I Can Dream Can’t I? filled with overlooked gems. When I was in college in Downtown Cleveland in the ‘70s, I did a lot of music research at the public library and I would buy discounted sheet music in hidden stores, finding songs that I didn’t hear on the radio. Your album takes me back to those times of discovery.
MELISSA ERRICO: When I left New York for L.A., between working on television shows, I began looking for the jazz legends who lived in Santa Monica, people who my brother studied at Yale as a music major, and this began another career for me with jazz chords. There is something about the landscape of taking music that I know and love and mutating it. I had already starred in Broadway shows and I knew so many well written songs. I began hanging out with jazz pianist Alan Pasqua and thought that maybe this is what I want to do with my life next. We recorded a demo, similar in nature to this new album, with a jazz pianist and me as an interpretative singer. I got signed by Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note Records. Simultaneously, jazz singer Diane Reeves started to come to my musicals, seeing me in My Fair Lady, Camelot, and The Sound of Music. With Diane always standing by my dressing room it told me that she felt that I had a spirit which might understand her jazz vocal world. I felt encouraged. I met composer Michel Legrand and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman and began working with them. Since then, Tedd and I have been making music for close to two decades, running around the world, singing and playing to people in the U.S., England, France, Singapore, and so many places.
GM: Let’s talk about the Bergmans. We celebrate the 60th anniversary of Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 this year. Their breakthrough single “The Look of Love” had “Like a Lover” on its flip side, with the Bergmans adding English lyrics to the Brazilian song “O Cantador” by Dori Caymmi. I love what you and Tedd did with the song.