Steve Tyrell Sings the 'Great American Songbook' at The Sheldon May 15

As a record producer, Steve Tyrell has worked with Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick, introduced the world to B.J. Thomas and helped Rod Stewart earn a Grammy award.

But it’s in his “other” job as a singer that Tyrell has earned accolades from the likes of former first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton, the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and thousands of fans who have fallen in love with--or to--his music.

“My songs, like ‘The Way You Look Tonight,’ have been sung at so many weddings it’s ridiculous,” Tyrell said by phone from his home in Sherman Oaks, CA. “Bill Clinton and Chelsea and Hillary came to see me at the Carlyle (Club, in New York City) in December, right before Christmas Eve, on the 23rd. President Clinton saw me, and came running over and said, ‘I’ve been playing your Christmas album all day. I got the whole family jacked up.’”

In the course of their conversation, Clinton said he had danced to Tyrell’s “The Way You Look Tonight” at Chelsea’s wedding.

“I told President Clinton, and Hillary and Chelsea, that song has taken me to more weddings than you can ever imagine,” he said.

Tyrell, who covers the Great American Songbook of standards and has done tribute albums to Bacharach, Frank Sinatra and Disney music, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 15 at The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis. Chris Peimann, director of marketing and publicity at the concert hall, is thrilled to have Tyrell back after a performance there last year.

“Steve Tyrell is the ultimate showman,” she said. “He really harkens back to the old school crooners like Tony Bennett and Mel Torme and really transports you back to a different era. Not only is he a great singer, he is also a really nice guy, and that comes out in his performances. People really feel a connection to him and vice versa.”

Tyrell said his performance will include new songs from last year, including some from his latest album I’ll Take Romance, which hasn’t been released yet. He will also do some Bacharach tunes from the Back to Bacharach album, plus other music from his previous CDs. The show will emphasize the Great American Songbook, which Tyrell called “the greatest music America has ever made. It really is.”

People ask Tyrell about the difference between the Great American Songbook and contemporary American music, which he said includes the music of Motown, Paul Simon, James Taylor and Elton John. 

“The biggest difference--and I’m not knocking them in any way, shape or form--‘Fire and Rain’ is as good as it gets. But you don’t want to hear anybody else sing them. That’s the difference,” he said. “I mean, I couldn’t make an album of James Taylor songs, you know? Nobody would want to hear it. Even The Beatles, you don’t want to hear somebody singing The Beatles’ songs. But there’s been a million versions of Cole Porter songs. Then hundreds of versions, thousands of versions, of the Gershwin songs, or Harold Arlen. And they’ve been done in every genre you can think of. And you can love 25 versions of the same song.”

Music from the Great American Songbook lends itself to individual interpretation, he said. 

“For some amazing reason, those songs were constructed in a way that they allow people to put their own personalities into them and make those songs new again over and over and over and over. That’s why I say it’s America’s greatest contribution to the arts. And why I think these songs can live on forever, because they’re open to interpretation.”

Tyrell spent the first 20 years of his career as a record producer, working with such luminaries as Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville. Tyrell’s working relationship with Bacharach and his longtime lyricist Hal David got his foot in the door with movies, starting with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969. Tyrell even got his old Houston pal, singer B.J. Thomas, in on the act.

“It was my idea to put B.J. in that movie,” he said.

The result was an Oscar for best song from a motion picture for “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.”

Tyrell wrote and produced songs for many movies with his partner, Barry Mann. Collaborating with Steven Spielberg, composers James Horner and Mann and lyricist Cynthia Weil on the animated movie An American Tail, Tyrell helped with “Somewhere Out There,” which won a Grammy as Song of the Year. He has also been very involved singing theme music for television and has twice been nominated for Emmy Awards. But Tyrell’s movie work eventually opened the door on that second career as a vocalist.

“Through working on movies, I would make a demo of something I was thinking of doing, and they would end up using my voice in the movie,” he said, chuckling. “Working on films, behind the scenes, actually got me back in front of the scenes, accidentally.”

Tyrell had already sung several songs from the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza. People in the movie industry liked what they heard and also appreciated that Tyrell was a bargain.

“People started using my voice,” he said. “And then a lot of times, the studios would call me to do a song in a movie because they didn’t want to license the original, or they didn’t want to hire Tony Bennett for $50,000 when they could pay me five (thousand) and I’d do it. So I got a lot of jobs like that.”

As a music producer for the 1991 Steve Martin film Father of the Bride, Tyrell sang “The Way You Look Tonight” to demonstrate the arrangement for the reception scene. It was, he said, the first standard he had ever sung.

“They loved my voice and said, ‘You should sing it in the movie.’ That started me down this road of the Great American Songbook,” he said.

Tyrell had suggested Ray Charles or Rod Stewart, but the producers insisted he do the song.

“That changed my life,” Tyrell said. “That movie just worked. The song had a big presence in the movie. People remembered it. They started sending letters to (film producer) Disney saying ‘Whoever this guy is, where can we get more of his music?’ That led to me making my first standards album in 1999--it took me six or seven years to do it.”

Steve Martin was one of Tyrell’s biggest supporters, telling him to make an album of standards.

“I told Steve Martin, ‘Who the hell would buy it?’ He said, ‘I would.’”

Tyrell sang “The Simple Life” and “Sunny Side of the Street” in the Father of the Bride II in 1995, and that led to a record deal with Atlantic and the release of A New Standard, his first album. That album was very successful, he said, staying on the charts for four years. It also caught the attention of Stewart, who asked Tyrell to produce an album of standards for him. That album reinvigorated Stewart’s career and earned both of them Grammys.

Tyrell’s record producer connections have opened the door for some tremendous collaborative efforts on his albums. Jazz artists Dave Koz, Chris Botti and Dr. John joined Tyrell for different songs on his album The Disney Standards, which Tyrell was able to do because the folks at Disney were so impressed with his Father of the Bride work.

The song “What the World Needs Now,” from the Back to Bacharach album, features Tyrell singing with James Taylor, Rod Stewart, Dionne Warwick and Martina McBride. The album was interrupted when Stephanie, Tyrell’s wife of 25 years, was diagnosed with cancer. After she lost her battle with the disease, work on the album eventually resumed. “What the World Needs Now” became a tribute to Stephanie.

“Burt (Bacharach) loved my wife, and was friends with her, and visited her in the hospital,” Tyrell said. 

So when choosing a Bacharach song to record in memory of Stephanie Tyrell, “What the World Needs Now” was a natural.

“We wanted to have one song in my wife’s name, and that song seemed to be the most appropriate one that Burt had ever written,” he said.

Also appropriately, Tyrell’s all-star version of the song is now being used to help find a cure for cancer.

“If it ever gets used in a commercial, if it ever gets put in a movie, whatever revenue that song ever makes will go directly to cancer research,” Tyrell said. “So we went from that perspective. I called Dionne, and Rod, and James and Martina, and we put that song together. Everybody donated all their royalties.”

Proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Tyrell’s daughter, Lauren Tyrell, sang backup vocals on “What the World Needs Now.” It was one of many times Lauren has sung backup for her dad.

“It was great--she’s helped me every chance she gets,” he said. “She’s got really good musical instincts. She’s an objective person, telling me ‘You can sing it again.’ That’s kind of what a producer does.”

Tickets for Steve Tyrell’s concert at The Sheldon are $45 orchestra, $40 balcony.

Call MetroTix at 314-534-1111 or see www.TheSheldon.org. Patron tickets, which include preferred seating, free parking, a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres party and a tax deduction, are $150 and $125. Call The Sheldon at 314-533-9900. 

Take Highway 40 east to the Grand Blvd. Exit. Go north on Grand past the Fox Theatre to Washington Blvd and turn west (left). There are several parking lots in the area, plus limited street parking. The Sheldon is located at 3648 Washington Blvd.