Album Review - Marti Webb - Tell Me On A Sunday

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After a string of big budget major Broadway musical productions including Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice started planning a simpler low budget show for a solo performer, presented in a single act. Falling out with co-writer Tim Rice over Rice’s affair with Elaine page, Webber gave the task of creating the lyrics to Don Black, and with singer Marti Webb on board, 1979’s Tell Me On A Sunday was born. It tells the story of an English woman who has moved to the US, aiming to develop a show-business career, and gain a stable relationship, but each of the four men she meets prove disastrous for her. Her first lover is going out with several other women behind her back so she dumps him. She then dates theatre producer Sheldon Bloom, but realizes he is just using her as a glamorous figure to be seen with at parties and business meetings. A fling with a salesman follows but as with her first US boyfriend, he is involved in other relationships too. Finally, she seduces a wealthy married businessman to further her own career but realizes that she is betraying her own principles and withdraws from the relationship for an uncertain future. Her story is told only in her voice (the unseen but heard Elaine Stritch recorded an answering machine message for one song). Webb’s performance and singing are superb, and the lyrics are very perceptive and intelligently handled. Though lacking the gloss of Webber’s bigger shows, it certainly matches them musically. The strongest song is the opener, Take That Look Off Your Face, dealing with the glee some people feel when they spoil someone’s day by giving them bad news about a lover who has gone astray – the singer reacts by pointing out that the gossip spreader is too late as she already knows the story. Youtube – Marti Webb – Take That Look Off Your Face Arthur Chappell