Joe Raposo
Joe Raposo OIH | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Joseph Guilherme Raposo |
Born | Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S. | February 8, 1937
Died | February 5, 1989 Bronxville, New York, U.S. | (aged 51)
Genres | Jazz, blues |
Occupation(s) |
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Instrument(s) | Vocals, keyboards |
Years active | 1965–1989 |
Joseph Guilherme Raposo,
Early life and education
Raposo was born in Fall River, Massachusetts,[1] the only child of Portuguese immigrant parents Joseph Soares Raposo and Maria (a.k.a. "Aunt" Sarah) da Ascenção Vitorino Raposo.[2] He was known as "Sonny" to his family. Joseph Sr. was an accomplished musician, classical guitarist, violinist, flutist, pianist,[1] music teacher and Joe's first music teacher.
He was a graduate of B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River. A 1958 graduate of Harvard College, he was well known for writing the scores for several Hasty Pudding shows there. He was also a graduate of the École Normale de Musique de Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger.[1]
Career
Early years
Raposo worked in musical theater both before and after his work for the
Raposo was the musical supervisor and arranger of the original off-Broadway run of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and he contributed additional music to that show. He was also responsible for the memorable theme music for New York City television station WABC-TV's The 4:30 Movie; the piece, called "Moving Pictures," was also used for the station's other movie shows, and subsequently by ABC's other owned-and-operated stations.
Sesame Street
Raposo is best known for the songs he wrote for Sesame Street from its beginning in 1969 through the mid-1970s, and also for a time in the 1980s. He wrote the "
Aside from his musical contributions, Raposo performed several uncredited stock characters on Sesame Street during the early 1970s. According to his son Nicholas in a 2002 telephone conversation, Joe Raposo usually chose to portray anonymous, silly characters in these segments, which were nearly always produced on 16 mm film. He also did voice-overs for a few animated segments.
The Sesame Street character
Raposo was very fond of sweets according to many who knew him. One favorite food of his was cookies. It has been rumored the Wheel-Eating Monster created for commercial advertisers in the 1960s by Jim Henson may have been altered by Henson specifically into a "cookie" monster after Henson observed Raposo's unusual propensity for cookies; this has never been substantiated. His widow Pat Collins-Sarnoff celebrated his life with a milk and cookies reception.[3]
One of Raposo's Sesame Street compositions, "The Square Song", was used in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.[4]
Other work in children's television
In 1971, Children's Television Workshop created the show
Raposo performed joke characters for film segments on The Electric Company similar in style to what he had done on Sesame Street. One segment showed him attempting to get dressed in jacket and necktie against a white wall under the word "dressing", until the prefix "un-" appears and attaches itself to the prior word, forcing him to engage in a mock striptease which ends with him modestly hopping off-screen and tossing the remainder of his clothing into an empty chair left on-screen.[5] In a variation of this film, he is shown packing a suitcase when the "un-" prefix returns and pesters him using the behavior of a meddling fly until, exasperated, Raposo strikes the word with a hammer, knocking it unconscious into the suitcase, which he then triumphantly slams shut with a smirk.[6]
Raposo enjoyed doing animation voicework. Other forays of his into the craft included both the
The HBO animated adaptation of Madeline, for which Raposo composed the music and songs (with writer/lyricist Judy Rothman), aired four months after Raposo's death; the cartoon The Smoggies, for which Raposo wrote the theme song, premiered in Canada.
Additional film, stage and other television work
Although primarily known for work in live-action and animated children's television, Joe Raposo actually aspired to become a Broadway musical composer.[3]
In 1962, he set
In the 1970s, Raposo wrote original music for the animated film Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure; he later teamed with William Gibson (The Miracle Worker) to create a stage musical about Raggedy Ann. The musical was the first theatre company production from the United States to perform in the Soviet Union upon resumption of cultural relations between the two countries. It later had a brief run on Broadway in 1986.
Raposo also collaborated with Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof) on a musical adaptation of the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. A Wonderful Life was first performed at the University of Michigan in 1986, and had a successful run at Washington, DC's Arena Stage in 1991. It was performed in concert on Broadway for one night only on December 12, 2005; the production starred Brian Stokes Mitchell, David Hyde Pierce, and Judy Kuhn.
During his career Raposo composed themes for several sitcoms such as Ivan The Terrible, Three's Company, The Ropers and Foot in the Door, film scores such as The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972), Savages (1972) and Maurie (1973), and documentaries, most notably Peter Rosen's production America Is for which Raposo not only scored a patriotic, critically well-received title theme but, unusually, served as its on-screen narrator.
Musical style and influences
Raposo was an ardent fan of satirical composer and bandleader
Raposo's songwriting tended toward wistful introspections on life and
Unlike his children's television scoring contemporaries, Raposo exhibited an uncommonly broad grasp of compositional styles. Raposo was classically trained as a conductor and at the
Most overtly, however, Joe Raposo's sonic trademark was his seemingly obsessive, and often exhaustively authentic, live replication of the tonal quality and exact playback
Raposo's considerable stylistic ambition during his tenure as music director lent Sesame Street its trademark extreme musical diversity. For The Electric Company, particularly for songs he composed for
Raposo also evidenced skill as an American
Vocally, Joe Raposo was a tenor, possessing an unusually warm, buttery attack and an easily identifiable, very stable, mellow trademark vibrato.
Personal life
Raposo was married twice. He had two sons, Joseph and Nicholas, from his first marriage. He had a son, Andrew, and daughter, Elizabeth (Liz), from his second marriage- to Pat Collins-Sarnoff.[11][12]
Famous friends
Raposo was a close friend of
Sinatra recorded four of Raposo's songs on his 1973 album Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. Sinatra insisted the album be composed entirely of Raposo's compositions, but the record label balked and prevailed over Sinatra, limiting him to four. Jonathan Schwartz reports that Sinatra idolized and popularized Raposo and his music, frequently attending Raposo's parties at his and first wife Susan's New York apartment during the 1960s with glamorous friends and several cronies, including Leo Durocher. Schwartz's memoir adds that Sinatra was infatuated with Raposo's piano-playing skill and commonly referred to him to others, characteristically, as "Raposo at the piano", or "the genius".
Death
Raposo died on February 5, 1989, in Bronxville, New York, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma,[1] three days before his 52nd birthday. He was survived by wife, Pat Collins, his four children and by his parents who were at the time living in Chatham, Massachusetts. His grave is located at Union Cemetery in Chatham.
In 1998, many of his manuscripts were donated by Collins-Sarnoff to Georgetown University Library.[3]
Raposo was eulogized in the April 1990 documentary Sing! Sesame Street Remembers Joe Raposo and His Music, which was hosted and directed by Sesame Street crew member Jon Stone. A tribute CD was released in 1992 commemorating his work on Sesame Street.
Credits and lectures
Film Scores – Composer
- Steinbeck in Memoriam (1966)
- The Frog Prince(1971) (TV movie)
- The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972)
- Savages (1973)
- Big Mo (1974)
- Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)
- The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
Television – Musical Director and/or Composer/Lyricist/Producer
- Sesame Street (1969–1989)
- The Electric Company (1971–1974)
- Visions (1974–1979)
- Metromedia Television (1967–1969)
Theme Songs – Composer or Composer/Lyricist
- Sesame Street
- The Electric Company
- Three's Company
- We'll Get By
- The Ropers
- Shining Time Station
- Madeline
- Steampipe Alley
- The Dr. Fad Show
- CBS Morning Newstelevision specials – Music Director/Composer
- America Is (CBS – Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program)
- Curious George
- Pontoffel Pock(Dr. Seuss)
- Cabbage Patch Kids' First Christmas TV Special – Composer/Lyricist
- A Wonderful Life, with Sheldon Harnick[1]
- Raggedy Ann, with William Gibson
- You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, incidental music with Charles Schulz and Clark Gesner
- Half a Sixpence, with Tommy Steele
- Play It Again, Sam, with Woody Allen
- House of Flowers, incidental music with Harold Arlen and Truman Capote
- The Mad Show, with David Steinberg and Linda Lavin
- The Office, with Jerome Robbins
- The Smoggies
Lecturer
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- Yale University[1]
- Harvard Graduate School of Education
- New York University
- Southern Methodist University
Awards and nominations
Along with five Grammy Awards[1] and Emmy nods, his song "The First Time It Happens," from The Great Muppet Caper, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1981, losing to "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" from the film Arthur.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Flint, Peter B. (February 6, 1989). "Joseph G. Raposo Is Dead at 51; Helped to Create 'Sesame Street'". The New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
- ^ "Joe Raposo honored in new children's book". MuppetCentral.com. September 18, 2004. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
- ^ a b c Sinderbrand, Rebecca (November 13, 1998). "Family Donates Lyricist's Music To University". The Hoya. Archived from the original on July 19, 2006.
- ^ Joe Raposo - "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" - The Square Song (1977): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyDnd5OhNdM
- ^ Joe Raposo vs. The "Un". YouTube.com. Archived from the original on September 5, 2016.
- ^ Joe Raposo vs. The Un II (Now It's Personal). YouTube.com. Archived from the original on September 14, 2011.
- ^ Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You. YouTube.com. Archived from the original on December 13, 2021.
- ^ Classic Sesame Street - If I Could Only Paddle Like a Doggy. YouTube.com. Archived from the original on December 13, 2021.
- ^ Hartsfeld, Lee (July 7, 2007). "Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else: Sounds for Saturday-Polkateers, Lillian Brooks, Spike Jones, The Galens, more!!". Musicyouwont.blogspot.com. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
- ^ "VOWS; Pat Collins, William Sarnoff". The New York Times. March 20, 1994. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
- ^ "Pat Collins". BFCA Member Directory. Broadcast Film Critic Association. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved July 6, 2005.