It's been many a "Coney Island Winter" since she made her debut solo album for Decca. She was 21, and she sang art-pop in a voice that even Kate Bush would say was a LITTLE BIT HIGH.
She looks a bit happier than she did on the photo inside her album's fold-out:
I still remember buying that record. Not that it did Marsha any good. There was a record shop that sort of "fenced" review copies of albums that the local disc jockeys didn't or couldn't play. The very obscure stuff was a dollar, sometimes two for a dollar. For an inquiring music mind, this was indeed a bargain. If an artist was signed to a major label, how bad could the music be? Maybe the artist was just too adventurous for mainstream tastes, but perfect for a small circle of oddballs. Maybe the artist had a bad manager or simply fell through the cracks.
That day, I picked up an album by Nanette Natal because she looked pretty cool and was on Vanguard, and for the two-fer, I added Marsha Malamet because "Coney Island Winter" reminded me of the play "The Goodbye People" (which took place on Coney Island in winter) and she had such a delicious name. Marshmallow? Malamars? Hmmmm.
Below, the rather stunning track that is STILL pretty good, if you take Kate Bush and turn left to Brooklyn, and show the influences of "big moment in the spotlight" Broadway ballads, little girl lost Carole King piano playing, and a segue into"MacArthur Park" symphonic flourish.
What happened to Marsha? Apparently not all that comfortable on stage, she did play some venues to support the record, but ended up writing songs for others. As her eponymous dotcom tells everyone, "Marsha’s songs have been recorded by Barbra Streisand, Faith Hill, Luther Vandross, Jessica Simpson, Meatloaf, Diana Ross, Hugh Jackman, Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Barbara Cook, Judy Collins, Lea Salonga, and Sheena Easton and many others. Marsha’s top ten international hit single, I Am Blessed, sung by the UK’s pop group, Eternal, moved the Pope to invite them to perform the song at the Vatican..."
"For the first New York AIDS WALK, her song “Love Don’t Need A Reason”, written with Peter Allen and Michael Callen, was selected as it’s theme song. Since then, many AIDS WALK’s across the country, have used the song in their opening ceremonies. Marsha has sung it at many of them. To date, there have been over 35 recordings of the song..."
Sometimes it helps to be "openly gay," especially in the entertainment world in the 21st Century, and as Seinfeld would say, "there's nothing wrong with that." If it helps people know the music of Marsha Malamet, fine. And that includes her very quirky high-strung solo album. With much salt water under the Koch-Queensboro bridge, and a lot of winters gone, the singer-songwriter-loving Japanese compiled a CD of some of her demos, and released it as her second solo album, "You Asked Me To Write You A Love Song."
Windy City Times ("The Voice of Chicago's Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Community") duly noted that four co-writes by Malamet appear on "Dangerous Man," an album by Jason Gould. It was produced by Quincy Jones for Qwest Records. Gould was the vocalist on "Amazing," a song co-written by Marsha and used over the credits of "Scrooge and Marley," a 2012 GAY version of "A Christmas Carol" produced by Sam I Am Films in Chicago. If you're connected in the gay community, which gets a lot of grant money and Art Council funding, you can do well even in this era of low royalties and "we want it free."
In the song below, the plucky Brooklynite with cabaret sensibilities, ventures forth into the cold (it's Coney Island in winter) world. There will be heartaches, there will be moments of doubt and dare, but hey, there MIGHT be 25 million records out there with your songwriting credit on them!
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