Celebrating Cy Coleman

I had great love and admiration for composer Cy Coleman.  We met on “The Will Rogers Follies” and we stayed in touch after that show was over until his untimely death from at massive heart attack in 2004 at the too-young age of 75.

Cy Coleman’s roots were in The Blues and Jazz and he brought that deep sensibility to his songs and shows for Broadway. 

Cy wrote some of the greatest musical scores of all time:

Seesaw
Wildcat
Little Me
Sweet Charity
I Love My Wife
On the Twentieth Century
Barnum
City of Angels
The Will Rogers Follies
The Life

Here is Cy singing his composition — Witchcraft — the lyric was written by Carolyn Leigh:

Here is Cy singing — The Best is Yet to Come — and he wrote the music with a lyric by Carolyn Leigh —

Cy Coleman was an outstanding musician.  He played live with “The Cy Coleman Trio” in hotspots all around New York City throughout his lifetime.

Cy’s great contribution to the theatre was his staunch defense in favor of author rights and residuals. 

Cy was The Muscle on his shows and he never backed down from a fight against outside forces trying to diminish the work of the original creators.

Cy Coleman’s legacy is not just musical — it is also creatively human in the example of the need to confront any insurgence against the claim the right of the original authors as the only necessary authors on any production.