June 20, 2026 by willedare

How About You?

I recorded this sweet song as part on an hour-long program of music written for — or strongly identified with — Judy Garland.

It was written by Burton Lane and Ralph Freed for her and Mickey Rooney to perform in the 1941 MGM movie BABES ON BROADWAY.

I learned from Wikipedia that the lyricist, Ralph Freed, was the baby brother of producer/lyricist Arthur Freed, who co-wrote the song “This Heart Of Mine” which I featured in a recent blog post,

Having spent a fair amount of time — especially during the summer — in Manhattan as a child and teenager, I savor all of the geographical references in the lyrics.

I only wish they had mentioned Chock Full o’ Nuts, my favorite place to get a burger (with ketchup, mustard and relish) plus a big orange drink — which was a mixture of orange juice, sugar and water, I think, churning endlessly in a big, glass dispenser until it was sold to thirsty customers.

Chock Full o’ Nuts started during the roaring ’20s as a chain of — no surprise — nut shops.

But when the Depression hit, the owner William Black pivoted and turned his stores into lunch counters where — according to Wikipedia — one could buy a cup of coffee and a cream-cheese-with-chopped-nuts sandwich for five cents.

Jackie Robinson with a fellow Chock Full o’ Nuts employee

And his coffee proved to be so popular that he started selling it for people to make at home or in their office.

William Black — whose last name was originally Schwartz (which means black in Yiddish) — seems to have been a somewhat progressive employer.

Most of his company’s cooks and waitstaff were African-American, and when baseball superstar Jackie Robinson retired from playing, he became a vice president and director of personnel at Chock Full o’ Nuts.

Mr. Black was married to two female singers (not at the same time…) who performed his company’s radio and TV jingles. His second wife also became very involved with their family’s philanthropic efforts.

They gave millions of dollars to medical research and helped to start the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

And there is even a William Black medical research building at Columbia University’s medical center (Mr. Black was a Columbia alum…)

But back to “How About You?”.

Burton Lane was a very successful composer — originally from Manhattan — who worked at various movie studios in California.

Interspersed with his time in Hollywood, he co-wrote songs for Broadway shows including FINIAN’S RAINBOW (with Yip Harberg) and ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (with Alan Jay Lerner).

He is also one of several people who claim credit for bringing Judy Garland to the attention of the powers-that-be at MGM after he saw her perform with her two older sisters at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles.

So not only do we have Mr. Lane to thank for the great songs he co-wrote, we also can (at least partially) thank him for helping to bring Judy Garland and her extraordinary gifts as a performer to a much wider audience.

I would also like to thank Doug Hammer for his playful piano impulses and painstaking production skills as well as Stephen C. Fischer for his patient and collaborative graphic design work.

If you’d like to stream our version of “How About You?” you can click here.

Every stream, every “like,” and every “save” encourages the mysterious algorithms of the digital music platforms to share a recording with other potential listeners.

Here’s the graphic for “How About You?” which features what was probably my last professional headshot as a teen performer in NYC.

One final note…

As I was drafting this blog post, the New York Knicks were engaged in an extraordinary series of basketball games which culminated in them becoming NBA champions.

I especially like New York in June when the Knicks win the NBA playoffs after a 53 year drought!

How about you?

Although I am not a big basketball fan, I became swept up in the drama and virtuosity of the NBA playoffs.

Twice I went to bed early — thinking the Knicks had lost — and awoke to discover that they had triumphed.

Wow!

Oh, me of little faith…

Since their victory, I have been savoring the enthusiasm of the Knicks’ fans — in NYC and around the country.

And I love what one of their star players Jalen Brunson said following their record-breaking comeback from 29 points down to win game four.

“You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Those are great words to live by…

Thank you, Knicks, for bringing millions of us — from many different political and cultural and ethnic backgrounds — together during this challenging time here on planet earth.

You gave — and continue to give — us hope and joy and inspiration.

And THANK YOU to everyone who is willing to read and listen to yet another one of my blog posts.

December 4, 2025 by willedare

Throwback Thursday #8

The only flowers remaining these days in my neighborhood are chrysanthemums and asters.

They are a hardy bunch, bless them.

We’ve had a few frosts; so most bees and butterflies are gone…

I’m already counting down the days to the winter solstice, when daylight in the Northern Hemisphere will again start to lengthen!

In recent weeks I’ve re-discovered the pleasures of tea — my current favorite being Celestial Seasonings’ Bengal Spice with some honey — and soup (today chicken, squash, carrot, potato, onion, garlic and ginger, are simmering together on the stove…)

Yum!

I hope your Thanksgiving was delicious and calm and heartful.

Today I am throwing back to a very short blog post about why I love leading Music Together classes which features a somewhat silly song which I recorded using GarageBand on an Apple laptop many years ago.

“I’m A Baby Monkey” remains very popular with children of a certain age…

In closing, I thank you for reading this blog post and possibly jumping back to my Throwback Thursday post

My stats are fluctuating from modest (seven visitors on 11/28/25) to quite a few (55 visitors on 12/2/25).

I don’t know if my site is being hacked/scraped by some sort of bot or if these are actual visitors.

To quote singer-songwriter Iris DeMent, I’ll just “let the mystery be…”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

May your spirits remain light as we head towards the shortest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere!

ps: Thank you, too, to the great photographers at Pixabay…

November 15, 2023 by willedare

Microflora Can Amaze!

Seven years ago I wrote about the amazing world living in our intestinal tracts.

You can click here to read that blog post if you are curious.

Since then — I am happy to note — more and more research has been done on the extraordinary community of beings who live in our guts AND the fascinating ways that they contribute to our mental and physical health.

All of this research underscores how profoundly our human lives are woven together with the lives of other beings here on planet earth — bacteria, viruses, plants (who provide us with oxygen to breathe, food to eat, and a bunch of medicinal options), fungi, and our fellow animals.

As you probably are well aware, medical science is discovering that it is indeed healthy to eat

A) High-fiber foods — such as whole grains, garlic, onions, leeks, and beans which are considered to be PREBIOTIC-rich foods,

B) Yogurt and kefir (without lots of added sugar) which are considered to be PROBIOTIC-rich sources of beneficial bacteria which can help to diversify and/or replenish our gut biome, and

C) Fermented foods — such as kimchi, kombucha, miso and sauerkraut — which also have lots of live, active, beneficial bacterial cultures.

There are TRILLIONS of bacteria in our guts, and the proportions of more-beneficial bacteria to less-beneficial bacteria are influenced by what we choose to eat.

Eating lots of prebiotic and probiotic foods encourages more of the healthier bacteria to thrive.

And eating lots of refined sugar apparently causes more of the not-so-healthy bacteria to thrive.

Not surprisingly, getting regular exercise and sleeping well also contribute to our gut health.

An internet search for “gut health” yields lots of inspiring explanations and recommendations.

You can click here for a link to one I liked from Healthline.

As I say in my song, “the world within is calling for attention.”

What sort of attention do YOU give to your gut microbiome?

Even though I have not shared a new post for two months, my stats tell me that lots of people continue to visit my blog (maybe because I have over 100 past blog posts to choose from…?)

Whatever the reason, THANK YOU to everyone who keeps finding and reading my blog!

And another thank you to everyone who has been streaming my songs on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube and other platforms.

Any song you “like” or “heart” or add to a playlist improves the algorithmic activity of my music there.

You are welcome to click here and listen to “The World Within” on many streaming platforms if the spirit moves you.

You are also welcome to visit my website — where you can learn more about my musical life (including upcoming gigs) if you are curious.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his playful piano playing AND his collaborative engineering expertise.

Thank you to the generous photographers and graphic designers at Pixabay.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for all of his graphic design work on behalf of my musical life here on planet earth.

Thank you to the trillions of bacteria with which each of us co-exists on a daily basis.

And most of all, thank YOU for reading — and listening to — another one of my blog posts!

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

August 12, 2023 by willedare

Gold In Them Hills

Today’s wise and optimistic song was written by Ron Sexsmith, a Canadian singer-songwriter who currently lives in Stratford, Ontario.

I featured it almost three years ago in a blog post about distributing my first song to music streaming platforms.

One of the many pleasures of blogging (in my opinion) is rediscovering posts we have written in the past and then forgotten.

This one includes a lot of quotations — which I was very happy to re-encounter — from friends about the value of music in their lives.

I have sprinkled a few of them into this blog post, too.

You are welcome to click here to read (or re-read) this past blog post if you are curious.

“Music is a great encouragement to people in hard times.”

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I also explain in this past blog post about how little money is earned by performers and songwriters from streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube, etc.

Not surprisingly, this is still true — as a 2022 article I found online demonstrates.

Spotify, which last year had an almost 50% market share of music streaming worldwide, still pays less than half a cent per stream.

Apple Music was the next biggest player, with almost 25% market share of music streaming worldwide — but paid a penny per stream (almost triple what Spotify paid…)

All of the other music streaming companies share the remaining 25% of worldwide music streaming — and paid anywhere from .00069 cents per stream (YouTube Music) to .017 cents per stream (Napster).

Here’s a graphic representation from this article of all of these numbers.

Suffice to say that I have not been earning any significant money as a result of people streaming the 37 recordings I’ve released during the past 34 months.

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

But I DO have the satisfaction of knowing that my music is out there in the world, being listened to by folks in fifty different countries — including the USA, Finland, Canada, Taiwan, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil and Chile!

“Music is part of what makes the world keep going.”

And in recent months my streaming statistics on Spotify have risen significantly (although my total numbers are still quite modest).

This rise in my stats helps me feel that what I am doing — releasing music — is not entirely futile, useless and/or egotistical.

And it gives me a small sense of hope, which is what Ron Sexsmith’s lovely song does, too.

Hope remains a blessed mystery to me.

I hope you feel at least a tiny kernel of hope in your life.

Recent regional elections here in the USA have renewed my sense of hope in our political process.

And small children — such as those who grace my Music Together classes — also give me a sense of hope as well as a reason to continue to work for a more balanced, sustainable, and respectful future here on planet earth.

I’d be happy to learn in the comments about what gives YOU a sense of hope these days.

Here is a link for “Gold In Them Hills” in case you might like to listen to it on a streaming service.

If you “like” it or “heart” it or add it to a playlist, that apparently improves the algorithmic sharing of my music on that streaming service.

One more deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Thank you to Ron Sexsmith for writing great songs.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing so beautifully on my version of Ron’s song AND for being such. a skillful engineer/producer.

Thank you to Stephen Fischer for his colorful graphic design work.

Thank you to Gretje Ferguson (I think?) for taking the photo which Stephen incorporated into his graphic design.

Thank you to Gloria O’Leary for making the coat I am wearing in this photo.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay for their great images.

And thank YOU for reading. and listening to yet another one of my blog posts!

“Music is a touching reminder that life is worth living.”

February 10, 2023 by willedare

Magic To Do, part two…

I hope you are well as you read this blog post.

So far this winter I’ve managed to avoid being infected by the flu, strep, Covid, RSV, and the common cold — all of which are leaping from one human host to the next here in the Boston area.

Maybe it’s because I remain an ardent wearer of face masks whenever I am indoors — leading Music Together classes, performing at retirement communities, shopping for groceries at Trader Joe’s, riding public transportation, or going to see a movie.

Deep breath of gratitude in.

Deep breath of gratitude out.

As some of you may be aware from news I’ve shared on Facebook, I was invited to participate in a 50th anniversary reunion concert with (most of) the remaining members of the original cast of the musical PIPPIN at a nightclub called 54 Below in the theater district of Manhattan.

I wrote a blog post in 2016 about my time as a standby for the role of Theo in PIPPIN when I was ten years old which you can read by clicking here if you are curious.

After I wrote that post — in which I wondered if any of the original cast members remembered me — I nosed around online to try and find contact information for any other original cast members.

I found one listed as a teacher at a performing arts school in Colorado — with what appeared to be a current email address — and sent her a message.

I was very touched to receive an enthusiastic reply in which said that she DID remember me!

She also shared that the remaining members of the cast stayed in regular contact — and that she specifically recalled a conversation we once had backstage about how I felt no pressure from my parents to stay in show business as I grew older.

I don’t remember that conversation, but it rings true…

Neither of my parents had any experience with the advertising/entertainment industries, but my mom had grown up in Queens, NY, and every summer my siblings and I and my mother would return to her childhood home and stay with my grandmother for a couple of months while my father stayed at our home in Washington, DC (he worked for the Department of Agriculture) and commuted up on the weekends to visit.

In 2017 I also wrote a blog post about how much I loved my summers at 47-39 197th Street — right on the border between Bayside and Flushing — and what it was like doing commercials, voice-overs, TV shows and movies as a child and teenager which you can read by clicking here if you are curious.

After I learned that I’d been cast as a standby in PIPPIN, I remember sitting on the brick stoop in front of my grandmother’s house and thinking very excitedly that my life was about to change…

And it did.

I think my parents said “Yes” to me being a standby A) because they thought it would be fascinating to see how a Broadway musical is put together; B) because PIPPIN would be previewing at the newly-constructed Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (where we had lived for seven years); and C) because most Broadway musicals end up failing…

But PIPPIN did not fail, and I ended up living year-round at my grandmother’s house — which meant that I could audition a lot more (for commercials, voice-overs, made-for-TV movies, and plays), and my career as a child performer took off.

Until it gently crashed back to earth a few years later, and I entered a prep school called Hotchkiss.

But that is another story.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

In the fall of 2021 I was surprised to be contacted by a journalist who was writing a book about how PIPPIN came to be created.

After stressing to her that I had just been a ten-year-old standby for the very small role of Theo and probably had nothing important or insightful to share with her, she still wanted to interview me.

So we had a pleasant phone call and — to my surprise…. as well as my chagrin — I ended up being quoted a couple of times in her book, MAGIC TO DO, which came out in October 2022 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of PIPPIN opening at the Imperial Theatre in NYC.

My third PIPPIN-related surprise was being contacted last summer by the original standby for the role of Pippin, Walter Willison, who has had an illustrious career in the entertainment industry.

He told me he was organizing a 50th Anniversary musical event at a lovely club in Manhattan called 54 Below which would feature original members of the cast.

And he wondered if I’d be willing to join this musical adventure.

I reminded him that I had only been the standby for the role of Theo.

But he very patiently persisted with his invitation, and — with equal amounts of excitement and fear — I finally agreed.

Another deep breathe in.

And deep breath out.

I found his invitation to be quite profound because I have had an anxiety dream at least once a year for the past fifty years in which I am asked to fill in at the last minute for one of the cast members in PIPPIN.

In this nightmare I gamely attempt to learn (and/or recall) the necessary dialogue, choreography and blocking while being rushed into someone else’s costume…

Then the curtain rises, and I hit the stage with everyone else, and I try to keep up with what’s happening all around me…

And then I wake up in a cold sweat.

So Walter was basically inviting me to live out this dream/nightmare in real life with most of the remaining original cast members as my companions!

One more deep breath in…

And deep breath out..

Long story short… the four performances at 54 Below happened earlier this week — and were very well received!

PIPPIN Reunion cast at 54 Below (I am on the very left side of this illustrious lineup!) — Photo by Stephen C. Fischer

I will probably write at least one more blog post about the experience — which was full of many funny moments, poignant moments, loving moments, anxiety-inducing moments, joyful moments and much, much more!

I am deeply grateful to have been asked to participate — and very curious to see if I ever have my PIPPIN-related anxiety dream/nightmare again…

Thank you for reading another one of my blog posts.

Thank you to Walter Willison for the HUGE amount of work he did to make these performances a reality — and for inviting me to participate!

Thank you to all of the beloved original cast members of PIPPIN who welcomed me back into their hearts — forty nine years after I had outgrown my role as standby for Theo and left the cast.

Thank you to the people whom I did not already know — music director Michael Lavine plus performers Joy Franz and Aaron Lee Battle) who also participated in this musical adventure.

Thank you to Doug Hammer and Mike Callahan for recording “Magic To Do” with me as part of a show we did at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston called WILL LOVES STEVE — which featured songs written by Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Sondheim, Steve Sweeting, Stevie Wonder, Stephen Flaherty, Cat Stevens and Steve Schalchlin.

And thank you to Stephen Schwartz for writing all the songs for PIPPIN — which people around the world (including me) love to sing!

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find many songs and learn more about my musical life here on planet earth if you are curious.

You can also find me singing on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube and other digital music platforms.

And here’s a link to play “Magic To Do” on digital music platforms.

Any song you “like” or add to one of your playlists will greatly improve the algorithmic activity of my music there.

I hope you stay well.

And I welcome any comments you may be inspired to write.

I will close with a photo of the moon over Central Park which I took as I was walking up Broadway at Columbus Circle after our second afternoon of rehearsals…

And one more deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

May 24, 2022 by willedare

Simple Rules…

Greetings after another long pause between blog posts!

I hope you remain well — fellow blogger or visitor from beyond the world of WordPress — and I am very grateful that you are reading this blog post.

I have continued reading (and commenting on) other blog posts during the past many months, but I didn’t have anything I felt compelled to blog about.

When I logged into my account yesterday, however, and looked at my stats, I was delighted to find that people have continued visiting my blog and listening to music even when I am not actively blogging.

Thank you!!!

*Photo of Åland Islands by Lau Svensson — licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.*

It is truly inspiring to learn that — in the first three weeks of May — folks have visited from the USA, the UK, South Africa, Canada, Poland, Australia, Norway, Germany, India, Italy, China, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the Åland Islands (which I just learned are part of Finland at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea).

I’ll say/write it again.

Thank you!!!

*Molly, me and Carole after a porch gig in Maine*

Today’s blog post features a song called “Simple Rules” written by my friend Molly Ruggles.

Molly is a songwriter, pianist, arranger and singer who recently retired from her day job at MIT.

She created this lovely vocal arrangement for her and me and our friend Carole to sing — and we recorded it during a brief lull in the Covid pandemic last December.

Molly, Carole and I — as well as the recording engineer Peter Kontrimas at whose studio we were fortunate to book a session — were well-vaccinated AND wore masks except for when we were in our separate recording booths (connected via headphones with each other and with Peter).

We then fixed/mixed/tweaked/mastered it via Zoom with another great recording engineer, Doug Hammer — whose name will be familiar to many of my blog readers because he is also an astounding pianist with whom I have recorded many, many songs.

Molly’s song has inspired me to think about other “simple rules” that we human beings would do well to honor.

For example, this morning I read details on a BBC website about how many of the staff members at 10 Downing Street chose to ignore the official guidelines for appropriate behavior during a pandemic. One staffer explains that they felt that they were in a bubble (of privilege? of denial?) and thus ignored what the official guidelines were.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

One of my favorite “simple rules” is the rule/fact that we animals breathe out what plants need to stay alive (CO2) — and plants breathe out what WE need to stay alive (O2).

*Photo of red panda eating bamboo by Pexels from Pixabay*

I often feel as though we have done a very poor job educating each other about this profoundly simple rule.

Healthy oceans (full of plants ranging from single-celled phytoplankton to forests of kelp) and healthy forests (such as the Amazon jungle) and healthy agricultural fields and healthy gardens are not optional.

They are vital to every breath we are blessed to breathe — and which we hope to continue to breathe — here on planet earth!

Another simple rule/guideline which bears repeating again and again and again is the profound power of apology.

We all make mistakes.

In fact, making mistakes is an important way that we learn things — about how stoves can be too hot to touch, about how we need to look both ways before we cross a street, and about how lemon extract tastes more burningly bitter than delightfully sour (a shocking revelation which I learned at an early age when experimenting in the kitchen with my sister and one of her friends).

Apologies exist to repair human relationships when one person makes a mistake and hurts another person. Or another species. Or another community. Or an entire ecosystem.

In fact, I feel that much of the stress which we experience these days — directly in our own lives and indirectly from politicians, business leaders, and other authority figures — is due to past injuries for which no one has ever sincerely, authentically, and heartfully apologized.

Apologizing is not easy — but it is very worthwhile to do.

And if we are able to make amends for our mistake — taking action to make up for what has happened in the past — that is an even more profound act of healing.

Another deep breath in.

And another deep breath out.

I will end with one final simple rule: short blog posts are easier to read than long ones!

I am aware that I have written way-too-many, way-too-long blog posts in the past.

So I will cut this short and end with my customary thank yous… along with a lovely underwater photo of kelp (breathing in C02 and breathing out 02…)

If you’d like to listen to “Simple Rules” on YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, etc, you can click here for links to various digital music platforms.

Thank YOU for reading and listening to this blog post.

Thank you to Molly Ruggles and Carole Bundy for their friendship and for our shared love of music.

Thank you to Peter Kontrimas and to Doug Hammer — for their patient engineering expertise.

And thank you to the photographers at Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons for their lovely images.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find more songs (and learn more about my musical life here on planet earth if you are curious).

You can also find me singing — with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano — on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.

*Carole, me and Molly performing in upstate New York*

I earn only a fraction of a cent any time someone plays one of my recordings on a digital music service — but they all add up…

And if you are inspired to create a “Will McMillan featuring Doug Hammer” channel, that is even more helpful.

Lastly, if you live in the Boston area, Carole, Molly and I will be performing as part of Arlington Porchfest on Saturday, June 18th (rain date: Sunday, June 19th) here in East Arlington, MA.

We would love to see you if you decide to drop by for a song (or more!)

January 8, 2022 by willedare

My Sweet Honeydew

Image by 👀 Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay

Thank you to everyone who has continued to visit my blog even though I have written no fresh posts in the past three months.

After this fallow period of non-blogging, today I am happy to be writing a new post.

As faithful readers may remember, for the past year and a half I’ve been focused on recording, fixing, mixing, and releasing decent versions of songs with significant amounts of input, collaboration and expertise from pianist/engineer Doug Hammer.

“My Sweet Honeydew” — featured in the player at the top of this post — is part of a new crop of original songs I’ll be sharing in 2022.

Some of these songs attempt to make sense out of the tipping point which human civilization — along with the rest of the extraordinary web of life here on planet earth — is now experiencing due to our overconsumption of fossil fuels during the past 150 years or so.

“My Sweet Honeydew” highlights the gratitude I attempt to practice every day despite horrible news such as the accelerating extinction of plant and animal species; the increasing frequency and severity of fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes; and the political unrest/discord which these events stir up!

I am very grateful to live in the United States of America and specifically in Massachusetts, which is currently led by a rare Republican governor who believes in science and who continues to respect the ever-evolving recommendations of public health experts during our ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

Because of these two geographical blessings, I have so far been spared most of the anguish and shortages and panic and destruction that so many other beings on planet earth are already experiencing.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

But I am aware that this could change — and possibly much faster than most of us who currently have access to food and clean water and shelter and electricity and computers and the internet would like to think is possible…

That’s because I’ve been reading a book called DEEP ADAPTATION with a small group of friends.

So far it’s been a very sobering experience — as you may know if you have already read it.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I’ll probably write more about DEEP ADAPTATION in future blog posts.

Please let me know in the comments section if you have already read it — and what YOU make of it…

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I have a few resolutions for 2022.

One is to continue to decrease the impact of my life on all of the ecosystems which support our lives here on planet earth.

Another is to write shorter blog posts.

And a third is to remain curious — if that is possible — rather than terrified or furious or disheartened or disgusted about everything that continues to unfold here in these not-very-United-States.

One more deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find many songs (and learn more about my musical life here on planet earth if you are curious).

You can also find me singing — with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano — on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.

And here’s a link to “My Sweet Honeydew” if you’d like to listen via your favorite streaming platform.

I earn only a fraction of a cent any time someone plays one of my recordings on a digital music service — but they all add up.

Thank you to the wonderful photographers and graphic artists at Pixabay.

And thank YOU for reading yet another one of my blog posts!

I welcome your comments below if you are moved to leave one.

Perhaps 2022 will be better than 2021.

We shall see…

One final deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

September 21, 2021 by willedare

Overjoyed…

I picked today’s song because WordPress tells me that this is my 100th blog post.

If I had been asked to guess how many blog posts I’ve written since I started in 2013, I would have said 30 – 40.

So I am surprised to discover that this is #100.

As loyal readers from the past years can attest, I do not write on a regular schedule.

If I do the math, however, I find that I have averaged one post per month.

I am often happy — and sometimes even overjoyed — to be part of our WordPress writing community.

It is thrilling to check my statistics and find that folks have been reading and listening from different countries around the planet.

THANK YOU to everyone who has read and/or listened to one of my blog posts during the past eight years!

And a special thank you to the folks who have taken the time to leave a comment.

Reading and responding to these comments — and also writing comments after reading other people’s blog posts — is how the WordPress community comes to life!

“Overjoyed” was written by Stevland Hardaway Morris a.k.a Stevie Wonder and first appeared in 1985 on his 20th studio album, In Square Circle.

I am not sure when I first heard it — maybe when he performed it on Saturday Night Live or perhaps when a college friend, Rex Dean, sang it?

It became somewhat of an obsession for me and several of my musical friends…

I finally performed “Overjoyed” in 2006 as part of a program of songs written by people named Steve — which also featured songs by Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Foster, Stephen Sondheim, Cat Stevens, Stephen Flaherty, Steve Schalchlin, and my friend Steve Sweeting (several of whose songs have been highlighted in previous blog posts).

This recording is from a rehearsal at pianist Doug Hammer‘s studio north of Boston, MA, which was attended by a journalist, Joel Brown, who ended up writing a lovely feature story in the Boston Globe to help spread the word before my performance at Scullers Jazz Club.

If you are curious, you can read it on my website (look for “Interviews — Boston Globe June 4, 2006).

This recording also features a wonderful musician, Mike Callahan, playing clarinet.

I met Mike when he was an undergraduate at Harvard.

He arranged a bunch of songs for me to sing with the Harvard Pops Orchestra — and then later with the Timberlane Pops. You can click here to see him and me in action if you are curious.

He can play just about any instrument (which is very useful when one is arranging a song for an entire orchestra) and is also a delightful human being.

Mike went from Harvard to the Eastman School Of Music, where he earned an MA and a PhD and is now a professor at Michigan State.

If you click here, you can read his bio to learn more details about his outstanding musical life.

Finding strong takes from previously recorded rehearsals and then polishing them with Doug via Zoom has also been a process which has given me much joy during the past year.

And — well-masked — we’ve even started recording a new batch of my original songs in the past month (I take off my mask when I am in the vocal recording booth…)

Hopefully a few of them will turn out well enough for me to share them in future blog posts.

Watching things grow in the planters on my back porch this past summer has also been a quietly joyful pastime.

I started with kale, basil, tomatoes and marigolds.

The tomatoes yielded a small but sublime harvest of vegetable gems.

Mine were yellow, and I did not document them with a photograph because they were so tasty I had to eat them as soon as they became ripe.

But my friend Carole Bundy sent me this lovely photo of HER first two tomatoes.

I’ve also been eating one brilliant green leaf of kale every week or so…

When the tomatoes were done, I replaced them with cut up chunks of a potato which my mother brought to family gathering earlier this summer.

It was one of a batch which she described as being the most delicious potatoes she had eaten in a long time.

I wasn’t sure if the cut up chunks would grow, but they did have many “eyes” on them…

Now I am overjoyed that one of them has sprouted, grown tall, and even flowered!

I was very surprised by the flowers, which are quite pretty and fragrant.

They have also lasted a long time.

Now the soil under the flowering plant is starting to bulge a bit.

I think I may need to pile more dirt on top of what may be one or more baby potatoes growing down below…

The cat in this photo lives with our neighbors upstairs.

I may write about her in a future blog post.

Trixie did something on 9/11/21 which was heart-wrenching (not to her but to me and maybe also to her owner).

But that is a story for another day and another blog post.

Image by Here and now, unfortunately, ends my journey on Pixabay from Pixabay

Today’s theme is joy and gratitude.

Thank you to the great photographers who share their photos with the world via Pixabay.

I am overjoyed that I can include your photos in my blog posts.

Thank you to all the great songwriters named Steve.

I am overjoyed to sing your songs.

Thank you to Doug and Mike for your musical gifts — and thank you to Doug for your engineering magic, too.

I am overjoyed to be able to make music with you both.

Thank you to the plants which have been so patient and cooperative with my humble attempts at gardening — as well as generous with their fruits and leaves and roots!

I am overjoyed that you breath out what I breath in and vice-versa.

I know I thanked my readers earlier in this blog post, but I will now thank you again!

THANK YOU.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be part of this WordPress community.

PS: You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find all sorts of songs.

Or you can find me singing — with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano — on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.

And if you are hungry for more music, you are welcome to listen to a sublime version of “In My Life” which I recorded with Doug Hammer.on a bunch of different digital music platforms.

August 29, 2021 by willedare

In Praise of Food…and Lillian Rozin!

I am well aware that all sorts of challenging — and often heart-breaking — situations continue to unfold here on planet earth.

However, I have decided in recent blog posts to accentuate the positive.

Part of the fun of re-vamping my website earlier this year was re-visiting my musical past.

When I first started working at the Cambridge Center For Adult Education in Harvard Square, we co-produced a lot of events — open mics, workshops, seminars, performances — with the Boston Association of Cabaret Artists (BACA).

BACA is a humble and surprisingly resilient non-profit group which a bunch of us helped to start over 25 years ago.

And it is still going strong — an ongoing labor of love — due to the efforts of a generous and ever-evolving group of singers, musicians, songwriters and music fans who serve on its board, bless them.

I do not remember exactly how I met singer/actor Lillian Rozin, who is now a psychotherapist, yoga instructor and author, too.

Maybe at a BACA open mic?

In any case, we hit it off and Lillian started creating lavish spreads of appetizers and desserts for our open mic nights.

I am not someone who follows recipes or considers himself to be much of a cook.

But Lillian is an inspired and inspiring goddess in the kitchen.

She learned to love food and cooking from — among other people — her mother, the much-published food writer, Elizabeth Rozin.

Eventually we started performing together as “The Will & Lil Show” — co-creating two different shows of music and ideas before she moved from the Boston area back to her homeland of Philadelphia.

Our first show focused on the subject of water — in rivers, clouds, oceans, harbors, showers, wading pools, and even our own metabolisms.

We followed that with a show called We Are What We Eat — A Potluck Cabaret which featured songs about eating, serving and preparing food such as Cole Porter’s “The Tale of the Oyster,” Bernstein, Comden and Green’s “I Can Cook, Too,” Stephen Sondheim’s “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the Sherman Brothers’ “Feed The Birds,” and Stephen Schwartz’s “It’s An Art.”

The show began with Lillian and me on stage chopping and slicing and preparing various finger-foods while audience members were finding their seats.

Once everyone had arrived, we began singing a song (in the player at the start of the blog post) from William Finn’s musical “March Of The Falsettos” while serving the audience what we had been preparing onstage.

It was a lot of fun.

The original lyrics for “Making A Home” included some references to food — to which we added a few more.

Recently I was happy to find a computer disk which contained some of our original PR photos as well as a script for our food show.

Here’s a list of food-related items that we used during the show:

Image by Bernadette Wurzinger from Pixabay

Microwave pre-set with popcorn.

Baguette.

Hardboiled eggs.

Little pots of strawberry jam.

Toast.

English muffin.

Little jar of mustard.

Watercress or heavy duty parsley.

Hamsteak.

Bones/chew toys.

Root vegetables.

Brie, cheddar, harvarti dill, goat, and cream cheeses.

Grapes.

Olives.

Cornichon.

Pop tarts.

Pringles potato chips.

Spam.

Count Chocula/Cocoa Puffs/Lucky Charms cereal boxes.

Jello.

Bacon bits.

Strawberry Newtons.

One pound of smoked fish.

Horseradish.

Lots of crackers.

Cider.

Bag of salad.

Packets of Sweet & Lo.

Vinegar cruet.

Celery.

Peanut butter and peanuts.

Bologna.

Non-dairy whipped topping.

Bananas.

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

Melon.

Bosco.

Two pie plates.

Marischino cherries.

Cutting boards.

And knives.

As you can probably extrapolate from this list of props, we covered a lot of ground in this show — from the processed food industry (for which Lillian’s mother had once consulted) to food norms in different cultures (Lillian has traveled a lot) to my past as a child actor doing commercials for various food products (such as Ring Ding Juniors, Lifesavers, Imperial margarine, and Oreo cookies).

Here’s an excerpt from what we said after we sang “Making A Home” while serving appetizers to the audience.

Lil: “Will and I love to cook.”

Will: “And we love to feed other people what we have cooked.”

Lil: “And we love to eat; so this show was a no-brainer.

Will: “Eating is something that is easy to take for granted.

Lillian Rozin and Will McMillan standing back to back and smiling... — Photo by Stephen C. Fischer

Lil: “We do it several times a day, often out of habit or while we are focused on something else.”

Will: “But eating is really a magical process. Think about it… radiation from a nearby star is captured by plants who transform it into something that we can absorb into our bodies, which becomes… us.”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Over twenty years later I am still amazed by how life works here on planet earth!

Near the end of the show Lillian tied me to a chair while singing “Have An Eggroll Mr. Goldstein” from Gypsy and stuffing all sorts of delicious, cut-up fruit into my mouth.

Then we sang “You’re The Cream In My Coffee” while throwing pie plates full of non-dairy whipped topping in each other’s faces.

Our encore was “Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries.”

This delightful anthem was written by Lew Brown (lyrics) and Ray Henderson (music) for Ethel Merman to sing in George White’s Scandals of 1931 after she had rejected another song they had wanted her to perform.

I am very thankful that Ms. Merman knew — when she was still in the early years of her extraordinary career the entertainment industry — what kind of song she could and couldn’t deliver to an audience.

Otherwise Ray and Lew might not have written this musical gem.

Thank you for reading and listening to this somewhat light-hearted blog post.

I will undoubtedly return to more serious topics in the future.

Today I have been inspired by a statement currently circulating (I hope accurately) on FaceBook from a Hopi Indian Chief named White Eagle.

“This moment humanity is experiencing can be seen as a door or a hole. The decision to fall in the hole or walk through the door is up to you.

“If you consume the news 24 hours a day, with negative energy, constantly nervous, with pessimism, you will fall into this hole. But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, to rethink life and death, to take care of yourself and others, then you will walk through the portal…

“Don’t feel guilty for feeling blessed in these troubled times. Being sad or angry doesn’t help at all…

“Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.”

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Thank you to Lillian Rozin for being one of my favorite collaborators… and one of my favorite chefs, too!

Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing piano AND recording the rehearsal from which we recently selected and mixed these songs.

Thank you to Ray Brown and Lew Henderson for writing “LIfe Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries” — and to Ethel Merman for inspiring them to do so.

Thank you to William Finn for writing “Making A Home.”

You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find more songs from The Will & Lil Show celebrating food.

Or you can find me singing — with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano — on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.

And if you are hungry for more music, you are welcome to listen to my latest release, “The Carter Family” by Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman on a bunch of different digital music platforms.

March 4, 2021 by willedare

New Blossoms Emerging…

March has begun!

And I am realizing that it’s been over a month since my last blog post.

Why?

Well… I stumbled into an opportunity to be interviewed by an old acquaintance who writes about the arts for a New England-based magazine.

And after I learned that my mini-profile was going to run in their March/April issue, I decided it was time to re-do my website — which had remained functional but increasingly antiquated in recent years.

So February was devoted to researching website design options, choosing a company, and learning how to use this company’s cornucopia of templates and design features.

After all sorts of challenges (which I may share in a future blog post as a case study in hiking up a new learning curve…) I am happy — and relieved — to report that my new site is now up and running at my old website address: willsings.com.

In the process of transferring information from my old site to this new one, I had the opportunity to reflect upon the past twenty years of my musical life — which has been a very sweet and slightly surprising experience.

I had forgotten, for example, exactly how much media coverage I had garnered in past years… and how often certain angels in our local media had written about various musical undertakings, concerts, recordings, collaborations, etc.

Photo by Benjamin Dickerhof from Unsplash.

I also discovered how much I still like various recordings I helped to make in past years.

And this new website makes it relatively easy to create separate pages for all of them, which I can continue to update and improve as time allows.

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Lots of opportunities to practice feeling grateful!

I recorded the musical selection at the top of this blog post with pianist Doug Hammer on his Schimmel grand piano a few years ago when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs created for Disney movies.

These three songs were written by the Sherman Brothers — Robert and Richard — for the magical movie Mary Poppins.

Recent weather — very cold with 30 mph winds! —reminded me of this medley.

As usual I have visited the wonderful photographic website Pixabay as well as a new one called Unsplash (when Pixabay was not functioning well) to find some images to grace this blog post and uplift my spirit.

So far the only sign of spring I have seen is ONE snowdrop which has managed to push up through the earth in our tiny front yard and bloom.

Amazing!

Inside the house, a pot of hyacinth bulbs I bought last winter from Trader Joe’s — and then left in the sun on the back porch all summer — has experienced a glorious re-birth.

They are very fragrant.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Hurrah!

Spring may indeed return to New England…

This three-song medley is one of many recordings that Doug and I have been finding in his sonic archives — and have been fixing and mixing every Friday afternoon via Zoom.

There is a tiny lyric bobble in this recording which we will re-record when I am vaccinated and Doug is ready to welcome human beings back into his studio.

Did you hear it?

My favorite song in this medley is the last one — “Let’s Go Fly A Kite.”

I was reminded when looking for images of kites that there are also raptors named kites.

So I am including a photo of this magnificent bird as well.

Even though I live in a suburb of Boston which does not have a lot of green space, I am delighted to see hawks flying overhead on a surprisingly regular basis as I walk around town.

I think this is partly because I do not use a smart phone — so I tend to be looking at what is actually going on around me more than many of my fellow humans — who often seem to be living in a parallel universe defined by their phone.

Last week I may have even seen a bald eagle fly around a cemetery where I like to walk which overlooks a neighboring town’s lake.

As many of my fellow bloggers often remind me, there are few things better than spending time outside in/with the natural world!

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I released a new recording at the beginning of March — “Plant A Radish” from the musical The Fantasticks by Harvey Schmidt (music) and Tom Jones (lyrics).

You can click here to listen to it on several digital music platforms if you are curious.

Now I am looking forward to seeing how many of the crocus bulbs I planted last fall have survived the hungry — and deserving — animals who amazingly manage to survive each winter living outdoors.

And I am waiting for another (warmer) windy day to call up my neighbors and go to a local playing field where we can enjoy a well-masked, kite-flying + pizza picnic.

Thank you to all the wonderful photographers at Pixabay and Unsplash whom I decided I needed to respect by taking the time to credit by name (and whose credits I wish I could figure how to center under their photos…)

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his sublime piano playing and archiving and engineering and mixing and mastering.

Photo by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay.

Thank you to the Sherman Brothers for writing so many great songs during the course of their impressive career.

Thank you to my friends in Toronto who gave me a slightly used but still very functional laptop computer several years ago — which has allowed me to blog, lead music classes via Zoom, create a new website, etc.

Thank you to planet earth for managing to support as much life as she does — even as we human beings continue to rip apart, poison, and contaminate ecosystems right, left and center with our wildly hubristic over-confidence and greed.

Thank you for — and to — the WordPress community.

The illness of a fellow blogger has reminded me in recent days of how oddly intimate — and deeply supportive — the WordPress community can be.

So thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

You are always welcome find me on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.

Now…

“Let’s go fly a kite up to the highest height.

Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring up through the atmosphere — up where the air is clear.

Oh, let’s go fly a kite!”

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In Praise of Food…and Lillian Rozin!

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