Friday, August 21, 2020

Favorite Version of 'There Are Worse Things I Could Do'


'Take cold showers everyday
And throw my life away'


Ok, maybe not my absolute favorite, but certainly the most enjoyable version I've heard for awhile. I remember back in the mid-eighties, I was about 9 or 10 and our family went to the drive-in to see a double feature of Grease and Saturday Night Fever. I was bored for the first half, but loved Stockard Channing, especially when she belted out this song. We left as soon as Saturday Night Fever started, but the music of Grease left an impact and of course asked for, and asked for the soundtrack the next Christmas.



Flipping around Youtube recently, I caught this performance by actor and singer Bobby Conte Thornton filmed at Live at Feinstein's/54 Below in January of 2016. I hadn't heard of or seen Bobby before, so got to googling. With early roles in Les Miserables, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the world premiere of Ken Ludwig's A Comedy of Tenors, Bobby made in his Broadway debut in A Bronx tale The Musical in 2016. This past March, just before the pandemic his, he was due to join Patti LuPone and Christopher Sieber in the new Broadway production of Company.

A Comedy of Tenors (2015)

 I think one of the reasons I was drawn to the performance is that I used the song in a comedic way for several auditions myself when I was in University.  Looking back, I now sort of regret going for the laughs, but it didn't seem a big deal at the time, and worked to get me a couple of roles.  If I were do it today, I would do it more seriously for sure.



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