The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page F010

PAGELABELTAG F10 THE PALM BEACH POST REAL NEWS STARTS HERE I SUNDAY, JULY 21, 2013 "My Coloring Book" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" songstress Sandy Stewart resides in her Manalapan home. The singer stepped out of the spotlight years ago, but never stopped singing, bruce r. bennettthe palm beach post SANDYSINGS! "My Coloring http:pbpo.st! dKr8am "Heavenly rom "Go, Johnny, http:pbpo.st! bwJgYk "I Concentrate On http:pbpo.st! 30NcZ6 Singer harnesses love, loss Stewart continued from Fl years later, surrounded by the photos and sounds and memories of the life she chose instead in this neatly decorated Manalapan condo steps away from the ocean she loves. It's not that she went away. "I never stopped singing," says Stewart, whose sentimental single "My Coloring Book" spent five weeks in the Billboard Top 40 in 1963, topping at No.

20. She married the two loves of her life, "Peter Pan" composer Moose Charlap and then trumpeter George Triffon, had seven kids between them and devoted most, but not all, of her life to raising a fam- iiy- She also did voice work, dubbing the singing for movie stars and recording some of the most memorable commercial jingles of a generation, including ads for Bain De Soleil, En-joli cologne can bring home the bacon. Fry it up in a pan 'Cause I'm a and Easy Spirit tennis shoes (Looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker, remember?) But she did take that step away from the path of girl singer stardom. "Do I regret it? On occasion. But not really," says Stewart, 75, currently enjoying the best reviews of her long career, thanks in part to "Something To Remember," her thoughtfully melancholy set of standards recorded with her son, celebrated jazz pianist Bill Charlap, 47.

Described by the New York Times as a "pop-jazz Mona Lisa" for her understated, thoughtful way with a well-worn classic, she finds herself on the road, supporting a dream that was not so much restarted as re-imagined. And she does it in a way that only a veteran, informed by experience, loss and a profound appreciation for a life well-lived, can do it. "Sandy Stewart is truly a real pro," says Rob Russell, manager of the Royal Room Cabaret at the Colony Hotel, where Stewart has performed. "She takes you to a place in a song that few singers do." It started back when she was a kid singing for her family, who paid for singing lessons and helped the then-fourteen-year-old stuff her bra to win a beauty contest sponsored by a local brewery. "I had an aunt who had wanted to be a professional singer and never did," Stewart says.

"Everyone helped out." They had enough faith to encourage her to leave Philly at 16, "the first person to get out," and set up residence at the Barbizon Hotel For Women, whose equally driven alumni include Grace Kelly and, later, Cybill Shepherd. While she finished high school, she worked on Kovacs' show, and soon was doing guest appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "The Ed Sullivan Show," and appearing with Como and Benny Goodman. It was through Como that she met fellow girl singer and lifelong friend Kaye Ballard, who would not only become the namesake for daughter Kath-erine, now 49, but literally handed Stewart her only hit. "Kander and Ebb (the duo that would eventually write 'Chicago') were writing for Kaye, and I came into a rehearsal where we were getting paid to laugh and eat" and sit around with celebrities like Don Adams and Paul Lynde, she says. The writers "ran in and said 'Kaye! We have a hit song for you, but she looked at the lyrics and said 'Give it to Those lyrics liken the telegraphing of the narrator's sad love story to the colors that fill in the lines of a coloring book, and were affecting enough to send it to Number 20.

(It was also a hit for Barbra Streisand). At the time, Dick Robinson was a in New England who remembers "playing the hell out of it." And the Connecticut School of Broadcasting founder, North Palm Beach resident and syndicated host of "Classics By The Sea" still plays it, along with her work with Charlap, whom he deems "a genius. "And she does a hell of a job. Together, they're killer. They do the kind of music we want to preserve." As things started to happen for Stewart, her training on live TV made her a natural, "because when that red light comes on, you had to do it right the first time.

You didn't have tape," she says. She even appeared in a movie, "Go Johnny Go," co-starring Chuck Berry and Ritchie Valens, and was to sign a long-term contract. And then love happened a couple of loves. Stewart actually was dating both Charlap and Triffon, who played at the famous Copacabana and with Goodman, "but I had to make a choice," she says, winking. And that choice was Charlap, already at the time the father of two young kids, Anne, now 57, and Tom, now 55, and who with "Peter Pan" wrote the music for evergreens such as "I Won't Grow Up" and "I Gotta Crow." "Richard Rodgers heard it and said 'My boy, you haven't written a show.

You've written an she says of "Peter Pan." There's no coincidence, she says, that her two true loves were also in love with music, because "I've never believed in opposites attracting. I've had two great men in my life." It was around the time of her first marriage that she made the decision that freaked out her agent: "taking a hiatus from being in front of the business. It was important to me to be there for the children," she says. After Charlap's death of a heart attack in 1974, at the age of 42, she grieved, and then, with the encouragement of friends like singer Corky Hale, the wife of legendary rock composer Mike Stoller, she started "I'm not very happy on my birthday." There's nothing you can do to stop loss. All you can do is use it, which Stewart does, choosing "to tell a story with your heart.

When you do that makes an impact," she says. "Sometimes the room gets extremely quiet, and it feels like nobody's there. Then after about a minute, somebody will do this (she claps softly) and that's the best compliment. Unless I'm bombing." Bombing isn't something Stewart does very often, if ever. And so, more than 50 years into this career that went places she didn't imagine, she finds herself again on the road.

"I don't love the traveling. I never did. I was the only girl in the band full of hard-smoking, hard-drinking men," she says. But she loves the work, and the music. And she loves this path she's found herself on.

"This music lasts because it tells a story. It's life," she says. "And life goes on." I learned about zombies in New claimed "former belter" has honed a signature style that's less showiness, and more studied telling. Absent are exaggerated runs and glory notes because "loud is not necessarily good," Stewart says. "If you're not paying attention to the lyrics, it doesn't make any sense.

I approach the songs the way I feel them." It's been noted that many of those songs, like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Where Or When," are sad ones, which she fills with an authentic yearning that's only earned with tears and loss. "The first time I performed was shortly after George died, and I remember saying can't sing any happy she says softly. "We were playing live, and we got to 'In the Wee Small and I lost it. Bill kept playing. People said to me, 'You make me want to and you can't fake that.

I knew major loss at a very young age. Moose died two days before my 37th birthday, and George had a stroke right before my 70th." She pauses. is considered dead and is buried. The trick is to dig the person up rather quickly and administer the antidote, made with a plant called angel's trumpet or zombie cucumber. The plant looks like a blowfish (and, seriously folks, it's deadly as well, so do not try any of this at home).

The seed pod causes hallucinations, amnesia and disorientation. 7. There is also a Louisiana zombie called rou-garou that is sort of like a werewolf, Gandolfo said, who comes out of a swamp and is sort of a half-gator and half-man with red eyes. He can steal your soul by looking at you. Then it's up to you to go find somebody else's soul to steal.

The threat of these is sometimes used to scare Louisiana kids into behaving. 8. Jelly Roll Morton was a zombie. This is yet another land of zombie, Gandolfo said, called a jazz zombie. After Morton's father abandoned him and his mother died, he lived with his grandmother until she kicked him out for being a musician.

He went to live with his godmother, a voodoo queen. Every time Morton's career went south, Gandolfo explained, the godmother fixed things. An example: During the Great Depression, he gets a knock on the door and it's RCA Victor wanting to sign him. Legend has it, Gandolfo said, that Morton, to further his career, relin- Stewart and her son, Bill. SUBMITTED BY SANDY STEWART doing small club dates "in clubs that don't exist anymore." She later found inspiration in her kids.

She and sons Tom and Bill recorded an album together in 1993, and then Bill, "a real prodigy" who began playing piano at three, became her sole collaborator. "I don't work with anyone but Bill," she says. "The umbilical cord is a very powerful cord." Love is also a powerful cord, one not easily severed by time or even the choice to set it aside for a while. In 1986, Stewart married old boyfriend George Triffon, with whom she bought her Manalapan apartment, sharing both a love of music and swimming in the ocean (Triffon was even a Delray Beach lifeguard when he wasn't performing). "Who says you can't step into the same river twice!" she says, laughing.

Like the New York Times alluded to, the self-pro- 4. To a Haitian, at least, becoming a zombie is a fate far worse than death, because zombies are considered eternal slaves, raised from the dead to work in the fields. Gandolfo said that in the 1800s, a law was passed in Haiti making it illegal to create a zombie. 5. A real zombie's feet never touch the ground.

He or she is not earth-bound. That's why they always wear long dresses and pants that drag the ground. 6. In addition to spiritual zombies the ones created by messing with petit angels there are chemical zombies. These folks aren't undead, but they might wish they were.

First, you poison the person with a blow-fish-based nerve agent. It's put in the person's shoe, because taken orally it would make the person really, most sincerely dead. OK, now the body is cold and there's no visible breathing. The person PARTY WITH ZOMBIES! Sept. 2 1 Z-Day Nola Zombie Run and Festival: Music, a 5Kand more in Laketown Park in Kenner (suburb just west of New Orleans) Tickets are $20.

More at nolazombi.com. Or, walk with zombies! Various dates: Zombie walks in various cities (including Houston Oct. 1 9) listed at deathbyzombie.com. And, watch movies with zombies Nov. 8-9: Buried Alive Film Fest, Plaza Theatre, Atlanta.

More at buriedalivefilmfest.com. lstreeterpbpost.com Twitter: LeslieStreeter Orleans quished his soul to his godmother, who kept it in ajar. Who knows? But, Gandolfo said, one thing's sure: Four days after the godmother died, Morton died of no apparent cause. Souls in jars, Gandolfo said, have to be fed. Gandolfo said New Orleans is a hotbed of jazz zombies, and considering the number of musicians in Austin, I'm starting to worry about that city.

9. It's easy to get rid of a zombie. If a zombie ever bothers you, Gandolfo advised, "Invite him to lunch and feed him salt. When he eats salt, he will know he's dead and go back to the grave." If he refuses the lunch invitation, just throw salt on the zombie. Also, Gandolfo said, "Zombies are deathly afraid of frogs." Travel in the company of an amphibian.

10. Every legend in the zombie world has numerous iterations with different details. There's a lot of disagreement out there, and Gandolfo made clear that some of what he told me about zombies might be disputed by people who believe differently. For example, he said he thinks that Mardi Gras Indians the elaborately feather-and-bead-encased dancers you've seen on HBO's "Treme" have a tie-in with zombies, but that Mardi Gras Indians will vigorously deny that. As for the zombies themselves, well: I couldn't get a single one to agree to an TRAVEL The By Helen Anders Cox Newspapers NEW ORLEANS -When the zombie apocalypse comes, I am ready.

I know how to make them go away. You learn the darnedest things in New Orleans. I spent a rainy, foggy afternoon in a French Quarter coffee shop with Jerry Gandolfo, a relentless researcher of New Orleans lore who owns the Voodoo Museum at 724 Du-maine St. The museum was founded in 1972 by Gandolfo's late brother, Charles, an artist who, like most artists, needed money- "Voodoo was the only subject that hadn't been taken" in the museum realm, says Gandolfo, who took over the place after his brother's death. "After he died, I discovered our great-great-grandfather was raised by a voodoo queen." That might raise eyebrows anywhere else, but here in New Orleans it's de rigueur (the usual).

So, I asked him about zombies, and we talked about them for hours. Now that we've seen what Brad Pitt can do with zombies, consider 10 key things I learned about them from Gandolfo. 1. The word "zombie" comes from the Congo, where Nbzambi is the great spirit. Known as Li Grand Zombi in New Orleans, Gandolfo said, the great spirit is symbolized by the snake.

Hence, in lit- things deals with zombies, "is an alcoholic. He can be had for a fifth of rum." Spirits drink. This, itself, is news. Anyway, you can bribe Ghede to steal the spirit from a not-fully-decayed corpse and thus reanimate the corpse. Alternatively, it can be kept in a jar for future use.

Ghede is a sort of gatekeeper of the cemetery and is often portrayed, on voodoo altars, as wearing the top hat of an undertaker and sunglasses with one lens missing, symbolizing that he has dominion over both things seen and unseen. (You can find one of these images in the Voodoo Museum.) Related to Ghede, Gandolfo says, is an unrecognized Catholic Saint, St. Expedite, who expedites your spirit to heaven (much like Charon in Greek mythology). A statue outside New Orleans' Lady of Guadalupe Church (411 N. Rampart St.) depicts that very saint.

Who knows what lurks inside Jackson Square in New Orleans, at night? Perhaps a zombie? photo BY DENNIS LOMONACO eral terms, snakes are zombies. 2. In voodoo lore, your body houses a petit angel and a grand angel. When you die, the grand angel goes to heaven. The petit angel hangs out in your body for three days, or until you've finished rotting.

If anything happens to the petit angel before your time's up, you might turn into a zombie. This is why, in Haiti, people might sit on their loved one's grave for three days. 3. Getting from the petit angel stage to the zombie stage requires the work of a magician or witch doctor to intercede with spirits. Gandolfo said spirits are all inherently benign, "but they're easily manipulated." He added that Ghede, the spirit that.