John C. Reilly Reevaluates The Great American Songbook On 'What's Not To Love?'
Our concept of Americana and the Great American Songbook is selling us short.
Americana is not just folk music from the 1930s to the 1950s made by white people, nor is the Great American Songbook relegated to a time past. "Americana is everything that America is. It's the blues, it's jazz," says Mister Romantic. Run-D.M.C. counts. "I have a very broad understanding of what the American Songbook is."
That Mister Romantic has strong opinions about the U.S.' iconic musical history may come as no surprise to those who have seen his eponymous vaudeville act. But if you haven’t seen the curly-haired eternal optimist step out of an oversized trunk to search the audience for someone to love each night, you may be shocked to learn that the man behind Mister Romantic, celebrated character actor John C. Reilly, is a singer with depth and study.
Reilly’s debut album under the moniker Mister Romantic is What’s Not To Love?, a collection of 13 tracks fitting the singer’s wide-ranging view of the Songbook. The first release on his own Eternal Magic Recordings, What’s Not To Love? includes multiple Irving Berlin tracks, three songs by Tom Waits, and others made famous by Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Marlene Dietrich. Reilly’s gentle baritone is the perfect vehicle for these classics, and imbues each with the same earnestness he brings to screen and stage roles.
"Young people who are coming to my shows who might only know me from Step Brothers are being exposed to these songs again," Reilly tells GRAMMY.com. "There's been times where I felt like, Are you crazy? You're a successful movie actor. You don't need to be going out there and losing money doing shows, singing old songs that younger people might not even be aware of. But I thought, Who else is going to do it?"
While What’s Not To Love? is classic-but-not-classical in sound, Reilly cherry picked the album's track listing based on compelling storytelling and a "kind of magic, eternal quality." Ray Charles' 1962 track "You Don't Know Me" becomes less Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and more of a timeless, cinematic ode. With his cover of Waits' 1983 song "Johnsburg, Illinois," Reilly draws a direct line between The Prince of Melancholy and Tin Pan Alley. Lead single "Dream" — a 1944 Johnny Mercer song previously recorded by Sinatra and Roy Orbison — is both ethereal and oceanic.
Reilly's experience with such classic songs (as well as classics of contemporary storytelling, a la Waits) reflects his lifetime relationship with music. He grew up in a euphonious home and played guitar in a handful of blues bands, briefly acting as the lead singer of his brother's band, Shark Fighter. Reilly also performed in many musicals in his youth; he continued to perform musical theater as an adult, and decades later, received an Academy Award nomination for his role as Amos Hart in the 2002 movie musical Chicago. When he wasn't singing showtunes, Reilly upped his twang. "Walk Hard," the title track and apex of the beloved Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, was nominated at the 2009 GRAMMYs. Reilly has performed less farcical bluegrass efforts as John Reilly & Friends and as John & Tom for Jack White's Third Man Records.
Now, as Mister Romantic, John C. Reilly simply wants to bring love and empathy to the world. While his version of the Great American Songbook may be non-traditional, it celebrates humanity. "The world of entertainment and audiences have been very good to me and very generous. And so, in a way, [What's Not To Love?] is like giving a gift back."
Ahead of his album release on June 13, Reilly spoke with GRAMMY.com about the music that moves him, the importance of optimism, and what he considers to be the "key to civilization."
I'd love to know some more about your origins with the Great American Songbook. I read that you had a player piano at home growing up, and your mother was into this era of music.
My mother, God rest her soul, was a wonderful piano player herself, but we also had this player piano with all these paper rolls of all these old standards. That's where I first heard a lot of these old standards.
There was a lot of music around my house and I was doing musicals from the time I was a kid. If you do "Brigadoon" or "Oklahoma," those shows are part of the Great American Songbook in a way. Irving Berlin wrote musicals.
It's really curious, this idea of the Great American Songbook or Americana. If you ask a younger person "What is the American Songbook? Who's in the American Songbook?", I'm not sure they would mention Irving Berlin. They would mention the things that resonate with them and that are part of their American story.
I'm really excited about this part of releasing this record. When Harry Nilsson released A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night with all these covers of these old songs, that was a revelation to me. I discovered so much music because Harry Nilsson decided, Forget the commercial market... I want to share the stuff that really made me who I am.
I'm not saying I'm like Harry Nilsson or Frank Sinatra. I'm not in the league with those guys, but I have the same mission as they have: Let's keep this music alive. Let's sing it for people, whether they know it or not. It's something I'm really proud of with the record.
As you should be. People need different avenues for learning about important pieces of artistic history.
I had a bluegrass band, John Reilly & Friends, and young people would come up to me afterwards all the time, like, "I can't believe you wrote all those songs." I was like, "I didn't write a single one of those songs."
Whether it's these American Songbook songs from this record or the bluegrass songs that we used to do, these songs are everyone's songs. They're America's songs. It's almost like they're seashells on the beach. Just because I pick up a seashell and I say, "Isn't this a beautiful one?", that doesn't mean it's my seashell, it's yours. The beach is as much yours as it is mine.
I’m personally a little uncomfortable with the necessary self-centeredness of presenting music that you've written, that's just from your point of view. I love the mission of sharing or re-sharing the music of the world with people that might not be aware of it. It's made my life so much richer.
Well, you're an interpreter, right? You do that on stage, on screen, and in all of the various musical projects that you have.
Absolutely.
Given you have such an expansive vocabulary for what is considered the American Songbook or Americana, how did you choose these songs in particular?
The inspiration for [Mister Romantic] was this character I played in Chicago and my own connection to the American musicals. I really loved performing like that in that vaudeville style and that very direct, very sincere, very emotional, very trying-to-connect way of performing. And so I kept thinking, How can I keep that going? The first song that actually made me think I could come up with a character that could sing this was "What'll I Do?" by Irving Berlin.
It’s taken me all this time to collect these songs. And, really, the criteria [for inclusion on the album was] songs that just moved me right away, that touched my heart. Or there's something about the chemistry of those notes when they're put together, I just can't forget that melody. Millions of songs are written every year; the ones that last seem to have that magical, eternal quality to them.
Are there any particular songs or songs on this record that moved you?
I'm proud of all of them, and mostly when I listen to the album, what I hear are these virtuosic musicians. It's a real democracy, the way we work in the band. So when I listen to it, I'm like, Wow, listen to what that collaboration brought. Look at this bit of beauty that we brought into the world that wasn't there before, through our cooperation and our loving each other and our respecting each other.
I could have done this, like, just hiring a band who are interchangeable people and taking it on the road as this kind of a vanity project: John C. Reilly sings your favorite tunes. But I just did not want to do that. I'm allergic to that idea. I don't like to traffic in the world of, "I'm a celebrity. I have value as a performer just because I'm famous."
I want it to earn its keep. I want it to earn its place in the world, and by picking songs like the ones we've picked, I knew if we do even a halfway decent job, it's going to be pretty cool to listen to.
One of my favorite songs was "Falling In Love Again," as recorded by Marlene Dietrich.
I did change the lyrics. When Marlene Dietrich sings that song, she says "Men cluster to me like moths around a flame/ and if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame." I reversed it. I said "I cluster to them like a moth around a flame/ and if my wings burn, I know I am to blame. But I can't help it. I can't help it."
I wanted the song to be universal. I didn't want it to be just about the way Marlene Dietrich interpreted it. I wanted it to mean something to me too. And I'm not Marlene Dietrich, I'm not a woman. And the character is also not someone who's like, "Oh, they all love me, but I just cast them aside." That's Marlene Dietrich's act.
My act is like, "I got to find someone to love me." Just a few little subtle changes in the lyrics do that. And in a way, part of the universality of the [stage] show is…Mister Romantic [has] been traveling the world in this trunk being carried around by these musicians for thousands of years. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know what happened before. All he knows is tonight he's going to try to connect with you. There's something really beautiful about that. And it frees me, and it frees the audience.
There's been times where I felt like, Are you crazy? What are you doing? You're a successful movie actor. You don't need to be going out there and losing money doing shows, singing old songs that younger people might not even be aware of. But I thought, Who else is going to do it?"
If you see an opportunity in the world to do something good, it's on you.
I was going to ask you if you saw Mister Romantic and yourself, John C. Reilly, as separate entities, but it sounds like this is just another side of you as a performer.
In a way, all characters that I've played are another side of the same coin. What you really do when you're an actor or you're interpreting music is you're trying to relate some part of yourself to this artistic creation. It's not just me, it's larger than me.
This [music] is all part of the history of human beings, and I think all of us have a responsibility to keep our most important stuff alive by sharing it with each other and remembering it. This goes back to the old storytelling around the campfire, the way those stories are remembered and the way they're carried over into the next generation. Those stories are told; they're not just archived somewhere that you listen to on your computer once in a while. You go and you experience it and you hear the words.
[Some] people come see the ["Mister Romantic"] show and say, "I knew every single song that you sang, but you know what, John? I heard it for the first time."
Oh, wow. That must be a deep, deep compliment.
One of the values I bring as an actor is that I'm not just someone who's trying to sing very well or interpret music very well. I'm someone who's trying to tell the story of the song to you. I'm trying to make it real. I'm not just presenting this music. I'm trying to play the character [in the song] so that you can relate to it. It's an empathy mission and it's a holy mission. It's a sacred mission to me.
In your show and on this record, Mister Romantic is an eternal optimist. But we live in dark times on a multitude of levels — does creating wistful and romantic and optimistic art like this require a kind of character?
There are definitely dark clouds in our world right now and people with bad impulses and power, but I also think there's a lot of light out there. When I go out into the world, I see light all the time. Granted, I'm a well-known person, so people are usually coming to me with good news, like, "Hey, I love you."
I do think that [Mister Romantic is] there for everybody. This show was born out of not only despair, but also joy. I'm not trying to deny what's going on in the world by making the character, someone who's unaware of it. I'm trying to address it. People need more empathy. We have to be reminded that love is worth doing. It's not corny to listen to a song about how much someone loves you. That's just eternal.
If we just give up on that stuff, then the darker forces do take over. Human beings have been around a long time and there's been some majorly dark episodes in our past, right? But we made it through somehow. And part of it is that we didn't lose our faith in love. We didn't lose our belief in the idea that human beings are worth loving, even if you don't know them.
What other choice do we have? And that's why I'm not so threatened by the destructive forces in the world right now. Destructive energy destroys everything in its path, including itself.
And I think the key to civilization is love. Civilization works because we all agree, "You know what? You deserve some respect and you deserve some love because you're a human being like me." That's the cornerstone of civilization to me, and so that's why I did this. Before I die, I want to make sure I said this to the world. The world of entertainment and audiences have been very good to me and very generous. And so in a way, it's like giving a gift back.
It must feel so great to have that sense of love and sincerity with you whenever you're thinking about this music or performing this music. I imagine it fills your soul.
It does. I'm not immune to being depressed or getting discouraged or being angry about something I'm seeing in the world. But Mister Romantic just sees the moment right then: Don't worry about what's happening outside these walls right now; what's happening in here is what we can create together. Every time I do this show, something beautiful happens.
It’s in service of a higher aspiration. You could call it God. You could call it a higher power. You could call it whatever. There's something that's not commercial about that. It has nothing to do with capitalism saying that human beings matter. But it's important to say, and it's real.
I'm curious about the Eternal Magic recordings. Why did you want to start a label?
I had to! I paid for these recordings and we did it all. I was like, "Well, let's just see what happens. Let's go to the studio and let's record." And we recorded like Louis Armstrong used to record: All of us just in a room, live, no auto-tuning, no tracking, no overdubbing.
So we brought it to a couple [of record labels], and one of the first things they said, "Well, you got to give us the rights to the masters." I'm like, "Why would I give you the masters? Because you need to tell the world who I am? The world already knows who I am." So we got this amazing distribution deal from Secretly Canadian, which I'm really grateful for.
But there's only one album on Eternal Magic recordings, and it's this one, and it's because it was just like, "Well, I guess I'm the label. I paid to make the record, so I guess I'm the label." So I hope people like it.
I think they will. How could they not?
What's not to love? That's why I called it that.