Fame & Fortune: Pianist Michael Feinstein
Ira Gershwin taught him about music
and money
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When Michael Feinstein is at the keyboard, magic happens. Show tunes, torch songs, the catalogs
of Berlin and Gershwin; you name it, Feinstein can perform it with
that distinctive style that has made him today's unparalleled interpreter
of the great American songbook.
A child prodigy who could play
by ear at age 5, the Columbus, Ohio, native was playing bar mitzvahs
by the time other kids were having theirs. Through a series of encounters
that in retrospect appear preordained, he found himself at 21 the
assistant to Ira Gershwin, from whom he absorbed the subtleties
of musical interpretation that have made him a worldwide headliner.
Ever since he burst onto the scene
in 1988 with his one-man Broadway show, "Isn't It Romantic,"
Feinstein has been a worldwide ambassador of American ballads. Lovers
relax over cocktails to his CDs or catch him live on tour or during
his annual holiday appearances at Feinstein's at the Regency, his
New York nightclub.
How does the piano man rate when it comes to handling his tips?
Bankrate caught up with Feinstein by phone from Manhattan to find
out.
Bankrate: You began working at an unusually young
age, right?
Michael Feinstein:
I did, it's true. I was probably around the age of 13 or 14; somebody
offered me $25 to play for a wedding. I couldn't believe somebody
would actually pay me money to play the piano. It was just extraordinary.
I was thrilled. And then I took out a little ad in the Ohio Jewish
Chronicle with the support of my parents that said, "I will
play for your weddings, bar mitzvahs, other events," and I
started getting gigs, so I was making money.
Bankrate: You were born and raised in Columbus, Ohio.
Was yours a middle class family?
Feinstein: Yes, my dad worked in the food industry
for many years. He was employed by the Kahn's meat company, whose
slogan was "The wiener the world awaited." Eventually
he went to work for the John Morrell sausage company and it was
bought by Sara Lee, so by the time he retired, he was a vice president
of the Sara Lee company. He was always careful to educate us in
what was good to eat and not to eat.
Bankrate: You were something of a child prodigy who
was able to play by ear at age 5.
Feinstein: Well, I wasn't a Mozart, but I could play
with both hands and I could play tunes that were certainly passable
to the point that people wanted to hear them. My parents were thrilled
that I could do that because they both loved music.
Bankrate: You were attracted early on to what we now
call the great American songbook.
Feinstein: Yes. People ask me why; I don't know
why, except that the music of an earlier era attracted me. I was
collecting 78 rpm records and old sheet music and liked to watch
the old movies which my parents let me stay up late to watch because
at that time, the only time you could see an old musical was very
late at night on television. That was well before the renaissance
of things like "That's Entertainment" where movie musicals became
acknowledged as a great American art form. So I started absorbing
all of this music and then I started playing it. I became obsessed
with George Gershwin after I saw the movie of "Rhapsody in
Blue" because when I heard "Rhapsody in Blue," it
created a reaction inside of me that I had never felt with any other
kind of music. So there was this connection and my parents were
thrilled.
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