Page Two

"Love With The Proper Stranger was a movie that really rang a bell for me when I was I guess about 21 or 22. I honestly don't recall hearing the thematic music when I did see the movie, but the fact that I loved the movie so much attracted me to the song. And knowing that Elmer Bernstein and Johnny Mercer had written it, made it even more attractive."

"In the case of 'Love With The Proper Stranger,' which is the song that I wrote on this album, I was working with one of the all-time great lyric writers, Johnny Mercer. And Mercer went away for about three weeks after we had our initial meeting.

"Then about three weeks later, he called me on the telephone. 'You want to work on the song?' I said 'Absolutely!' So we went down to an office at Paramount and he came in and had about six pages of lined paper with lyrics on them that he'd written. And he said, 'Pick something.' Really it was like that!

"So I looked at it and the line that struck me -- the name of the picture is 'Love With The Proper Stranger' -- the line that struck me was 'I could fall in love with a proper stranger, if I heard the bells and banjos ring' My Goodness! What a line!"

	I could fall in love with the proper stranger if I heard the bells and the banjos ring, if two certain eyes with a look of danger smiled a welcome warm as spring,
if the beating of my heart sounded out a warning, "Don't let her, don't let her walk through the door, this is the one you've been waiting for."
	Oh, yes, I'd know however wild it seemed, you know I'd know. And I'd whisper,
"Come and take my hand, proper stranger, Don't go through life as a stranger, for I'm a poor proper stranger, too."
	Don't let her, don't let her walk through the door, this is the one you've been waiting for Oh, yes, I'd know however wild it seemed, you know I'd know. And I'd whisper,
"Come and take my hand, proper stranger, Don't go through life as a stranger, for I'm a poor proper stranger, too."

"I'm Neil's musical director so basically he turns to me when he needs something done about something in particular about the music. So my job in the booth is to look at the score, listen to Neil, and try to catch any mistakes that go by. If he needs me to talk to about a particular moment in the score he'll talk to me first. And then I will relay that to Elmer or some of the other musicians."

"We purposely did not use a typical rhythm section, and I think probably Neil would tell you that ...he was apprehensive about not having a rhythm section -- tempo.

"It was a little daunting I think to think, well, rubato with 70 pieces and a conductor I never worked with -- how are we all going to get into the same place at the same time?"

	"Elmer, being the teacher that he is, his father was a teacher in my high school. He is also a teacher, and he had to tell me how to sing with this orchestra. Basically he gave me the secret real early which was 'You lead, we'll follow wherever you go.'
"I was very frightened about that because not being a trained singer, tend to do my performances different every time. And to have an 80-piece orchestra follow you're feeling, and emoting, and going different places didn't seem possible, but he was very strong about that. He said, 'You lead, let me worry about following.
	"And the orchestra was with him, you know as though they were one. And they were with me as though we were one. How it happened, I don't understand it really. But it did happen and it's wonderful."