|
 "Bob the Musical", directed by Michael Hazanavicius, (The
Artist), tells the story of a man who hates musicals and then
wakes up one day to find that his life and the world around him
is one big extravaganza of singing and dancing.
"And everything he hates about musicals, that people sing and
dance at the drop of a hat, he finds himself doing just that
against his will," Chabon told Reuters at the Ubud Writers and
Readers Festival on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Chabon said he had just turned in the first draft for the Walt
Disney Pictures production, first conceived in 2004, before
coming out to the Asia-Pacific for a tour of literary festivals.
Bret McKenzie, one half of musical comedy duo "Flight of the
Conchords", is composing the music and lyrics for "Bob the
Musical". McKenzie won an Oscar for best original song with "Man
or Muppet", for The Muppets movie.
Chabon's career is swerving towards music as well, said the
author of several acclaimed novels, including "Mysteries of
Pittsburgh", "Wonder Boys" and "The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier and Clay", which won the Pultizer Prize for fiction in
2001.
Earlier this month, he signed with Universal Music Publishing
Group to be an in-house pop lyricist. Universal will look for
opportunities for him to collaborate with musicians, he said.
The deal grew out of a songwriting partnership with producer
Mark Ronson on the latter's 2015 best-selling album "Uptown
Special". Chabon wrote the lyrics for nine of the album's 11
tracks, but not, he said wryly, for the album's monster-selling
single, "Uptown Funk"
[to top of second column] |
"When I turned 50, I started feeling inclined to saying yes to new
opportunities," said Chabon, now 52. He and Ronson were both big
fans of 1970s rock group Steely Dan and the story-telling elements
of that group's lyrics and immediately hit it off, Chabon said.
Chabon, who says he listens to music all the time as he writes, says
the skill set of writing song lyrics with musicians - and the
satisfaction of doing that - is entirely different than the often
lonely pursuit of writing a novel, which for him can sometimes take
years.
"You're collaborating with people. Doing it on the fly. They're
tinkering with the melodies, while you're trying to come up with
lyrics on the spot. Eight hours later, you're done. You've made
these amazing sounds in one day."
But Chabon said he hasn't given up his night job as a novelist. He
tends to start writing in the late afternoon and sometimes all
through the night at the Berkley, Calif. home he shares with his
wife, Ayelet Waldman, herself a novelist and essayist, and their
four children.
(Reporting by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Nick Macfie)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
