In Music & Motherhood, Martina McBride Finds Best of Both Worlds By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
May 22, 2006 Country star Martina McBride is already putting songs together for her next album, which she'll cut this fall. "I always try not to go into an album with a preconceived idea -- except for 'Timeless,'" she says, referring to her current popular collection of classic tunes. She'd like to do more classics.
"I've got the best of both worlds."
"There isn't a week when I don't wake up one day thinking of a song I'd love to record." But don't expect "Timeless 2" any time soon. The next album will be all new material. Meanwhile, McBride is performing on tomorrow night's (5/23) 41st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on CBS. And she'll be performing weekend
dates around the country throughout the summer, she says.
That leaves weekdays for mommy time with her three daughters, ages 11, 8, and 10 months.
"I've got the best of both worlds. I guess they've kind of coincided with each other," she says. "When my oldest daughter started
kindergarten, there wasn't a choice as far as cutting back on the touring. Luckily, there's a lot of aspects to this career, and touring is only one of them. I didn't feel like my career was going to suffer from not touring 220 days a year."
BROADWAY-BOUND 'WIVES CLUB' BOASTS HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND
Now that the contracts are all signed, Eddie Holland reports plans are proceeding PDQ to adapt the 1996 Bette Midler/Diane Keaton/Goldie Hawn starrer, "The First Wives Club," into a Broadway musical -- with the legendary
songwriting/producing team of Holland-Dozier-Holland doing the music and lyrics.
The project marks the first time Eddie, his brother Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier have worked together in over a decade.
"It's amazing … almost like we never left each other," says Eddie Holland. "The chemistry is unbelievable." The multi-Grammy winning, Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famers are responsible for dozens of classic hits including "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Heat Wave," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On." However, says Brian, they won't be using reworked covers of their old tunes. "We're going to be doing all new material." He adds that Emmy-winning
writer/composer "Rupert Holmes is doing the book for the play." The plan is to have "all songs completed by December, then put it up the beginning of next year to work out the kinks before we get to Broadway."
Since word of the project has gotten out, Eddie says their phone has been ringing off the hook with
actors and their agents wanting to be a part of the project that will be directed by Francesca Zambello. He adds they'll obviously be taking "some creative license" in adapting the film to a musical, but it will still be the saga of the three divorcees played by Midler, Keaton and Hawn in the movie.
THE VIDEOLAND VIEW:
A mid-June production start has been set and casting for subsidiary characters has begun on "Wyclef Jean in America," the HBO series announced last October, loosely based on the life story of the singer. He started out in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, son of a minister, moved to New York at age 9, and went on to become a third of the Grammy-winning recording stars, the Fugees. Among the cast of characters we can expect to see will be Wyclef's wife, Marjorie, described by casting sources as a smart, attractive, graceful, strong woman who is in control, and without whom Wyclef would "be lost."
GRANDMA, WHAT A BIG VOICE YOU HAVE:
Lainie Kazan laughs when recalling how "Red Riding Hood" filmmaker Randal Kleiser approached her for the musical movie that gets released on DVD June 27. "He said, 'There's no one else who can play the wolf,'" says the veteran actress and singer, who actually plays three roles -- the real-life grandmother who comes to read the fairy tale to her grandkids; the "outlandish, over-the-top" grandmother within the tale; and the big, bad you-know-who. "It took hours and hours to put on my toenails," she says. Joey Fatone from 'NSync eventually takes over the wolf role, but not before Lainie and Joey do a rap number together.
Next, Kazan's taking to the stage at L.A.'s Brentwood Theatre with longtime friends Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor in "Bermuda Avenue Triangle," May 30-June 25. She and Renee play residents of a seniors' condominium complex who discover they ain't too old for love when they get involved -- unbeknownst to one another -- with a bon vivant con man (Bologna). Taylor "actually wrote it for me, but because of scheduling problems I couldn't do it at the time, so Bea Arthur did it," Kazan says. "It's a great piece that I appreciate even more now that I'm a little older."
CLARIFICATION: Casper Van Dien's May 27 movie, "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb," which we reported on last week, is on the Hallmark Channel.
(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)
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