Arthur Siegel

Kaye Ballard was an American actress, singer, and comedian who was born on November 20, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her real name was Catherine Gloria Balotta, and she was the youngest of five children born to Italian immigrant parents. Ballard's mother was a devout Catholic, and her father was a drummer who played in local bands. Growing up, Ballard faced many challenges and obstacles, including poverty, illness, and the loss of her mother at a young age. Despite these hardships, she went on to become one of the most beloved performers in the entertainment industry. Ballard's career began in the 1940s when she started performing in nightclubs and on radio shows. She soon moved to New York City, where she made her Broadway debut in the musical "Three to Make Ready" in 1946. Over the years, she appeared in numerous other Broadway productions, including "The Golden Apple," "Carnival," and "Molly." I n addition to her work on stage, Ballard also had a successful career in television and film, appearing in shows such as "The Mothers-in-Law" and "The Doris Day Show," as well as movies like "The Girl Most Likely" and "Freaky Friday." Despite her success, Ballard never forgot her roots and remained down-to-earth and approachable throughout her career.

Arthur Siegel is a songwriter, although not a widely-known songwriter. His best-known songs are a pair he wrote with June Carroll for ''New Faces of 1952'' - the catchy ''Love is a Simple Thing'' and ''Monotonous,'' which is more apt to be associated with Eartha Kitt, who sang it, than with Arthur Siegel. He is also a pianist and a singer with a voice that manages to suggest a slightly reticent Eddie Cantor and a less reedy Fred Astaire which, in combination with his appearance of bright-eyed amazement, gives one the initial impresssion that he is selling his songs more through an eager, puppy-like charm than with any real vocal skill. But as one hears more of Mr. Siegel's singing, as he puts himself into musical situations that require a variety of vocal approaches, one begins to appreciate that his range is surprisingly wide, that his sense for phrasing is unusually apt and that his piano playing adds a very bright, enlivening accompaniment to his singing. Beyond all that, he has an astounding repertory of little-known songs both in and out of the musical theater, backed up by a vast store of associated anecdotes, trivia and actual information. Despite this, Mr. Siegel's career as a singer has been even more subterranean than his career as a songwriter. In the past four years he has had a couple of brief engagements at clubs that did not normally have entertainment and did not seem to know what to do with Mr. Siegel. Currently, he is playing a series of Tuesday nights at Onstage. Even his recording career has been conducted in the shadows. For several years, he has been a ubiquitous performer in the series of ''Revisited'' recordings which focus on the lesser-known songs of major Broadway composers, a series produced by Ben Bagley for whose first theatrical production, ''Shoestring Revue'' in 1955, Mr. Siegel wrote two songs. But although Mr. Siegel sings three, four or even more songs on these ''Revisited'' records, he has always been the least known performer in a company of familiar names, overshadowed by such sales bait as Katharine Hepburn, Lynn Redgrave, Estelle Parsons, Patrice Munsel, Tammy Grimes, Helen Gallagher, Dolores Gray and Elaine Stritch. But now, after working for name values in both composers and performers throughout the ''Revisited'' series, Mr. Bagley has reversed his field and, in ''Everybody Else Revisited'' (Painted Smiles 1374; By Mail, Painted Smiles Records, Room 516, 116 Nassau Street, New York, NY 10038), he has put together an album of songs mostly from not-so-celebrated Broadway musicals, written mostly by not-so-celebrated Broadway songwriters and sung by a cast consisting mostly of not-so-celebrated singers. In these circumstances, Mr. Siegel finally comes into his own. The only singer on the disk better known than he is Nell Carter. The others are Patti Wyss, Su-La Haska and Jamie Rocco. The names of the composers are a bit more familiar. But Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Hoagy Carmichael are not known as Broadway composers. They are represented here, however, by songs from, respectively, ''Beggar's Holiday,'' ''Early to Bed'' and ''Walk With Music.'' Rodgers and Hart make an unexpected appearance as authors of an unpublished, hitherto unknown song, ''Black Diamond,'' written for Ethel Waters to sing in a movie that was never made. There are also songs from ''Yokel Boy,'' ''Fine and Dandy,'' ''The Five O'Clock Girl,'' ''Three's A Crowd,'' ''Meet the People,'' ''Follow The Girls,'' and ''Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1931,'' as well as a virtual showcase for Baldwin Bergersen, a composer whose songs deserve a better fate than the short-lived shows in which they appeared. Mr. Siegel is busy as a bird dog. There are 34 songs on the disk and he is involved in 19 of them, singing solos as well as duets with Miss Carter, Miss Wyss and his co-writer Miss Carrol in a trio with Miss Wyss and Miss Haska, and providing a couple of chatty introductions. Many of the songs that he sings have that bright rhythmic quality that Gershwin, Porter and Rodgers brought to the musicals of the 20's and 30's, a style that Mr. Siegel romps through with relish on Mr. Bergersen's ''What's New In New York?,'' a pair of songs by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby from ''The Five O'Clock Girl'' and a Hoagy Carmicheal-Johnny Mercer collaboration, ''What'll They Think of Next?'' He is warm and vulnerable on his own softly shimmering waltz, ''The Other One,'' and provides a steadying counterpart to Nell Carter's flamboyant vocal acrobatics in a duet on Fats Waller's ''Slightly Less Than Wonderful.'' Miss Carter uses her unusual vocal mannerisms - the squeezed, shrill notes, the passages that spread and contract or rise and fade, the huge, looming vowel, the moment of crisp precision - with sensitivity and skill to project the dramatic of Duke Ellington's ''Brown Penny,'' to sing a gentle lullaby on Mr. Bergersen's ''Sleep, Baby, Don't Cry'' and to punch out, in daring harmony with Mr. Siegel, a lusty song from ''Fine and Dandy'' called ''Let's Go Eat Worms in the Garden.'' And when she weaves her way through the Rodgers and Hart ''Black Diamond,'' she takes such command of this sinuous, blues-drenched song that it is hard to imagine what Miss Waters, or anyone else, might do with it. There are occasional soft spots in this program. But the record is fun. It is a journey of discovery, both of songs and of singers, even of Miss Carter despite the fact that you may think you know her. The songs are fresh experiences in a familiar tradition, full of melody and rhythm, sung with enthusiasm and conviction by Miss Carter and Miss Siegel. And there is the constant delight of a small instrumental group, playing arrangements by Albert Evans and Dennis Deal, in which two pianos sweep the songs along on a strong, steady stream of pulsing rhythmic involvement.