In 1966 a Kansas City nightclub singer captured the imagination of a nation with an exciting proposition delivered via radio, “What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play.” Marilyn Maye’s recording of Cabaret hit Number 9 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. That same year Maye sang on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the first of 76 appearances, the most by any singer.
Maye recorded seven albums and 34 singles with RCA. The Arts Council of the Smithsonian Institution chose her rendition of Too Late Now for an album of the 110 best American compositions of the 20th century for its permanent collection.
Born Marilyn Maye McLaughlin in Wichita, Kansas, Maye’s professional career began at age 9, when winning a Topeka talent contest landed her a 13-week radio gig on WIBW. After stints in Des Moines and Louisville, Maye moved to Kansas City, where she had an 11-year run as a nightclub singer before moving into regional musical theater productions, including leading roles in Hello, Dolly! and Mame.
At 96, Maye hasn’t slowed a bit. Last year she had a sold-out solo concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. Maye keeps a house in Overland Park but spends much time in New York and on the road.
Maye spoke with IN Kansas City from her New York apartment recently about life, love, and show biz. Our first call was answered by a voicemail message in which Marilyn’s velvety voice coos: “Honey, I’m so glad you called. Please don’t leave a message. I hope you don’t mind calling me again in just a few hours. I do want to talk to you. Have a good time for the next few hours before we talk. Love, Marilyn.”
What was it like doing a solo show at Carnegie Hall? Was it just another show or were you nervous?
I wasn’t nervous, I was thrilled. I was very excited all day.
The room was not strange to me because we had done two other shows there with other singers. But this was my very own show. It was two hours of me. [Laughs]
One review said you received 12 standing ovations.
Isn’t that wild? An usher told me it was the first time he had seen the audience stand when a performer first walked out. The conductor, Steven Reineke—he is the guy there at Carnegie with the New York Pops orchestra—knew I’d been Dolly, so he arranged an overture of Hello Dolly songs for me to walk out to.
And for the second half, because Cabaret was my hit radio song, they did an overture from Cabaret, and then I did the second half of the concert.
How many songs do you know?
Oh, I have no idea. I’m always amazed if I go to a performance and they start singing something, and I go, “Oh, yeah” and I just unconsciously review the words and sing the words.
It must be hundreds of songs.
Oh, thousands. I’m sure, yeah.
How did you pick which songs to sing at Carnegie Hall?
Mainly the ones that we know work with the audience. And some of the favorites. And [the New York audience] is well acquainted with me doing them at 54 Below, a fabulous club where we work with a trio, a pianist, bass, and drums only. So for them to hear a full orchestra do songs that they’ve only heard as a trio is astounding, too.
Before you achieved national fame, you performed at Colony Steakhouse in the old Ambassador Hotel at 3600 Broadway in Kansas City from 1954 to 1965. What was your life like then?
Well, I was raising a daughter, Kristi Tucker, and she was in school. We would work through the winter and the fall and spring and then we would work Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe in summertime when she was out of school.
The Colony is where Steve Allen discovered me. He had a television show on the West Coast, and when I did his show, I would fly out to the West Coast, do his show, and then fly back to the Colony.
Nightclub singers work late…
Yeah, and then in the morning I’ve got to get the kid off to school. [Laughs] And then I’d go back to bed. And in those days, I was teaching, too. I taught singing in a dance studio—not singing lessons, performance lessons. And that’s what I do now in New York, the Art of Performance, I call it.
I have a lot of wonderful students. Last night and the night before last and tonight, one of my students, who was a lawyer at the New York Times for 33 years, and she’s doing her show that I designed and created the arrangements for at a local club. I work with a pianist and we work out the arrangements, and then she does her act.
And then I have a male student, also a lawyer. He is 72 years old, and he is wonderful, and he has his shows this month.
A popular feature of your master classes is your Rules of Cabaret. What are a couple of rules?
Well, a lot of people, when they are performing, close their eyes and sing. I don’t believe in that.
Why not?
I believe the audience is the star. Not you. They’ve given up their evening. They’ve paid for a ticket to see you. You sing to the audience, not for them.
And I don’t believe in sitting down. It’s not a pretty picture with a lot of people when they sit on a stool, for many reasons. [Laughs]
And if you have to drink water, you should only sip it from a stemmed wine glass.
Why?
It just looks classier. The act is sight, too. It’s not just sound.
One recent review said you still do high kicks. Is that true?
Well, I used to do the kicks without hanging onto the piano. Now I do place one hand on the piano. There are kicks in a song called It’s Today. [Hums an intro and sings] Tune the grand up / Call the cops out / Strike the band up / Pull the stops out / Hallelujah! / It’s today!
Do you work out?
No, I just keep moving. [Laughs] I’m just really busy.
Last night, I had this show, a tribute to [Broadway composer and lyricist] Jerry Herman. We had to have a rehearsal, and they had an auction of all of Jerry Herman’s belongings in a beautiful auction house [Doyle] in New York. So I did that at 6 o’clock, and then I had to hurry and get to the show that my student was doing at 7 o’clock, which was clear across town.
So your fitness secret is keeping your schedule really full?
Pretty much.
Do you have a nutrition plan?
I don’t know, I don’t have any rigid diet. I like yogurt.
So before a show you’re not loading up on certain foods for energy?
No, no. You can’t eat before the show.
Why not?
You gotta breathe. You can eat early in the day, but not before showtime. My musicians do, I must say.
Do you eat after the show?
Sure. Yeah.
What’s a favorite dinner after a great show?
I like salmon. I’m really not a foodie, actually. But I love to go out to dinner with people. There are always friends, old and new, to gather around the table and so many wonderful New York restaurants. So that’s fun. That happens a lot.
The year you were nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist, you were up against Sonny and Cher, The Byrds, Herman’s Hermits, Glenn Yarbrough, Horst Jankowski and Tom Jones, who won.
Isn’t that a ridiculous category?
Crazy.
It’s just nuts. [Laughs] I think that’s changed. They’ve gotten more careful with their categories. It wasn’t fair.
Do you ever think that you were born ten years too late for your style of music?
I do think I was born too late. I sing the Great American Songbook. I’m not a rock ‘n’ roller. So I think you’re absolutely right.
The Beatles happened during my recording days, when I really had incredible air play all over the country. And I was doing television shows. I was doing Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin and all the talk shows. I did Ed Sullivan three times. I did The Tonight Show 76 times, the most of any singer. And then the Beatles came on, and it was a new world.
If I had come along earlier, I would have been a household name. The good news is, when I’m in New York, people recognize me on the street.
I’ve done many concerts at Rose Hall with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. I love them. The last concert I did with them, as I entered the stage the orchestra stood for me. They played my walk-on music standing as a tribute to me, so lovely. That kind of thing happens in New York a lot.
I don’t think you could be a bigger name in New York.
That’s probably true. It’s not true in Kansas City anymore because I haven’t been around there in so long. I’ve been mostly playing New York for 18 years.
Do you ever perform in Kansas City?
We did a concert at the Folly Theater last year, and I was thrilled about that, with the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra. So that was fun—great fun—to be back at the Folly because I worked in Kansas City for many years.
The jazz scene in Kansas City is not what it used to be.
Well, there are very few clubs there. It’s a shame.
Every story about you repeats that Ella Fitzgerald called you “the greatest white female singer in the world.” Did she really say that?
Here’s how it happened, and they never quote it quite right: They asked her who were her favorite singers, and she said, “I love Sarah Vaughan, I love Carmen McRae”—both black, you know—“and Marilyn Maye is the greatest white singer.” So, it was taken out of context.
How did you become friends with her?
I got to meet her here in New York. I was working The Living Room, a wonderful club, and she was in town. I can’t tell you what she was doing, she was working too. And we met there first and then a month or two later, I was working the Rainbow Grill, and she came to see me there. After the show, she sat in the dressing room with me for the longest time, more than an hour.
What did you talk about?
We just talked about everything. Musicians and the business and did I like her hair and was her makeup good. [Laughs] Just fun stuff.
It became kind of a habit with us around the country when we were in the same town, either she would come where I was working or I would go where she was working. We always wound up in the dressing room talking after the show.
She was an angel. She was a doll. It was a lovely friendship. When I did the Lincoln-Mercury commercial (in the late 1960s) with Step to the Rear with the lyrics changed from “let the winner lead the way” to “Lincoln Mercury leads the way,” they did so many recordings of that commercial that they decided to have guest stars, and she did one of the guest star recordings with me.
My daughter Kristi went to see her—she saw her last of the two of us—and [Fitgerald’s] eyesight was gone by that point but Kristi got real close to her face and Ella said, “Oh, yes, you are her daughter, aren’t you?”
How much of a role did your mother have in your professional career starting at age 9?
She really wasn’t a stage mother. She wasn’t a pusher. She didn’t push me in front of people, no. But when I got the chance to perform, she would say, “Don’t let me down.” [Laughs] That’s as much of a stage mother as she was.
But she played piano, and she accompanied me when I was 10 and 11. At 13 I had my own radio show while I was going to East Des Moines High School, a weekly show on KNRT. By that time, I had a studio pianist.
After high school I went to WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky, and I was there for a couple of years doing radio shows. In those days, WHAS had a full orchestra on Friday nights. It was a great experience for me to have that full orchestra. Amazing, on a radio show, having a full orchestra with violins and all—not 80 pieces but about 20.
How long did your mom live and how much did it mean to her to see you become a star?
She was thrilled. She lived to be 96. It was interesting because people would tell me that they sat next to her in a performance and they would say, “You know, your mother doesn’t applaud.” [Laughs] So I said to her, “Mother, why don’t you applaud?” And she said, “Well, you’re my daughter. I’m not supposed to applaud.” It was protocol about not bragging. But she was very proud of me and loved what I did. It was always my mother and me because we left my dad when I was 11. It was “You and Me Against the World.” [Laughs]
Did you ever have a relationship with your dad later?
Yeah, later on. He lived in Kansas City and my second husband lived in Kansas City, so I saw him then a lot. He had remarried and he was a druggist.
You’ve had three husbands and a fourth long-time partner, I read. Is that true?
Not a partner, just a fourth meaningful love affair. [Laughs]
There’s a theory that Russians wrote great literature because of all the hardships the Russian people have endured. Do you think that having had turbulent love affairs and disappointments and heartbreaks added depth to your singing?
I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. For sure.
I always say, it’s the lyric you concentrate on, not the sounds. I shouldn’t say “not.” You concentrate on everything when you perform. But the lyric is your guide. It’s all about the story when you choose songs. Years ago, I did heartbreaking songs. I do more happy songs these days. [Laughs]
But there’s a place in the act where we come down and do Guess Who I Saw Today?, which is my most-requested song in New York. It’s a story. I plan the act with various stories, and Guess Who I Saw Today? leads into Fifty Percent. [Both songs are about extra-marital love affairs, one from the perspective of the adulterer’s wife, the other from the perspective of the mistress.] I like doing songs that make little vignettes.
As a words person, I love your thematically linked medleys where you do, say, six songs about rainbows or six songs about smiling.
God, you’re very hip, honey! I love that you’re hip. Thank you, because that’s exactly what I do. Sometimes I see people put songs together and I think, “Why would that song lead into that?”
There’s one medley I do where the first song is By Myself [sings at fast tempo] I’ll go my way by myself/ This is the end of the romance / I’ll go my way by myself / Life is merely a dance.
At the end it says [sings] I’ll face the unknown / I’ll build a world of my own / No one knows better than I myself / I’m by myself alone.
Then I go into a Stephen Sondheim song, Being Alive [sings] But alone / is alone / not alive / Someone to hold me too close / Someone to hurt me too deep.
Somebody leaned over to a friend of mine the other night and said, “Those songs don’t go together at all.” And I said, “They missed the six connecting words: ‘But alone is alone not alive’.” Honey, are you married?
Yes, for the second time.
And we like him?
We like him very much.
And what does he do?
He’s a woodworker. He builds things. And he loves old music. He loves Great American Songbook.
He would love what I do. You’ve got to come see me!
Critics say your voice has never sounded better, and you’re performing 13 shows this month alone. I think you’re going to live to be 125.
Gosh, I hope so!
Have you started planning a 100th birthday concert in your head?
[Laughs] Well, not really. You mean I should do that, right? That’s an idea. I do have a wonderful time with people that want to work and want to sing and are hip enough to understand what I do.
My life just keeps me really busy. For example, I have an engagement in Palm Springs after Thanksgiving. We do Palm Springs twice and then we do LA at the Catalina, a wonderful, famous old club there. Debbie Reynolds always came to all my shows there. I’ll miss her when I do it this time.
Then it’s back to Palm Springs at the Purple Room, a wonderful club where the Rat Pack went. They can’t remodel it because it’s been designated a historic landmark.
Then I go to Phoenix, where there’s a beautiful theater called MIM for Musical Instrument Museum. The acoustics are incredible there.
Then back [to New York] for eight shows in four days at Birdland, including New Year’s Eve.
Do you ever sit back and think, “Wow, I’ve got a really wonderful life?”
No. I can’t. I’ve got to keep moving. [Laughs]
Interview condensed and minimally edited for clarity.