St. James High to cut loose, ‘Footloose,’ with ageless tunes

The St. James High School Drama Department’s going to cut loose, “Footloose” to be exact, for its spring play for four days next week.

Show times are 7 p.m. April 15-18 and 2:30 p.m. April 18 at the school, 10800 S.C. 707, at Salem Road, in the Burgess community, a couple of miles north of Murrells Inlet. Tickets are $10.

The director, Angela Howard, said about 70 people, including teachers and parents assisting the many students, on stage and behind the scenes, have packed all their energies into this production.

Howard said the stream of hits from the “Footloose” movie soundtrack from 1984 will include in this play (besides the title song originally recorded by Kenny Loggins) “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” (Deniece Williams), “Holding Out for a Hero” (Bonnie Tyler) and the love theme, “Almost Paradise” (Ann Wilson and Mike Reno).

Howard said this show was chosen because, “I always look for shows that match the talent pool of students.”

With “strong dancers” at the school, she said, “the storyline just matched this year’s musical theater students.”

“It also is a show that high school students get excited about,” Howard said, “which always helps when they have to invest their time and commit to a show.”

With the character Ariel Shaw, played by Danielle Jeanjaquet, singing “Holding Out for a Hero,” Howard thought of a way to “spotlight our local heroes.”

The school will have “High-five a Hero” Night for the April 16 show, based on the song “Holding Out for a Hero.” Howard said all police officers, firefighters, military personnel and veterans, with ID, receive free admission and are encouraged to dress in uniform, if possible. Also, their families will receive a 50 percent discount off tickets.

Also, one person will receive special recognition at this show, from community nominations submitted to the school by Monday; that process is as easy as putting your name, phone number, email address, the nominee’s name and a summary answering in 500 words or less, “Is this person a hero to you?”

The school already had a “Kick Off Your Sunday Shoes and Cut Loose” drive as a lead-in to the play. Howard said students and their families donated about 300 pairs of new or gently worn dress and casual shoes for Help 4 Kids/Backpack Buddies of Garden City Beach (651-4310 or help4kidssc.com) and Scents for Soldiers (458-5873 or www.facebook.com/scentsforsoldiers).

Contemplative composer

Eric Carmen co-wrote “Almost Paradise” with Dean Pitchford, and the respective lead singers of rock groups Heart and Loverboy sang the vocals for the “Footloose” soundtrack.

Sharing memories this week from his native Cleveland, Carmen said that in sitting down to compose “Almost Paradise,” he and Pitchford “had no idea that over 30 years later, fans of all ages would still be listening to our song.”

Carmen, who has written his own hit singles such as “All By Myself” and “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again,” and another collaboration with Pitchford, “Make Me Lose Control,” has seen other stars succeed with his compositions. They include Louise Mandrell with “I Wanna Hear It From Your Lips” — another tag-team project with Pitchford — as well as Peter Cetera and Crystal Barnard on the duet “(I Wanna Take) Forever Tonight,” written with Andy Goldmark, and Celine Dion belting out “All By Myself.”

Carmen counts musical roles in two other movies.

He lent his voice for an iconic moment in the movie “Dirty Dancing,” from 1987. The late Patrick Swayze taught Jennifer Grey how to box step to “Hungry Eyes” as Cynthia Rhodes cranked the song and assisted in the dance lesson.

“You never really know where a director is going to place your song within a film,” Carmen said. “Sometimes you might just hear 30 seconds of your song before it fades into the background and is overtaken by dialogue. In ‘Dirty Dancing,’ however, ‘Hungry Eyes’ got the best spot in the movie. Not only was it a pivotal scene, but they also played the whole song.”

“Go All the Way” by the Raspberries, for whom Carmen sang lead in the early 1970s, got a rebirth among 12 1970s pop hits on the soundtrack to “Guardians of the Galaxy” last summer.

“When the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ soundtrack was certified ‘platinum,’” Carmen said, referring to sales of at least 1 million copies, “and was nominated for a Grammy last year, it gave me a special sense of satisfaction to know that the three film soundtracks I’ve been involved in — “Footloose,” “Dirty Dancing” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” — have all reached platinum status. That, and the fact that ‘Go All the Way’ has been played, on average, 52,000 times a year, every year, for 43 years on domestic radio. It’s always been a bit special to me because it was my first gold record.”

An artist hits gold with sales of 500,000 copies.

Movie drums up interest

Another fellow Clevelander, Jim Bonfanti, the Raspberries’ drummer, said hearing “Go All the Way” in “Guardians,” more than four decades since the song hit No. 5 in 1972, only extended the good feelings from the group’s reunion and concerts in 2004-05.

“I can’t tell you how fun it has been,” Bonfanti said, grateful he, Carmen and the other two former bandmates — Wally Bryson and Dave Smalley — could have this “new angle” on their first smash record, which might have helped open the door for new fans from that era’s sounds.

“We were part of it,” Bonfanti said of a musical legacy that cinema carries so well for so many artists. “We were in the movie.”

He said he also bought the vinyl album — formally labeled “Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1” — especially for its cover photo showing an audiocassette in a tape player.

Audiocassette sales of music peaked by the end of the 1980s, long before the students performing in “Footloose” next week were born, but the hits play on, through each transition of technology.

The movie “Footloose” was remade in 2011, with Blake Shelton commanding the cover of the title song, but Howard said that didn’t influence her initiative to lead this play, as Kevin Bacon and crew did on the silver screen in the heyday of MTV.

“I am a fan of the original movie,” she said.

This story was originally published April 9, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "St. James High to cut loose, ‘Footloose,’ with ageless tunes."