Bill's Songwriter's Roundtable:
with Martin Charnin, Walter Bishop,
Jule Styne, & Charles Strouse
Behind the Scenes: "One of the joys of living in NYC for the past 30 years has been to immerse myself in music. Since childhood, music has stirred passions in me and as a talk show host the privilege of interviewing and getting to know giants of the music business—to get inside their creative process—has been a great blessing. Here we have Walter Bishop, Jr, who recorded with Miles Davis, and was introduced to me by my dear friend, Richard Dubin shortly after I moved to NYC. Walter, like Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, was a guest in my home. I knew Jule Styne well, too. I remember being in Frank Sinatra's suite at the Waldorf when Jule came in. He had a new song he wanted to pitch to Frank, who wasn't ready to see him. So he sat at the piano and sang it to Dorthy Uhlemann, Frank's secretary, and me. He was like a kid, filled with glee at his new creation. Charles Strouse, the composer of the music for ANNIE and BYE BYE BIRDIE, is a lovely man and a recent interview I did with him at his home for my current show MY GENERATION can be found here. The roundtable format is one that I invented, and the days when giants like this would sit around on a local TV show for 90 minutes are long gone—so enjoy this piece of broadcast history." —Bill Boggs