Author, playwright, jazz historian, songwriter, director, and producer of plays and recordings, Chip Deffaa, is an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award-winner among many other illustrious credits. For 18 years, he wrote for the New York Post, co
vering jazz, cabaret, and theater. His career reflects an enormous love of show business and includes authoring eight books about music and popular culture. Deffaa has produced 32 albums, the latest of which is Irving Berlin: Love Songs and Such—the 16th dealing with Irving Berlin, more Berlin recordings than anyone else living.
This CD of 28 tracks includes Betty Buckley, Jeff Harnar, Karen Mason, Steve Ross, Anita Gillette, Bobby Belfry, Natalie Douglas, Seth Sikes and many more notables of the cabaret and theater communities, a rarity these days.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Chip Deffaa (CD) Six Questions:
NLE: You’ve produced more recordings of Irving Berlin songs than anyone living–1-6 albums dealing with Berlin to date. Why so much interest in Berlin?
CD: For my ears, there’s never been a greater American songwriter, and George Gershwin and Jerome Kern said the same thing, too. Berlin wrote more hits, made more money than any of his contemporaries in the Golden Age of Popular Song. I’ve gone through every song he every wrote—more than 1200—seeking the best possible singers for both famous Berlin songs and never-before-recorded rarities I’ve dug up.
NLE: How’d you first get interested in Berlin? 
CD: I loved performing in my youth. I was befriended by, mentored by, and directed by an aged ex-vaudevillian, Todd Fisher, who was teaching me early Berlin songs to perform before I was old enough to even understand them. I just took to them. I loved singing them as a boy and still love singing them. And of course I loved the Berlin film musicals I saw on TV: Easter Parade, Top Hat, White Christmas, Blue Skies, etc.
NLE: On the new album, Irving Berlin: Love songs and Such, as on all of your albums, you have a mix of seasoned Broadway pros and promising newcomers. Which do you enjoy working with more?
CD: I get great joy seeing seasoned Broadway pros whom I’ve admired for decades—like Karen Mason, Steve Ross, Stephen Bogardus, Anita Gillette—record numbers for me; it’s like watching private concerts by the best in the business. And they bring lots of life experience to their songs. But it’s equally satisfying, in a different way, to shine a spotlight on an up-and-coming young artist like Analise Scarpaci, from Mrs. Doubtfire, who sings with such beauty and purity. And Matt Nardozzi, who’s won a Young Entertainers Award in Hollywood for his work on the Berlin project, has just the kind of open-hearted boy-next-door quality that songs of young love need. He hasn’t gotten jaded or cynical; if he sings of first love, it’s fresh. Fred Ebb, of Kander & Ebb, told me years ago that it’s as rewarding to discover new talent as to work with established pro’s, and he’s right.
NLE: You dedicated the new album to Betty Buckley. Why did you pick her?
CD: Well, she’s my favorite living Broadway diva, and I dedicated an album to her before. But she was on my mind a lot during the making of this album, which closes with a first-rate sample of her work. About halfway through working on this album, I nearly died from heart and lung problems. Ms. Buckley was the last performer I saw “live” before a pulmonary embolism put me in the hospital, and the first performer I saw “live,” once I’d recovered enough to get back to work, and her life-affirming singing, I felt, was the best possible medicine for me. So I’m grateful and was happy to dedicate another album to her. She’s a remarkable singer, with a lot of depth.
NLE: As a polymath—writer, director, producer, songwriter, etc., is there any one talent that you gravitate to or prefer over the rest?
CD: When I’m writing a script, I’ll get wonderfully lost in the process—lose all sense of time, place, self, forget to eat or sleep—and I’ll think “This is the greatest thing in the world.” But if I’m creating a song or recording a song, whatever it is that I’m doing at the moment feels like the most rewarding thing in the world. I can’t pick a favorite activity. Carol Channing used to tell me: “You and I are made to work, Chip. Create something every day.” And, like Carol, I find joy in my work, and I work every day. On the newest album, I sing a duet with a wonderful young singer, Jack Corbin: “Some Sunny Day.” Todd Fisher taught me that vintage song from his youth when I was young, and I taught it to young Jack, so we could sing it together. And we’re both singing with such high spirits. I’ve kept the same quote from Richard Halliburton over my desk since I was 19: “If a man does not sing while he works… there’s something wrong with the man or with the work.” And I try to live that way.
NLE: What’s next for you?
CD: I’ve always got a million projects going. I’ve written eight published books, 20 published plays, and the new film adaptation of my play George M. Cohan Tonight!, starring the one-and-only Jon Peterson, is winning all kinds of awards on the festival circuit. I’m working on another play right now, and I hope to get a few more albums out this year. It’s fun. I think I have the best job in the world—just following my interests. And now I’ve got to head outside, and feed the deer on the mountain where I live, here in NJ, and sing ’em a Berlin song I love: “When I Leave the World Behind.”
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