The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd
The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. The musical is best known for introducing the standards "Look At That Face", "A Wonderful Day Like Today", "Who Can I Turn To?", "Feeling Good", and "The Joker". The show title is a transposition of the phrase "the smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd," referring to the experience of theatre performers.
Original Recording
Anthony Newley was an English actor, singer, songwriter, and filmmaker. A "latter-day British Al Jolson", he achieved widespread success in song, and on stage and screen. "One of Broadway's greatest leading men", from 1959 to 1962 he scored a dozen entries on the UK Top 40 chart, including two number one hits. Newley won the 1963 Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "What Kind of Fool Am I?", sung by Sammy Davis Jr., and wrote "Feeling Good", which became a signature hit for Nina Simone. His songs have been sung by a wide variety of singers including Fiona Apple, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey.
Newley in 1967