Singer Sam Harris Gets Stripped…

Even though he isn’t in the public eye on a regular basis, singer/actor Sam Harris keeps himself busy. Though it is likely his obituary will lead with a reference to Star Search (he was the first winner), Harris has toured the world performing concerts, sold countless albums, appeared on Broadway (and received a Tony nomination), written a book, recently completed editorial work on a film of his show, Ham and more. You’d think it would be time to take some pressure off and relax.

Not for Harris. Enter his new show, Stripped. This show is simply Harris singing with accompaniment from his long-time musical director Todd Schroeder on piano. That’s it. No band. No dancers. Harris will be performing Stripped on Friday at Saturday at Catalina Jazz Club. It’s a venue he knows well having performed there several times.

Earlier this week I spoke with Harris about the show, his approach to singing and lyric interpretation and the perfection that is the Harold Arlen/E.Y. “Yip” Harburg song, Over the Rainbow.

You previously did a show, Sam, that had the same format (piano and voice only) as Stripped. What makes this show different?

Every show I build is different and it depends where I’m playing and what I’m doing. With a venue like this, which is intimate, there’s a lot more leeway. I build them like a theatre piece because that’s my background. With arcs and ups and downs and comedy. Also it’s a different time and I’ve had different experiences. I keep things current musically and from my perspective. I’m sure there are common songs, but it’s a completely different show.

When you did HAM at the Pasadena Playhouse you did an interview with Broadway World where you talked about singers on television today not understanding that “why” of singing lyrics. How important is that to you personally and how do you explore songs and their lyrics?

Every lyric is a personal statement. And why you sing it, which can be from a character perspective or more likely those elements of my life that give me the need and the reason to have to say that thing. They are all monologues. I’m an actor first and a storyteller. And that’s what songs are – stories. One of the things I love to do most is when I do a song is infuse it with whatever is happening at that time in my life. I’ve sung Over the Rainbow forever and ever. That song can be joyous or triumphant, about loss and hope. It can be so many thing and has represented so many things to me.

Scholars considered Over the Rainbow a perfectly structured songs because the notes follow the concept of dreaming of going beyond the rainbow. But the person in that story never gets there until the very end. What makes this song so perfect for you?

I think that says it very well. There’s a sense in the melody and lyric that it’s an indefatigable hope. It doesn’t have a triumph. It leaves you with the question: “Why oh why can’t I?” It doesn’t say “I arrived or made it over the rainbow.” I think within that there is the interpretation of triumph, the determination of “why the fuck not me? I will get through this.” And it can also be, as originally sung by Judy Garland, “if they can do it then don’t I have a chance?” 

You told NPR in 2014 of going to church when you were younger and hearing people there “singing with this sense of celebration and pain.” Do you think that describes how you sang before coming out?

Yeah. I pretty much say everything myself through music and writing and talking. At that time of my life there was definitely a cry that came from suppression. And I was able to express it through music. There’s a celebration in that of this is who I am, but I can’t really tell you everything. Now there’s no hiding pretty much anything. I don’t care how happy we are or how much we celebrate our lives, there’s always pain that needs to be uncovered and experienced. That’s what cements us.

You are a father. Obviously bullying is a big deal for not just kids, but everyone today. You wrote a song about it called Don’t Yuck My Yum.

How do you protect you son, Cooper, from people yucking his yum?

I don’t protect my child from getting his yum yuck’d. I try to teach him how to stand for what he thinks and he believes. While your feelings will be hurt when someone tells you are wrong and that will hurt and you can let it hurt, your yum is still your yum. I can’t protect him from the world, but I can give him the tools to deal with the world.

Star Search was over 35 years ago. What’s the one piece advice Sam Harris today would give Sam Harris back then that he most needed to have heard?

That’s really hard. I’m not somebody who believes in regret or doing anything over. I think we’re all on the path we’re meant to be on. But I think I had such a fear about being homogenized that, to a degree, I was afraid to completely let someone guide me. I’m not a great business person. It pisses me off that I’m supposed to be. Can’t I just be creative? Do I have to be talented and have a business mind? I think that if I had allowed someone to direct and guide me then I think it would have been less terrifying and more focused.

Ella Fitzgerald once said, “It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.” Where are you going next?

I’ve never been one of those actors who sits and waits for the phone to ring. When that happens it’s fabulous. I just finished my second book – which is fiction. We shot Ham and now we have to sell it. I wrote a pilot we are now shopping. I’m developing these projects and I continue to sing. And I’m directing my kid’s talent show at school and my son isn’t even in it! My priority is being a parent and I try to build things with and around that.