The Voice - The Official Linda Eder Newsletter

Frank Wildhorn is a modern-day musical genius and the husband of Linda Eder. His compositions have touched the lives of people all over the world, and he has enriched the lives of theatre lovers everywhere with his creation of JEKYLL & HYDE, THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL and CIVIL WAR. As he was preparing to take his latest musical, CAMILLE CLAUDEL, to the stage, Frank graciously took time out of his busy schedule to sit down in his office with the staff of THE VOICE for this intriguing interview. We are sure you will enjoy reading about the journey this prolific composer has been on, a journey which has brought him to this point in his life and career.

FRANK: I was born in Women's Hospital in Harlem. My earliest memories begin when we lived in Queens Village. I guess I lived there from the age of one or two until I was about 14 years old.

VOICE: We didn't think you lived in New York City that long. Please tell us about growing up in New York.

FRANK: I remember having a really good childhood-nothing so extraordinary. My childhood was pretty normal-good family, really good family. I have one sister. My mom's folks lived very close to us in Queens. A lot of my family lived in Jericho on Long Island-lots of good memories, good times.

FRANK: My life growing up in New York was really about sports. My dad was a great athlete! In fact, he played baseball during the Korean War with the Eddie Matthews All-Star Team.

FRANK: I think the music didn't hit me until later to tell you the truth. As a kid, I drew a lot. I was very much into art. When I first went to school, I thought about fine art. That's how much I was into it at that time. Besides sports, I was painting and selling my paintings and doing things like that. The music kind of crept in after my Bar Mitzvah at around the age of 13 or 14.

VOICE: So your move to Florida and your interest in music really went hand in hand?

FRANK: We moved to Hollywood, Florida, a town between North Miami and Fort Lauderdale. It was there that I played high school football, worked as a lifeguard for the city of Hollywood and picked up music. I know you are aware that I am a self-taught musician. At the time, I thought that being a lifeguard, playing football and being a musician were all great ways to pick up girls! That's as far as the ambition went back then.

FRANK: It was very soon that music just took over my life. I know I was 15 or 16 years old when one day I just turned to my parents and said, “Whatever else I do, it doesn't really matter. This is what I am going to do.”

FRANK: It was very tough for my parents to accept what I really wanted to do when I was 15 or 16, but this was all I wanted. I really did. People who have known me that long know that my life has been on a pretty consistent track.

FRANK: Everybody, and that was really important. There were the Gershwins and the Doobie Brothers. There was Tchaikovsky and Stevie Wonder. That is really the key to who I am as a musician in my life. For me, it had to be all of it.

VOICE: Your approach is so similar to Nan's. Nan told us that she reads everything she can get her hands on, just as you listen to every type of music.

FRANK: I have been writing music ever since I have been playing it. I can't remember a day when I was playing that I wasn't also writing. I either had my own bands or got into a ton of other bands. And the key always was that I was playing everything-Jazz, R & B, Rock & Roll. I was doing it all and doing it all the time. I was desperately trying to hold onto that-to do it all.

Frank’s first band “Sunrise Highway,” Florida 1975

FRANK: Yes, it was called “You Are The Sun.” I wrote it for my band, Sunrise Highway. It was sung by my friend, Randy Walters. I wrote it for my first girlfriend or one of my first girlfriends back in Florida, and I am sure it was as awful then as it is in my head at this moment. But the truth of the matter is that I really can't remember not writing, even when I had my own bands. I always loved to write, and my bands always had original stuff to play.

FRANK: I had my family and also my band in Florida so I wanted to stay close, but back in 1977-1978, it was obvious that the music business was not in Miami. It was in New York, LA or Nashville. I was from New York, and at that time I didn't understand the country world of Nashville like I do now; so LA seemed like a pretty cool place to hang out. The music publishing business more than anything else was in LA in the late 70's and early 80's. For a writer who is not a performer, the music publishing business is what's really important. They pay you in advance for the songs they believe you are going to write for them, and they go out and get those songs covered or recorded by artists. LA seemed like the place to be, so I went.

FRANK: Yes, and the ironic thing about all of it was that I was a history major, not a music major! Now a person can actually attend USC on a full Frank Wildhorn Scholarship for music. That's pretty cool! There is an actual scholarship in my name at USC, which was started about four years ago.

FRANK: They hold something called the Charles Dickens Dinner. Larry Livingston called me one day. He's Dean of Music at USC, and I know him from the business more than from the academic world. He said, “We are honoring you this year. We are giving you a scholarship.” I said, “I'm flattered and it's wonderful, but I hope you know I wasn't a music student at USC. I was a history student.” He told me it wasn't about that. It was about my name being attached to the school. USC was great-wonderful years, great times. I learned a lot there.

FRANK: CHRISTOPHER was JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Part 8 from a Zen Buddhist point of view. I loved JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, especially at that time in my life. I was 18 years old. It was a theatre piece that was using pop music, and it was also played on the radio. That appealed to me. It was cool. I was into the Eastern Philosophy time of my life and all that crazy stuff; so I concocted the idea for JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Part 8.

FRANK: The world had been destroyed. The musical is about the remnants of the world that come back. Somebody leads them. There were good guys and bad guys. Everybody had a character parallel to SUPERSTAR. I wrote the book, music and lyrics and John Houseman produced it. It was a wonderful and incredible learning experience at USC.

FRANK: The star of the show was a guy named Chuck Wagner, who became the first star of JEKYLL & HYDE in 1990. The female lead was a woman named Madolyn Smith. She was discovered from CHRISTOPHER and later played John Travolta's girlfriend in URBAN COWBOY, the movie. She's had a great career. So a little fraternity from that show at USC turned out to be great. It was a lot of fun.

VOICE: Please elaborate on your relationship with Steve Cuden, your friend and JEKYLL & HYDE collaborator.

FRANK: Steve was a dear friend of mine at USC. He was in the drama school. I was not. We had a lot of things in common. We sat down and started writing together. I don't remember how, but we decided to start writing stuff for kids and that's what we did. The first thing we wrote was called THE LAST TZAR. It was about Nicholas, Alexander and Rasputin. We also wrote a musical about Caesar and a bunch of other crazy things. We were kids doing our thing.

VOICE: When did you first become interested in writing a musical about the story of JEKYLL & HYDE?

FRANK: I saw a show starring Frank Langella called DRACULA that I thought was sexy. I liked that they took a Victorian horror story and melodrama and made it into a contemporary piece of art. Remember, this was way before there was ever a PHANTOM. When I was at USC, I found the story of JEKYLL & HYDE and started playing around with it. There are three or four melodies in the show for Broadway that were literally written back at USC when I was 18 years old. So we worked on that project. The years go on and you go your separate ways. For me to go where I needed to go, I surrounded myself with different people.

FRANK: When I was at USC and did my shows, a lot of the publishers in Los Angeles would come to see them. The feedback I always got from the publishers was, “You have a real flair for melody. I think you can write for pop people. Why are you doing this theatre stuff? You'll never make any money.” That is the typical

pop kind of attitude. Chase the charts…write a hit…up…down…next. These were not theatre loving people. These were pop people. But the fact of the matter is they offered me a job, and they paid me for my first professional job as a songwriter.

VOICE: Did these years as a writer of pop music help you to get to where you are now?

FRANK: Yes, this experience was great for me, and the truth of the matter is that the whole thing is ironic. I love the irony in it. It was the years as a pop writer that were the best training I ever could have gotten for theatre. Back then, when you had a publisher, you would write for different things. In the morning, you would be writing for a 16-year-old African American artist. The next day you could be writing for a 45-year-old guy from Nashville. Next year you could be writing for a Southern Rock & Roll band. So you learn to write from all these people's different points of view. The pop world was actually better training for theatre in that way because the theatre world is so much more narrow. You are studying the masters and emulating the masters. You sometimes lose the common touch in the theatre, and pop only works and is successful when it has the common touch. That's why the great writers of yesteryear (the Gershwins, the Porters, Rodgers & Hammerstein) were pop writers. They were writing the popular music of the day. So many of today's theatre writers wouldn't know a hit if it hit them in the head. They are so in touch with these 15 blocks in New York City called Broadway that they lose the common touch. Pop music is for the world to share.

VOICE: You have managed to keep that common touch in your work. You always write for the people.

FRANK: “We Can Make Miracles Together,” 1983. I loved it! It was great, wonderful…Stacey Lattisaw.

Natalie Cole, Frank, BeBe and CeCe Winans at the 1998 Goodwill Games. Frank served as Musical Director for the opening ceremonies and also composed original works for the festivities, including a piece performed by Cole and the Winans.

FRANK: Amazing, great, incredible! Again, you don't know if that's going to happen. Whitney made that for me years ago (Frank points to a collage on his wall designed and created by Whitney Houston). “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” was the seventh consecutive No. 1 single she had in a row. It broke the Beatles' record at that time. You don't know that when you are writing the song. You are just writing. I'm friends with Chuck Jackson (Jesse's brother). He's written all of Natalie Cole's big hits: “Inseparable,” “I've Got Love On My Mind.” He called me up one day and said, “I've got a title. Come up with something. Come over tonight and we'll continue working on it… ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go.'” We sat down and we wrote the song. That was cool.

VOICE: Before we discuss your more recent career, we'd like to talk about Linda. We've heard her version of how you met and fell in love. You know…about how you chased her around the piano (Frank interrupts, “Wouldn't you?”) (big laugh). Would you like to share your version of the story?

FRANK: The truth of the matter is that in the very beginning, Linda did something totally and incredibly out of character for who she is… her upbringing, her parents and all of that. She came to Florida to work with somebody she wanted to work with, but whom she had never met. We talked on the phone, and I immediately fell in love with that instrument. I never heard anything like that, but I couldn't leave Florida because I was working on a record. I told her she'd have to come there if she wanted to work with me. It was a gigantic step for Linda to have done that. It was very brave on Linda's part, yet she did come. Because she did, we had the chance to actually work intimately together. You can put two people together in a room and nothing might happen or the chemistry can be there. Good things can happen. Bad things can happen. You never know.

FRANK: When you work with a singer as a composer or a vocal producer as I am, it is a very intimate relationship. You have to open yourself up and be vulnerable both to give from your heart what it is you are trying to express and to be able to have that exchange back and forth. That's why you see so many relationships between people in this business: producers, singers, actors, actresses, directors and stars. It is such an intimate relationship forced by the very nature of the work that you do. From the very, very beginning, there was such a wonderful chemistry about our relationship. How could I not chase her around the piano? She's gorgeous! She sings like an angel. All of the things she was...were because of what she is on the inside. They just make her more beautiful on the outside. Also, I am sure we are incredible challenges to each other, and that's what turned us on. We both like those things.

FRANK: Yes, I always tell her that she should be married to the Marlboro man and living in New Mexico on a 5,000 acre farm because that is who she is. I am a New York City boy. That's who I am. Yet, when the two of us come together, it makes something bigger than both of us. I think what I bring to her and what she brings to me is quite extraordinary. The really great thing is, it's 15 or 16 years later and it's still extraordinary. She's brought so many things into my life that weren't there before, and she always continues to do that. I hope I have brought one or two things into her life. She's a much more well-rounded person than I am. I love the music so much that the music is never work to me. Everything else I do, the sports, the kids, is kind of recreation. It's fun. It's not work; it's love. Linda has a much more balanced array of interests. Hers is a whole different philosophy.

FRANK: Linda auditioned for JEKYLL & HYDE at the Promenade Theatre. It was an incredible day. She didn't have a rehearsal pianist. She had a boom box with a track of “Don't Cry For Me Argentina.” Stuart Howard, who cast FUNNY GIRL, was the casting director at that moment for JEKYLL & HYDE. He wasn't the final casting director. He was working with us, and we were sitting in a darkened theatre. We weren't in a rehearsal hall but in the actual theatre. Linda was down there on stage. Stuart said, “I don't know what to do with this girl. I never heard a voice like this since ‘you know who!'” Linda never looked up when she auditioned. She was so shy. She had this enormous stage presence just because of who she is, but at the same time she was incredibly shy. No one knew what she could do as an actress. It was a very cool day. I remember it well.

VOICE: We are well aware of the path you and Linda took from the time you first met all those years ago. That meeting led to an incredible collaboration in life and in art. You have had an amazing array of collaborators in your career.

FRANK: Nan Knighton and I are such an interesting and fun team. Then again so are Jack Murphy and I, Leslie Bricusse and I, because all of them have Cambridge or Ivy League minds. I am much more of a street kid than all of those guys. Even though Jack is kind of a street kid too, he went to St. John's and was going to be a lawyer. These are very smart people who have taught me so much. I am more instinctual and visceral. They are more intellectual and cerebral, and therefore much more neurotic than I am! It is a great partnership that I have with all of them. Leslie is the one who taught me about life, about working hard and playing hard. He's got it down.

FRANK: I met Leslie in 1989. We were introduced at his home in Beverly Hills by a man named Hillard Elkins, who has produced some of Leslie's shows. We have a wonderful relationship. He is about 30 years older than I am. He's actually a year older than my dad, but on the other hand, he could be 29. He's just been great. But they are all great. I love the chemistry Nan and I have and the kinds of things we do together. I love the chemistry Jack and I have and the things we do together. I try to get the best from everybody, and hopefully they get the best from me and we make something great.

VOICE: The path that led to JEKYLL & HYDE arriving on Broadway, followed by THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL and CIVIL WAR, have been well documented. Being the last composer of the twentieth century to have three shows running simultaneously on Broadway, how do you feel being in such elite company?

FRANK: Great! But if you know me, you know I don't like to make more of that than it is. For me, everything I do is always about the journey and the work to get there, never about the end itself. The end is never what you think it will be. I have written songs that I thought would be hits that nobody will ever hear; I have written songs that I thought nobody will ever hear that are going to be hits. I never try to presuppose what the ending is going to be because by now I have learned that it's never going to be what you think it's going to be anyway. So it's always the journey.

VOICE: What was the great part of having these three shows running simultaneously on Broadway?

FRANK: What was always delightful and wonderful about having three shows was that every night I got to go to three different theatres and see all the hundreds of people that my work affected. My work gave them jobs and enriched their lives and that of their families. The same is true of the subsequent tours and international productions. I love that idea. It's kind of what the musical Wildhorn Family is to me. What I started by myself on a rainy night at four in the morning...the next thing you know there are 16 companies of JEKYLL & HYDE around the world. Thousands and thousands of people...their lives, their livelihoods, their families are connected to me in some way. That's what I love about having three shows. There were more people and more softball teams to play on!

FRANK: A favorite memory? Oy! Let me think. That is a very good question. I would probably think that whatever I say now might not be the same tomorrow if I really thought about it.

FRANK: The JEKYLL & HYDE memory I am sure was the first night in 1990 in Houston. That would be it by far because that was my first professional day as a writer of the theatre. I knew the buzz of making records in a studio. I knew what that was. I loved that buzz. I knew what it was to have my songs played on the radio, film and TV. By that time, I knew what it was like to have a No. 1 song around the world. But nothing prepared me for the first night of JEKYLL. In a way, that was more exciting than the first night of Broadway for me.

FRANK: Again, Broadway was just the end of the journey, and I feel so much of that journey started in Houston. Back in Houston in 1990, we were so young, so naïve, so idealistic. We were a bunch of kids who hadn't grown up in theatre. We didn't know the rules of the game, but we were lucky enough to meet a guy named Gregory Boyd who said, “You know what, screw the rules of the game. Let's do it your way!” He let us do it. My life would have been very different if he didn't let me do those things. My first professional experience, Linda's first professional experience, Jeremy's, Carl's, Kim's. And the reason I stayed in theatre and didn't immediately go back into the studio to do pop music was that experience. It was a wonderful time, a wonderful experience. I look back at it all the time and think of it so fondly, so my favorite memory is opening night in Houston.

FRANK: I think my greatest memory of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL was in rehearsal for JEKYLL & HYDE across the street from Radio City Music Hall. The phone rang and the stage manager called me into the office. It was Pierre Cossette, the producer, on the phone. He said, “I am calling you from Jimmy Nederlander's office. SUNSET BOULEVARD is closing, and I just gave them a check for $700,000. So we now have the rights to the theatre and THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL is opening right after JEKYLL next season.” It was such a surprise and such a buzz that I got off the phone and said to the cast, “I have to share something with you. PIMPERNEL is opening right after you guys.” It came out of the blue. I remember that so distinctly. That is such a wonderful memory.

FRANK: CIVIL WAR. The whole thing was a great memory. In some respects, it is still my favorite piece. CIVIL WAR let me do what I do best on all levels. I really was able to keep my foot in the theatre and in pop at the same time. There wasn't a moment writing for CIVIL WAR that wasn't wonderful. It was the best group of singers I ever surrounded myself with. To be able to have a career writing for Broadway, where included in that career are Julie Andrews and Hootie & the Blowfish, that's what gets me going. That's what I like; it's never one thing. The people I worked with in other shows were great, but CIVIL WAR gave me an opportunity to work with James Garner, Ellen Burstyn, Danny Glover and Dr. Maya Angelou, all on that recording. That was as special to me as anything.

VOICE: Before we discuss CAMILLE CLAUDEL, we'd like to hear about some of your other projects. The original concept for THE ROMANTICS was a series of mini musicals. Four of them have become full-length productions. Are any of the other shows going to be developed further?

FRANK: THE ROMANTICS is an ongoing thing in my life. Because I started THE ROMANTICS, CAMILLE exists, BONNIE & CLYDE exists, SCOTT & ZELDA exists, and to some extent CYRANO & ROXANE exists. I used THE ROMANTICS as my own little development laboratory, which has worked great. These shows are coming from that project. But THE ROMANTICS is a very expensive record project. If you study or know anything about the record business right now, you know it is a very tough time for them. It is a tough enough time to see if the artists who keep the lights on here, Match Box Twenty, Kid Rock and Jewel, are going to do well. So for the record company to make that kind of investment in THE ROMANTICS in these times has been tough. I really haven't pushed them that much because they treat me so well and let me do whatever I want to do, and we have literally been so busy developing the shows you are going to see in the next couple of years.

FRANK: Jack just finished a gorgeous draft of the script, and we are meeting with our potential director on Friday. We are getting there. Like I said, we are committed pretty far out right now.

*As of this writing, Frank and Jack have just come back from their first successful workshop in Florida directed and choreographed by Ann Reinking

FRANK: Yeah! I have an offer to do SVENGALI in a theatre in this country right now. Whether I will do it or not, I don't know. A lot depends on my own physical time, and it's a very busy time right now. We'll see. SVENGALI will have a life because there is a desire for other theatres to give it a life and there are producers who want to do it. I love SVENGALI, but when and how and with whom, I couldn't tell you.

VOICE: Your fans have been looking forward to HAVANA for a long time. Please tell us about the progress you are making with this show.

FRANK: HAVANA actually started before CAMILLE CLAUDEL, but we were struggling with the book. You'll see HAVANA. There is a score that is written for the show. It is hard enough to do a show based on a subject. It's very hard to do that. It's twice as hard to write a show based on nothing. We are making HAVANA from scratch and are still working on it. It's like Paul Mason wine. “We will serve no wine until its time.” The time is not yet. We'll keep working on it, but we have a lot of busy guys who have their own careers doing different things, so sometimes it gets pushed back. It's another vehicle for Linda. Thinking optimistically, CAMILLE will take up her time for the next year or more at least, so HAVANA is still a distance away.

VOICE: How did the idea for writing a musical based on the life of Camille Claudel begin? Who first spoke her name?

FRANK: I did. I am always looking for new things for both Linda and myself to play around with. HAVANA wasn't ready, so I was open to another idea. In the meantime, I saw the movie of Camille Claudel's life. I can't remember why I saw it, but as soon as I saw the movie, I began thinking that Camille would be such a great part for Linda. If I were going to do another show for Linda, I knew it would not be about an aristocrat. Camille was such an earthy girl, and Linda is an earthy girl. I thought about the fact that Camille was an artist and of the earth, and that's very much who Linda is around the house. If you saw Linda yesterday in the mud….that is Linda. That is who she is, and so that appealed to me right away. The fact that Camille was a woman “a la Yentl” who was dealing in a real man's world in an artistic sensibility appealed to me. That Camille left her mark at a time when it was so hard for a woman to leave her mark attracted me. And, of course, Rodin's relationship with Camille had so many parallels to my own relationship with Linda, and that attracted me. And then, tragedy always attracts me. That's real life.

VOICE: Nan told us that she doesn't like the “T” word attached to the story she wrote for CAMILLE CLAUDEL.

FRANK: The focus is not that Camille's life ended in tragedy. All of our lives end in tragedy. It is that we are celebrating her life, and I thought she deserved a musical. Camille deserved a movie, so why not a musical? I think Linda took pretty quickly to all of those aspects of Camille's life that I mentioned and related to all of them.

VOICE: Did Linda's interest in art influence your decision to select the life of Camille Claudel as a vehicle for her return to Broadway?

FRANK: A little. Obviously Linda is an artist, but it was not just the art. Linda makes things; she builds things. That's what she does. Camille made things and built things. The answer is yes.

FRANK: For me, first I get inspired about something, and then I write. I probably write 100 pieces of music and I immediately cross out 80 of them. I always try to see that the 20 that are left are exciting enough for me to say, “Alright, is there a two-hour piece of entertainment in this?” If there is, I go to the next step. I saw that the entertainment was there with the songs I wrote for CAMILLE CLAUDEL, so I went to the next step.

FRANK: I knew that for this piece I needed to write with a woman. I knew it had to be Nan Knighton. Nan and I had such a great time doing PIMPERNEL, and she really related to Camille's story. Nan is married to a very high profile, very powerful lawyer in New York named John Breglio. I am sure she found her own parallels in their lives as Linda and I did in ours, so there were a lot of reasons to move ahead with this project.

VOICE: At what point did you decide to switch vehicles from HAVANA to CAMILLE CLAUDEL?

FRANK: I can't tell you the exact time, but it was obvious to us that Nan and I were on a track that was working. More importantly, the producers saw that and gave us the money to continue working on it. We love what we do and it is an art form, but we are in show business. Without the money and support of the producers, nothing gets done.

FRANK: For CAMILLE, I think I probably have written 30 to 35 songs, which have been narrowed down to 20 or 25. Nothing like JEKYLL. That was a whole crazy thing and took up so many years of my life. CAMILLE has been a relatively short period.

FRANK: I really have no idea. Usually the number of songs is in that range. A lot of what you call songs, I call musical events. It is the kind of style for some of the shows I have written. There are songs like “Someone Like You,” “This Is The Moment,” “Gold,” “Into The Fire,” but there are musical events. CAMILLE is a combination of both.

FRANK: “Woman In His Arms.” It was the first melody I wrote for the show, and it is my favorite.

VOICE: Is there anything else you would like to share with us about CAMILLE CLAUDEL?

FRANK: CAMILLE is in its embryonic stage. If you know anything about the history of any of my shows, you will understand the process. We are going to open the show at the Goodspeed in August. The show you are going to see will have very little to do with what you will see happen the next time you see the show. After that, hopefully it will be on to Broadway! It is the nature of the beast. Whether you are interviewing me, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, or Stephen Sondheim, we will all tell you the same thing. First you do a series of readings and then a series of workshops. If the producers are still with you after that, you get to go out of town and have a chance to do it on stage. Then you have the time between then and Broadway, and that's just the nature of this artistic beast. It goes through changes and changes and changes.

FRANK: The schedule helped to determine it. The last day at the Goodspeed will be on a Sunday, September 7th, and the next day Jake starts school. (Big sigh from THE VOICE ladies who remember the tears they shed when taking their own kids to school for the first time. Get ready, Linda.). If you know Linda, you know that was really, really important to her.

FRANK: Linda is the exception to the rule. Believe me, in my career I have worked with many women, and Linda is the exception. I live in dread every day that I will wake up tomorrow morning and Linda will say, “That's it.” She doesn't need any of it. I know that it's sometimes hard for the fans to realize that she doesn't do it for the adulation and the feedback. That's the feedback, by the way (Frank points to a four foot stack of e-mails). That is Linda's fan mail from the last six months.

FRANK:After we take it all in, I give it to Atlantic so that they can have their researchers go through it. So many of the letters are from people who have had heart attacks, cancer or AIDS or from people whose family members have died. They have all been touched by us. That is the wonderful thing about music in general. You can touch people you don't even know, and Linda appreciates that. But music is only one out of a bunch of interests Linda has, and it's not necessarily No. 1 on her list seven days a week. It's probably No. 1 a couple days a week. Her family, her lifestyle, her horses-all those have an important place. It's hard for some people in this business who are so cynical and jaded to believe that. But that is the truth. Linda is offered 300 to 350 gigs a year. She chooses 40. She could choose 300. I wouldn't stop her. It would change our lifestyle, but I would respect her own artistry. She is able to do that-choose however many gigs she wants to do and turn down the rest.

FRANK: She is very, very different. She's the only artist on Atlantic's label without a manager calling up all day long and asking, “What are you going to do for me this minute?” That's the way this business works. Linda's the complete opposite. They wonder where she is half the time! They can't even get her on the telephone. She doesn't answer the phone anyway!

FRANK: It is called STORYBOOK, and it will be out in September. It is an interesting thing. The album will come out and people are going to ask, “Why is she repeating old material?” In this case though, I want to educate you so you can educate Linda's fans. Another record company has come to us and said, “You have been so successful. We love your work so much. We found some recordings that you did for us that were never released, and we'd like to put them in a new album with some of the best things you did when you were signed with us.”

FRANK: Do you know what an honor that is for a singer who is not a pop artist? This is not even Atlantic Records, but another record company that has come to us. It is run by a man by the name of Bruce Lundvall. I love this man. He is one of the classiest guys in the business. He discovered Nora Jones last year. He found all these masters of recordings we did in the early nineties. He took those masters and put them together with his favorite songs from AND SO MUCH MORE and the first SCARLET PIMPERNEL record to make this new album. The cool thing about this record is that there are five or six songs that have never been released and another four or five will be released with different arrangements than they originally had. They let us play with the material, so for me, it is like having a new toy to play with and I love the album. I love the listening experience.

FRANK: When it comes out, this album will remind you of IT'S TIME and IT'S NO SECRET ANYMORE as a listening experience. I respect the people who are doing this so much. Here is some insight. The president of the company is Ian Ralfini. We had lunch last week (Frank shows us the e-mail he received from him). He writes, “You know how much I love this record. This week I played and played and played it. I want you to let Linda know that this is going to be a pet project for me. I will do everything I can to make this work.” To get that kind of support from the president of a record company that you are not even with and that can't benefit as much as your own record company…this makes me feel very grateful and lucky. Linda and I are honored.

FRANK: This entire album is going to be one of my favorites because of the whole listening experience. You just put it in your car and you are done. It's a great hour! I'm very, very excited about it.

VOICE: Let's go back to your personal life and spend some of our remaining time getting to know the private Frank Wildhorn. We know how much you love sports. What are your favorite sports teams?

FRANK: For football, it's been the Dallas Cowboys since I was six years old. For baseball, I like the Mets because they are always the underdogs in this city.

FRANK: I like the Yankees too, but I am more of a Mets fan. For basketball, it's probably the Lakers since I didn't get into basketball until I went to USC.

FRANK: What is my favorite dish Linda cooks for me? HMMMMMMMMMMM (Frank thinks for a long time and then shouts) CHICKEN! (everyone laughs)

FRANK: That's right. There can be (smiling). Linda's whole family has the tradition of being really good chefs. Her dad, as you know, is a professional chef. Her mom is amazing and Linda is great, too. So is Margaret. They are all great! What a question!!!

FRANK: Jake! He has become our focus. He is the star of our lives and of our family right now. Jake is our whole world, whether it is sports, or books or learning. If you have children, you know that the time goes way too fast and you try to hold onto those memories. (THE VOICE ladies again nod in agreement)

FRANK: Justin will be here in a couple of weeks, so I will have them together for a whole bunch of weeks. That is always the most fun! Jake tries to be Justin when Justin is around.

FRANK: We have tennis courts, so I play tennis. I play ball and also spend time in our gym.

VOICE: Have Justin and Jake inherited any of your athletic ability and your love of sports?

FRANK: Justin is a much better athlete than I ever was. I was a pretty good football player, but Justin was the M.V.P. of his high school football team last year. He's the best pole-vaulter on his high school team and also plays lacrosse. He's fantastic! He's a great athlete! Jake's almost four (he will be when this edition is released). I can't tell you what kind of athlete he's going to be yet, but I can see that he's very coordinated. He has Linda's family's genes, and they're all tall. I can't wait until he gets into sports!

VOICE: Do you think you might be able to take a picture of the three Wildhorn men for THE VOICE while Justin is visiting?

FRANK: Sure, (laughing) if you will just remind Linda! That's the kind of thing you take for granted. My mom lives with a camera attached to her! She has grandchildren and she takes pictures. You have to tell Linda to think about things like taking pictures, sending them, answering the phone!

FRANK: What's not special? They're my children, and that's what's so special. Justin is a “mensche” and that is the most you can say about a guy. I know that Jake is a “mensche” in training (Edertors' Note: “Mensche” is an Old Yiddish word for a person with a very good heart who cares about others and always finds the good in people).

VOICE: What advice would you give to aspiring young musicians and composers who would like to follow in your footsteps?

FRANK: The first thing I do is listen, and I tell them that when I do Master Classes. I tell them to find something they love in every style of music. I think that is very important. Duke Ellington always said, “There are only two styles of music, great and lesser. There is great Mozart and lesser Mozart. There is great Stevie Wonder and lesser Stevie Wonder.” I really go out of my way whether it is Theatre, Classical, Rap, Hard Rock, or whatever it is, to find something I like, that I can latch onto and that I can learn from. What I hate the most is when people are closed to certain things because they fear them or don't understand them. The first thing I tell young people is to stop trying to be one certain thing. Really listen to everything others have to offer. When it comes to talent, you either have it or you don't. No one can give you that. It's inherent. You can't take no for an answer; you just have to keep going.

FRANK: I go to a college like the University of Miami or USC or to another place where young people are gathered. I speak and the kids ask me questions, usually very informally. We go back and forth and the kids play or sing for me. Then I give them my opinion for whatever it's worth. It's fun to do and keeps me connected to the younger generation, which is very important to me. I learn as much from them as they learn from me, I am sure.

VOICE: Do you think you'd ever take your show on the road? The fans loved “An Intimate Evening with Frank Wildhorn and Friends” at Upstairs @ Studio 54 and your performance of songs from SCOTT & ZELDA at The Duplex in New York City.

FRANK: It will happen, but I don't feel a rush to do it right now. I am pretty busy. I think CAMILLE is well on its way. In the spring of next year, you will hear an announcement about DRACULA. It will soon be on its way with a lot of new pieces attached to it. That's all I can say about it right now. It is taking up a great deal of my time, and it is very real and very alive and it's going to happen. Then I have some surprises in Europe at the end of next year, etc., etc. I can't really announce my whole life right now because there are producers who want to have their shows announced the right way. But put it this way-the next two to two and a half years are already booked with shows that are happening. Right now I don't need to do my own thing. But yeah, we'll do it one day.

FRANK: Yeah! I wrote and wrote and wrote. Then all of a sudden, everything happened so fast. I didn't plan on JEKYLL, PIMPERNEL and CIVIL WAR happening so fast. The thing is that it's not just those three shows on Broadway. It's the shows around the country, the international shows, the recordings, the publishing and keeping track of all those businesses around the world. There is Japan. There is Germany. There's taking care of Linda's career at the same time and producing and writing for her. It's a lot of fun!

VOICE: Most people find it difficult to juggle two or three projects at one time. You can juggle 23. How do you do it?

FRANK: It's just how I manage my time. What I do in a way isn't fair. It's a lot easier than it is for Nan. For me, writing music, once I lock in, is a visceral exercise, not an intellectual exercise. For me, it's like fishing. The fish are already there. I wake up in the morning and I go fishing. Some days I catch some; some days I don't. That's the attitude and philosophy I have when I write. I can write a score pretty quickly. What Nan does, what Jack does, what Leslie does is a lot more time consuming and is much harder. Once I like a piece of music, that's what we're going to go with. Writers have to rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite. They might have to get producers notes and see what they say and then rewrite again. What Nan, Jack and Leslie do is extraordinary because of that. I'm great with my time. I really am. It's the style and attitude I have when I write.

FRANK: I'm not a workaholic. I'm really not. I have plenty of time for my kids, my tennis and a lot of other fun activities. I know that may be really hard to believe, but it's the truth. When I sit down at the piano to write a score, it's not work to me. I am just glad I have the opportunity to do this. When I wake up in the morning, I always feel that I'm the luckiest guy out there, and I try to live my life accordingly.

FRANK: My whole career has been a challenge. It has been like getting up in the morning and saying, “I'm going to be a baseball player and play in Yankee Stadium.” When I came out of USC and had my first publishing deal and was writing for different artists, the publisher asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that I was going to write songs and be successful enough to write for Broadway. He said, “Well, that's like a kid saying that he wants to play baseball and be in the starting line-up for the New York Yankees.” It's all a challenge and it's a very hard thing. Each time you feel like you're climbing Mt. Everest, which is exactly why I do what I do. If I didn't have that challenge, I would do something else. That's what keeps me going. That's what makes it fun for me.

FRANK: It's all been rewarding. It's great to wake up in the morning and do what I love to do. I wrote music as a teenager for free because that's what I loved to do, and now they pay me more money than I ever thought I would see in my life to do it. I write music with the same love and the same passion as when I was a teenager and for me, it's about keeping that. It's always been about trying to do great work, growing as an artist and challenging myself.

FRANK: I will tell you what I can't share with you. All of my shows that are coming up are eight to ten million dollar investments. The producers who control the shows also want to control how information about the shows gets out. As it is, I go on the Web site and I see people talking about the shows, and that's a good thing. But you have to let the producers control their own investments. They are investing in my work. You have to remember something. I have a great relationship with Atlantic Records and a great relationship with Clear Channel. At the end of the day, the most any artist can ask is for their voice to be heard. It is the producers' money that makes it possible for Linda's voice and my voice be heard. I always try to be very good to them and they have been very good to me. It has been such a nice run.

VOICE: We know your fans are glad that you have been given so many opportunities to share your talent with the world. Thank you on behalf of the fans for taking the time to talk with us. We wish you continued success and an extraordinary run with CAMILLE CLAUDEL.