Now I Know

Several years back, I wrote here about a wonderful, though lesser-known musical called Snoopy!!!, which was a sort-of sequel to You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.  It was written by a different team of songwriters, Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady, and began life in a 1975 production in San Francisco, which is where the original cast recording is from.

The show has a terrific, charming and often very funny score and even had a big, popular song to come from it -- which had a very difficult mandate: as the final song in the show, it had to equal the beloved closing song from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which was "Happiness".  And impressively, they did just that with a great song, "Just One Person."  Oddly, because it was one of Jim Henson's favorite songs, The Muppets performed it a great deal, and it's now largely believed by people to be a Muppets song -- indeed, the Muppet performers movingly sang it at Henson's memorial, which I posted here -- but it's not, it's from Snoopy!!!  (The article linked in the first paragraph above embeds the song from the cast album.)

I mention all this for a bizarre reason.

Yesterday, I was being shown around to an open house by my wonderful realtor and all-around lovely person, Carla Winnie.  For some reason afterwards (oh, I remember, we had been discussing the new Reprise! series in Los Angeles that just opened a new show we'd both seen), we began talking about musicals.  And after a while, Carla mentioned that she didn't know I liked musicals so much -- clearly she doesn't read this site... -- and then noted she did, as well, and had even been a performer earlier in her life, and done some stage shows.  I had no idea.  And all the better, it turns out that one of those shows was...Snoopy!!! -- in that original San Francisco production, 43 years ago!  She was performing under her maiden name then, Carla Manning.  And not just was she in the show, but you can hear her on on the cast album where she sang the role of 'Lucy'!

Several years ago, when I transferred most of my LPs to CDs, I made covers for the CDs and tried to duplicate the LP cover art as much as possible.  So I checked through my files, and – 

She sang in the group numbers, of course, and though there is no solo number for 'Lucy' in the show, she does sing in a trio for a very funny song, "I Know Now."  And here that is -- she's the first voice, singing the line, "I know know, you can’t trust a daisy. / They blab every chance they get!"

The other two performers are Roxann Pyle as 'Sally' and Pamela Myers (who went on to have a Broadway career) who comes in third as 'Peppermint Patty.'  I was able to pick out Carla throughout the song, too, since she has the most "straightforward" voice -- 'Sally' coming across as a little girl, and Pamela Myers having a distinctive, high-pitch.

​I have no doubt that Carla was a wonderful performer.  In fact, she toured in quite a few shows.  And one additional thing for certain is that today she's also quite a wonderful realtor...

That's one thing that...well, I know now.