Composer best known for Hair
Montreal-born musician had hits on Broadway, samples for hip-hop artists
Galt Macdermot, who composed the hit Broadway musicals Hair and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and whose music latter became sampling fodder for hip-hop artists, died Dec. 17, a day before his 90th birthday. His death was confirmed to Playbill magazine by his granddaughter and reported in Rolling Stone magazine and elsewhere. A cause of death was not given.
Macdermot was born Dec. 18, 1928 in Montreal and received his bachelor’s degree in music from South Africa’s Cape Town University.
After composing and recording in the early 1960s, including the Grammy-winning African Waltz for saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Macdermot moved to New York. Working with lyricists Gerome Ragni and James Rado, he composed the music for Hair, which opened off-broadway in 1967 and moved to a main Broadway stage in 1968.
Scandalous in conservative circles for its occasional nudity, Hair gained popularity with the younger generation as a tuneful, peace-loving message against the Vietnam War. In 1969, a medley by The Fifth Dimension of the Hair songs Let the Sunshine in and Age of Aquarius became an anthem for the hippie generation.
Hair earned two Tony nominations and won the Grammy for best score from an original cast show album. It has been revived several times and won both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for its 2009 Broadway revival. A 1979 film version by Milos Forman starring John Savage, Treat Williams and Beverly D’angelo features choreography by modern dance legend Twyla Tharp.
In 1971, Macdermot scored another hit with the rock musical The Two Gentlemen of Verona, based on the Shakespeare comedy of the same name with lyrics by John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation). It won two Tonys in 1972, beating out Grease and Follies as best musical.macdermot was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009 and received the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada’s (SO CAN) lifetime achievement award in 2010.
“Macdermot’s music, both from his stage productions and non-broadway albums, had an immense impact on hip hop,” Rolling Stone magazine reports.
“Samples of Space, from his Woman Is Sweeter soundtrack, have appeared in tracks by Snoop Dogg, Faith Evans and Busta Rhymes (Woo-hah!! Got You All in Check); his solo recording Coffee Cold features in recordings by Gang Starr and Handsome Boy Modeling School; and Golden Apples — Part II was used in music by J Dilla and Obie Trice. Additionally, Madlib, MF Doom, RUN-DMC and Public Enemy, among many others, have all sampled his music in their recordings.”