By Garth Bishop
The Breakfast Club? Try “The Very Thought of You.”
Some people might hear Molly Ringwald’s name and think only of the “Brat Pack” actress known for her roles in a string of 1980s coming-of-age comedies. But while Ringwald is still acting, it’s her passion for jazz music that’s turning heads nowadays.
Ringwald will perform with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra Feb. 6-9 at the Southern Theatre. The show, titled Don’t You Forget About Me: Molly Ringwald Sings the Great American Songbook, is part of the Swingin’ with the CJO series.
Though it was the silver screen that made her a household name – most significantly 1980s teen comedies Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, as well as 1994 TV miniseries The Stand – Ringwald’s interest in music predates her interest in acting. Her father, Bob Ringwald, was a blind jazz pianist, and she began singing with his band when she was young.
“I had always intended to put a jazz group together … after having performed with my dad’s group for so long,” she says. “It just kind of took me longer than expected.”
Ringwald released Except Sometimes, her first full-length album, in April. The album consists mainly of jazz and musical standards, but finishes out with a jazzed-up version of “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the Simple Minds song that served as the theme for The Breakfast Club.
She was inspired to incorporate the song as a tribute to screenwriter, director and producer John Hughes, who died in 2009. Hughes wrote Ringwald’s three best-known roles as well as such well-known 1980s films as National Lampoon’s Vacation, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Weird Science.
Other songs on Ringwald’s album include “Where is Love?” from the musical Oliver!; “The Ballad of the Sad Young Men” from The Nervous Set; and “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes),” originally composed by Hoagy Carmichael.
Melody is one of the factors that will attract Ringwald to a particular song, but lyrics are the key, she says.
“A certain turn of a phrase, a certain emotion – I think that’s what I connect with more than anything,” says Ringwald.
Many of her live performances have been with small groups, but lately, she’s been finding an appeal in bigger bands such as the CJO. They create a completely different sound, she says, and a well-polished big band can create some incredible music.
It would be tough to describe in advance her local show, she says; though the set list doesn’t change much, no two shows are ever the same.
“It’s one of the things that I love the most about jazz,” she says. “It’s improvisational, and it’s always different.”
The average show is about half material from Except Sometimes and half new songs she has been working on. Thus far, her musical repertoire has focused on covers, but she hasn’t ruled out the possibility of writing some of her own songs down the road.
Orchestra Artistic Director Byron Stripling was drawn to Ringwald’s work by its authenticity; as someone who grew up in the jazz world, she has a thorough understanding of it, and that translates well into her music, Stripling says. Having a base in jazz is important to getting
songs from the Great American Songbook to sound like they’re supposed to sound, he says.
“This is (from) when songwriters spoke poetry through those lyrics,” says Stripling.
Music isn’t Ringwald’s entire life these days. She’s also taken up writing, publishing two books: Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick, a combination memoir and guide for women, and When it Happens to You: A Novel in Stories, a collection of short stories. She’s also written a handful of articles and book reviews.
She hasn’t given up on acting, either, most recently playing the mother of the main character in ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager. The show wrapped up a five-season run in June.
And, of course, she also has to balance those three passions with her personal life. She and her husband, Panio Gianopoulos, have three young children: a 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.
Ringwald doesn’t know for sure what her next move will be, but with acting, writing and singing all under her belt, the only other thing she might like to do, she says, is direct – “and maybe learn Italian.”
Garth Bishop is editor of CityScene Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
