Deana Luchia finds the musical memories flooding back in conversation with Sir Tim Rice...
In the week before my interview with the renowned lyricist Sir Tim Rice, I sing songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on repeat to anyone who’ll listen. I learnt these brilliantly catchy songs for a primary school concert and decades later still remember every line.
As Tim greets me on Zoom, the former Barnes resident is so immediately smiley and cheerful that I feel almost compelled to sing an upbeat Joseph number at him. Fortunately for both of us, I rein myself in and ask him questions about his upcoming tour instead. Tim Rice – My Life in Musicals: I Know Him So Well will be in theatres across the UK in April and May, including G Live in Guildford and The London Palladium.
The live musical extravaganza first took Tim out on the road in 2024. It was, he says, such an “unexpected big hit” that he and his producers decided to do it again. As well as film and musical hits performed by The Duncan Waugh Band and leading West End singers, the show sees Tim share anecdotes about his life and work.
“No two shows are the same because I never know what I am going to say to introduce the songs,” he explains.
Despite a back catalogue to die for – The Lion King, Evita, Chess, Joseph, Jesus Christ Superstar and Aladdin – that encompasses six decades of songwriting, Tim stumbled upon his career path by chance. He’d had, he says, “a total lack of success” as a pop singer with his band The Aardvarks and had no intention of writing musicals until he was introduced, aged 20, to budding composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
“I was more into pop and rock and roll, while Andrew wrote for theatre, and we sort of merged with things like Joseph and Superstar. It worked rather well.”
So well, in fact, that Tim and Lloyd Webber still enjoy working together. Their latest project sees them join forces on a handful of songs for Sherlock Holmes and The Twelve Days of Christmas, a comedic spoof written by Humphrey Ker and Dave Reed.
Over the years, Tim has also collaborated with, amongst others, Sir Elton John (on Aida and The Lion King), ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (on Chess) and Alan Menken (on Aladdin). Diplomacy, however, precludes him from singling out a favourite.
“I’ve been lucky with them all,” he smiles.
Which comes first, the music or the lyrics, in the creation of a brand new piece?
“The story comes first,” Tim insists. ‘The story is king. And you’ve got to make sure you tell it fairly directly and don’t go off on too many tangents. Then, most composers like to do the music first – for musicals anyway. Elton John is the great exception.
“On The Lion King I wrote in conjunction with the producers, in the sense that they were the ones who really created the story. My job was to tell a certain scene or relationship within one song. With Circle of Life they wanted a big anthem for the beginning of the film and so I wrote the words on that basis.
“Elton was in London, slightly unusually, as he was touring the world all the time. He said: ‘I’m coming to the studio on Thursday. I can record the demo then.’ I told him I’d have the lyrics for him by Tuesday and he said: ‘Don’t worry about that, just bring them along on Thursday.’
“When I got to the studio he was there already, playing keyboards. I gave him the words and he went through them time and time again, and I could feel a tune emerging. It was wonderful to hear him literally create, in my view, one of his greatest ever tunes; actually to hear him and see him write it. He did it in about an hour and a half, if that.”
My Life in Musicals usually ends with another Elton John collaboration, Hakuna Matata, also from The Lion King. It’s a very simple tune, says Tim, but one which works really well.
“It has become one of the most popular songs I’ve done,” he reflects.
But whilst The Lion King is the highest-grossing musical ever, it was A Whole New World – written with Alan Menken and taken from Aladdin – that gave Tim his most successful hit single.
“That’s my biggest song in terms of airplay and sales. It was number one in America, which fulfilled a sort of ambition of mine. We grabbed the spot for just one week [in 1993], knocking Whitney Houston off the top.”
Has he ever written something that he believes should be better known?
“I did a show I’m very fond of called Blondel with a classical composer who’s sadly dead now, Stephen Oliver,” he recalls. “I’d quite like to see that resurface. It’s got some funny songs and nice tunes. The original show was quite good and ran for a year, but I think it should be done more often.”
One musical that is frequently revived is Chess. A hit in the UK – Radio 2 listeners placed it seventh in a poll of the UK’s ‘Number One Essential Musicals’ – it failed to hit the high notes on Broadway, closing after just a few weeks in 1988. Now it has another shot: it returns to New York in November.
“I’ll be working with Benny and Björn again and we’ll probably adjust one or two things, but I hope not too much, as I know the songs work very well. So hopefully this time around it might click.”
A Broadway flop it may have been, but Chess did yield a Grammy for the cast show album – one of Tim’s five Grammy awards. He’s also won three Oscars (for original song) and is one of just 27 people to have achieved the EGOT: a full set of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. It’s a remarkable feat.
‘There’s usually one area in which someone is unlikely to win, and for Andrew and me it was the Emmy [TV award] because we’re not really TV people. But we won in 2018 for our work as executive producers of Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, with John Legend [as Jesus] and Sara Bareilles [as Mary Magdalene].
“I did think it was a bit dodgy getting an Emmy for not doing a lot, but there again, we should have received, in my humble opinion, an award for Jesus Christ Superstar at the time [it was on Broadway from 1971-73]. But we never got a Tony or even a nomination. So it’s ironic that Superstar was the one that got us the final leg of the EGOT.”
Towards the end of our chat, I can’t resist thanking Tim for writing Joseph: performing those songs is one of my happiest memories of school. I’m so emotional, I can barely get the words out and then I well up. I hope he doesn’t notice. And if he does, well, at least I haven’t sung to him.
Tim Rice – My Life In Musicals: I Know Him So Well is at
G Live, Guildford on April 14 and The London Palladium on April 29. Tickets: sirtimricelive.com
