From the ramparts of his ivory tower, the playwright peers out freifully at the army of actors come to storm his creative citadel, come to enslave his cherished words. Depending on who the actors are, he wants either to shower them with pitch and boiling oil or to rush down and hurl the gates open.
The gates of my keep will always be open to George Maharis.
I saw George first some four years ago when he strode through the pages of a "Naked City" script I´d written. Richard the Lionhearted could not have entered the Holy Land with more dedication. Here was a young man, powerful yet compassionate, overflowing with the joy of life—someone facing forward, given to the absolute conquest of every heartbeat.
Three years and 2,500 script pages later along "Route 66," I´m still pitching laurel leaves, not boiling oil at George. I´m still awestruck by his sure-hearted insight and his intuitive grasp of the most elusive meanings. George feels. Maybe you call it digging. Digging—feeling—it´s the same cat, and may it have not just nine lives, but nine thousand! Amen.
If George is a superb and expanding actor, he is an even more superb and expanding lyricist, a vocalist who has astonished much of his vast public with the ardent and supple beauty of his singing voice. You´d think his fans had found an eight-leaf clover or something. Or two pots of gold at the end of a single rainbow.
But along with others who are his close friends, I am in no way surprised by George´s melodic talent. Music is the instrument of the imagination, the power by which we apprehand living beings in their individuality, as they live and move, as they exist—not as ideas or categories, but as beings. It would be inconceivable to me that anyone with George´s passion for life should be unable to sing. George simply has to sing—sing with insight, eloquence, intimacy, originality and soulfulness as he does in this album so rewardingly, singing out of love for life, singing out his courage to be happy despite the grittiness of the times, singing out of the direct and sensuous experience of existence, giving form and meaning to his view of life.
I wrote a script called "Play It Glissando." In one of the scenes a wife is speaking of her husband, one of the great trumpets. Curious how the words she speaks are applicable to George and to this album of love songs, perfect for this occasion. "I´d sit at his feet," she says, "and feel myself lifted right off the floor, just listening to the music he can make. And I´d think to myself, ´Jana, you´ve caught a bird from outer space ... a spirit in a man´s body . . . something from a place the mind can´t even reach´. . . and the more I listened . . . the more I came to know him . . . the more I knew—he´s searching to get back ... from wherever it is he came from . .. and that´s the way he plays ... as if he knows that the perfect combination of new sounds, the perfect tempo—put together just right —will take him away in a sudden flash of light... or like he says. .. ´When I get it going right, I start to move up, Jana, like riding moonbeams... I start to disappear.´"...

LOVE COULD CHANGE MY MIND - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser
WHERE ARE YOU? - Arranged and Conducted by Robert Mersey
IF LOVE WERE ALL - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser
HERE´S THAT RAINY DAY - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser
FOOLS RUSH IN (Where Angels Fear to Tread) - Arranged and Conducted by Robert Mersey
I CAN´T STOP LOVING YOU - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser
TALK TO ME - Arranged and Conducted by Robert Mersey
THE MORE I SEE YOU - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser
LOLLIPOPS AND ROSES - Arranged and Conducted by Robert Mersey
LOVE ME AS I LOVE YOU - Arranged and Conducted by Robert Mersey
WHAT A DIFF´RENCE A DAY MADE - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser
THEY KNEW ABOUT YOU - Arranged and Conducted by Glenn Osser

Another George Maharis album you will enjoy: George Maharis Sings! .... LN 24001/BN 26001^* - ^* Stereo

Produced by Robert Morgan
Cover Photo by Bob Cato
EPIC - Outstanding High Fidelity Through Radial Sound * A Product of CBS
® "EPIC", MARCA REG. "CBS" T.M. PRINTED IN U.S.A.