Fran Landesman

Fran Landesman, an American lyricist, and poet. Fran was born Frances Deitsch in New York City on October 21, 1927, she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband Jay Landesman, operated the Crystal Palace nightclub. After listening to musicians play at the Crystal Palace, Fran became inspired to write song lyrics. One of her most well-known pieces is "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most", where she explores the meaning of T. S. Eliot's "April is the cruelest month...", its music was composed by The Palace's pianist Tommy Wolf. The song has been performed by Bette Midler, Sarah Vaughn, and many others.

Wolf and Landesman continued their work together on The Nervous Set, a musical with music by Wolf and lyrics by Fran and Jay Landesman, featuring the songs, "Spring" and "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men”, it was wildly successful in St. Louis and had a brief stint on Broadway. Landesman described “The Ballad of the Sad Young Men” a reputable jazz standard that has been recorded by Roberta Flack, Petula Clark, Rickie Lee Jones, and, Keith Jarrett, as “drifting through the town, drinking up the night, trying not to drown”.

In 1960, Fran began writing with singer/pianist/composer Bob Dorough, their piece "Nothing Like You" was recorded by Miles Davis and included on his album Sorcerer (1967). Their "Small Day Tomorrow" has been recorded by many singers, and was the title of Dorough's 2007 album. In 1964 the Landesmans moved to London where Fran wrote lyrics for a number of well-known musicians such as Georgie Fame, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Dudley Moore. She continued to write with USA composers, most notably Bob Dorough, Roy Kral, John Simon, and Tommy Wolf. She also wrote the lyrics for Joyce Adcock's musical, Dearest Dracula, produced in 1965 at the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Landesman began writing and publishing poetry as well as performing pieces at festivals and on BBC Radio in the 1970s. She also collaborated with British composer Simon Wallace from 1994 until her death in 2011, writing around 300 songs together. From 1999 Landesman worked with the jazz singer Sarah Moule, she and Wallace wrote the pieces for Moule’s 2002 release It’s A Nice Thought, as well as her three subsequent releases. For the last ten years of her life, Fran performed frequently in London, reciting her poetry, singing her songs, and occasionally talking about her life and work. Her last USA appearances were at New York’s Joe’s Pub in 2003 and St. Louis’ Gaslight Theatre in 2008. Fran Landesman died in her London home on July 23 at age 83, leaving the epitaph, “It was a good life, but it wasn’t commercial.”