Pop Stars Teach World to Sing Cole Porter

05/21/2004 5:29 PM, Reuters
Paul Majendie

A trio of the world's top pop stars are on a mission in Cannes -- teaching the younger generation to fall in love with the songs of Cole Porter.

Sheryl Crow , Alanis Morissette and Natalie Cole have decided it is high time to sing the praises of the Jazz Age maestro.

All three perform in "De-Lovely," a new Cole Porter biopic starring Kevin Kline as one of the most influential popular music composers of the 20th century.

Add cameo appearances by British singing stars Robbie Williams , Elvis Costello and Mick Hucknall and they should have enough talent to pull a younger crowd into the movie.

The songs by top stars are interweaved into the movie with Sheryl Crow delivering a memorable version of "Begin the Beguine."

"Originally it was a very campy up-tempo song," she told Reuters at the Cannes film festival after the movie's screening.

But her version is used as a backdrop to the moment when Porter's wife Linda loses her baby.

"So it is done in a smoky way that I am really into and which is right up my alley," she said.

Crow, brought up on a childhood diet of Judy Garland and Billie Holiday , said: "Having been so exposed to that as a kid, I felt so ripped off that I hadn't been born into that era."

Alanis Morissette was full of admiration for the filmmakers who are so eager to package the movie for an all-round audience.

"Yeah, it is a very sneaky way to attract people in who have never heard of Cole Porter. The lyrics were charming, beautiful and subversive at the same time," she told Reuters.

Morissette, who sings "Lets' Do It, Let's Fall In Love" in the film, said: "He is very transparent. He lays it all bare in his music in a way I'm not sure he did in his own personal secrecy."

The film portrays how Porter also had another alternate life as a promiscuous homosexual.

Natalie Cole, who sings "Every Time We Say Goodbye" in the movie, told Reuters: "He has fun with the lyrics. He likes to play with the words so that they trip off the tongue. It is de-licious."

"One of the biggest challenges for this movie is to get young people to come see it. They don't know anything about Cole Porter.

"The clever thing for them to do was to bring in Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow for the pop culture," Cole said.

And the flawed genius with the dark secrets fascinated her.

"He had conflicts of his own but he was brilliant, a very upbeat, optimistic person." she said of the composer whose Broadway and Hollywood scores should now find a whole new audience.