In YCTTGOB, SUSAN COLLINS tells her remarkable true life musical story of how she emerged from singing a cappella on the street corner of her Brooklyn housing project in the 1960s to an insider's career as a singer songwriter, working with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Todd Rundgren, Brian Wilson, Kiss, John Lennon, and more. Featuring three stellar background singers and piano accompaniment, the audience gets an up close and personal view of pop culture history through SUSAN's alternately humorous and touching experiences: in a landmark Greenwich Village coffeehouse, flying in and out of Woodstock, singing comedy with NBC's Not Ready for Prime Time Players, arena rock shenanigans on the road with the Electric Light Orchestra, minting gold records as a session singer, show biz heartache at the hands of a vengeful record company executive, and ultimately, happiness in a fulfilling personal life as a wife and mother, still singing at the top of her game. SUSAN wrote the show's title music with legendary songwriter/producer Ellie Greenwich.
"Susan COLLINS is my favorite singer . . . period!"
-- Paul Shaffer, Late Show with David Letterman
"COLLINS is terrific. [She] can hold her own with Ronnie Spector any day of the week."
-- Roger Friedman, FOXNews.com
In 2006, "singer's singer" SUSAN COLLINS, who had largely disappeared from the music business for more than a decade, performed Tina Turner's hit song "River Deep Mountain High", backed by her old friend Paul Shaffer's CBS Orchestra, for a private party at NYC's insider music biz hang, The Cutting Room. All in attendance - including Sex and the City's Mr. Big, Chris Noth - agreed that she stole the show. Noth immediately invited COLLINS to book a date at the Cutting Room, where he is a partner, "any time you want." Around the same time, COLLINS's friend, Wendy Federman, producer of HAIR, MARY STUART, SPRING AWAKENING, PASSING STRANGE, and other Broadway shows, convinced COLLINS to start fashioning a cabaret-style revue wherein she would sing and tell the stories from her amazing musical past. Two years later, COLLINS's colorful tales with which she had long regaled friends at dinner parties and impromptu private concerts have resulted in a developing show where COLLINS tells about herself and her musical cohorts, singing new and chestnut originals, as well as classic songs that COLLINS revives with her unique street-inflected pop voice.
The show's musical theme, written by COLLINS with her friend, legendary songwriter-producer Ellie Greenwich ("Be My Baby", "Chapel of Love", "Leader of the Pack", "Doo Wah Diddy") whose songwriting legacy figures centrally in the show, begins to incorporate her personal and musical history, taking the audience on a revealing alternately touching and humorous trip through a musical life. Greenwich is "thrilled to have worked with Susan in writing the show's theme song" and plans to return to hear COLLINS sing at future shows.
Blessed with a remarkable voice, COLLINS sang her way out of East Flatbush Brooklyn's Glenwood Housing Project to a career as a hit singer and songwriter. Repeatedly thwarted from breakout fame of her own by a music business titan who wanted her body and soul, COLLINS spent years making significant vocal contributions to a remarkable series of noteworthy rock and pop culture musical moments, many of which are revisited in YOU CAN TAKE THE GIRL OUTTA BROOKLYN.
COLLINS shares stories from her life including singing mega hits from Greenwich; a tribute to her fan, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys; a rendition of Dusty Springfield's “You Don't Have to Say You Love Me” and "I ONLY WANNA BE WITH YOU"; and her own ASCAP Award-winning song "Sweet Life" (co-written and sung by the late Paul Davis); interspersed with tales of sessions, songs, and concerts with Jimi Hendrix (at the Café Wha?, as a member of Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, her first professional gig at age 15), Richie Havens (with whom she helicoptered into Woodstock), the Electric Light Orchestra (aka "ELO" with whom she recorded "Evil Woman" and "Strange Magic" and toured all over the US, an era which birthed COLLINS's memorable gaffe “Hello Cleveland!” delivered to a sold out house at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, a real-life blooper made famous by her friends Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest in the Rob Reiner film THIS IS SPINAL TAP), Todd Rundgren (with whom she recorded his biggest hit, "Hello It's Me"), KISS (to whom she contributed the hitter chick street voice in the chorus of Ace Frehley's "New York Groove"), and the New Riders of the Purple Sage (whose leader, David Nelson, says of COLLINS: “I love the way she sings. I've had a crush on her since the day I met her. I'll have a crush on her till the day I die!”), and more. COLLINS touches on many aspects of her experiences in the business, including her fateful decision in 1974 not to record in duet with an aspiring singer songwriter from Asbury Park, NJ . . . .
COLLINS's first day job was working for “The Golden Ears,” publisher-producer-TV host Don Kirshner, whose Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony she attended in 2007. She went on to contribute to the artistic success of numerous gold records. "It's amazing how you never know which session will be the one that lives forever," COLLINS said regarding the fact that her performance on ELO's "Evil Woman" has been re-mixed with her vocal featured prominently in Rockstar Games's GRAND THEFT AUTO IV, the biggest-selling videogame of all time. "Thirty years later and our sound is still at the top of the market!" That same recording is also used memorably on the soundtrack to Mike Myers's film AUSTIN POWERS GOLDMEMBER for the conjugal visit of Dr. Evil and Frau Farbissineh.
Joining COLLINS in YOU CAN TAKE THE GIRL OUTTA BROOKLYN, is an impressive group of performing artists including pianist/musical director/background singer ED ALSTROM (veteran of HAIRSPRAY on Broadway, musical director for John Lloyd Young's cabaret show, and weekend organist at YANKEE STADIUM); and singers ULA HEDWIG (long-time Bette Midler Harlette, cast member of the original Broadway production of HAIR, and background singer to top stars including Tom Jones, Randy Newman, Barry White, Al Green, Aaron Neville, Robert Palmer, et. al.), and ANGELA CAPPELLI (whose singing credits include Mick Jagger, Justin Timberlake, Faith Hill, Tony Bennett, Snoop Dog, Carole King, Marvin Hamlisch, the Righteous Brothers, Foreigner, Dionne Warwick, Michael Bolton, Jewel, and Sting).
Among many other artists COLLINS worked with are Leon Russell and Joe Cocker in Mad Dogs and Englishmen (“The Letter”) 1970, Luther Vandross 1976-7, Cissy Houston 1977, John Lennon 1977, Odyssey (“Native New Yorker”) 1977, and Kiki Dee (“Stay With Me”) 1979.
A veteran of National Lampoon's Radio Hour (“Kung Fu Christmas” 1972), COLLINS was vocal coordinator on the first seasons of Saturday Night Live (NBC) 1976-1980, singing, co-composing, and/or arranging, among other material, Martin Mull's EMMY Award-winning “Letter to Patty” (Hearst) and “Jewess Jeans” (lip-synched by her late friend Gilda Radner, now part of the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum, NYC) with the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, and Larraine Newman. COLLINS has performed multiple times on Late Night (NBC) and Late Show (CBS) with David Letterman, backing artists from Neil Diamond to Jackie Chan. COLLINS's Screen Actors Guild credits include on-camera work at New York's fabled Bottom Line in the film BOARDWALK with Lee Strasberg and Ruth Gordon 1979, original songs for WARRIORS with George C. Scott 1979, AM radio hit singer (songs by Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger) in THAT THING YOU DO (produced by Jonathan Demme, directed by and starring Tom Hanks) 1996. Her voice has been heard for years in advertising jingles, from Capri Sun, Folger's, Toyota, Cheerios, and Fruit of the Loom (1970s and 80s) to Shower to Shower and Chips Ahoy! (1990s) to HBO's Sex and the City and the New York Yankees (2000s).
Susan COLLINS is married to music producer-comedy writer-voice over artist Andy Caploe ("man panelist" on the GUYS TELL ALL segment on NBC's TODAY Show) and the mother of emerging talent Tucker (facebook.com/pages/Tucker-Caploe/31841583910).
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