An interview with JT Buck, one of the writers of “The Gospel According to Tammy Faye”

So, how did you come up with the idea of doing a musical based on Tammy Faye Bakker?

While sitting in a bar. After closing night of a show I'd helped produce in Houston, Texas, someone asked me what I was going to do next.  I looked up at the TV, and Tammy Faye was being interviewed by Larry King.  I responded, "I'm gonna do a musical about Tammy Faye Bakker." 

How did you form your ideas for the music in this work, and how do those pieces of music fit into who she is?

Tammy Faye is popularly identified with the 1980s.  Her roots, however, are in the gospel and folk traditions of American farm country.  As a child of the Carter-Reagan years, and raised on old-time country gospel by parents from Tennessee, the continuum of music that tells her story is really in my DNA.  So in the broad strokes, those are my influences.  In the interview we did with her, she and I discovered a shared fanship of many of the same types of music.  Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, plus a lot of the homespun folk music your mother teaches you while she's cooking in the kitchen.   

As for tailoring these colors to her particular character?  Tammy is very bright and energetic.  She thinks and speaks very quickly.  She also has a very musical Minnesota accent, upon which I drew when finding rhythms and melodies for her to sing.  Emotionally, she's unique.  She can burst into laughter or tears on a dime.  There's always a hint of the opposite feeling in her voice. 

This is a lot of verbiage to say that, while writing, I just sort of let her sing to me in my head, and tried to translate what I heard into the aforementioned musical languages. 

              JT Buck

Which song do you feel closest to and why?

The glib answer is 'All of them!’  But at the moment, "Somebody Up There Likes Me," which closes the show, is the one song I wouldn't know how to replace if I tried.  Not to spoil anything, but to me the best theatre is always an opportunity to stop and savor the sheer flavor of being alive.  It's such an esoteric concept, but that's great theatre to me, and this song manages to grab that kind of moment in fairly simple terms, and I have no shame in saying that it's a great number because of it.  And really, that's what this whole show tries to do.  I'm not interested in trying to mock, praise or evaluate Tammy, but rather to wonder for a couple of hours that such a thing as a Tammy Faye can even exist. 

That’s a great way of putting it, “that such a thing as a Tammy Faye can even exist.” Hmmm. OK, so, which one was the hardest to write?

The opening number and the courtship duet between Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye vie for that award.  Openings are always hard because they set the tone for the show, and the tone of this show took some time to become clear.  I've probably drafted it 30 different ways to get it into its current form.  Likewise with the duet, unless you're Cole Porter, a good love song is nearly impossible to find.  But we've finally uncovered a way to twist this one just enough to make it worthwhile. 

Which one was the easiest to write?

 “That Look” was the simplest, from start to finish.  And it's pretty much not changed since draft one.  I think we can all relate to the subject!

Oh, that’s the one where the 10-year-old Tammy Faye discovers makeup, isn’t it? (JT nods.) Let me recast that last question and see if we get a different answer. Did any piece write itself?

"Satellite," which closes the first act, just sort of fell right out of me.  To be fair, arriving at the right idea for the number took some thought.  Originally, we were planning some sort of upbeat celebration ditty.  After all, Tammy Faye and Jim have just become the first TV preachers to broadcast via satellite in that scene.  But we didn't take into account her increasing alienation amid all the success. 

Then, I was driving home one night after a really great time out with friends, and it was just so cold, dark and quiet out on the open road.  I thought that feeling, of everything being so right and yet void, had to be an echo of what Tammy was dealing with at the time.  So I stopped the car, looked up at the Texas sky, took a deep breath, and wrote it. 

Which one will be hummed by the members of the audience when they walk out of the theatre?

I just hope they walk out humming something, period.  Who (besides Andrew Lloyd Webber) would have the temerity to predict?  I've tried to deliberately write songs with strong “hooks” for this particular show.  The subject merits it. 

May I sermonize for a moment? 

Go for it.

The art of writing songs that are both smart and tuneful is making a comeback in the theatre.  As well it should.  Composers are learning that a song not remembered is a song not worth remembering.  The average audience for a musical comes to the theatre to be entertained by a great story greatly told, not music theory lesson.  Any composer who can't say “I love you" with three notes to three words, and mean it, should get out of the theatre and stay out.

Amen. What lyric line are you proudest of?

I'm least proud of finding a use for the word "ecclesiasticide!"  I'm proudest of the entire "Judas Tango," and for the compactness of "Satellite."  I'm a verbose guy, so anytime I can say a lot with a few words, it's a good day.

What is your favorite scene in "The Gospel?"

The first part of act II. We've told a very familiar part of her life story in a really fresh way, as a kind of drug-induced fever dream.  It's so NOT what one would normally associate with the subject, and yet it's so very theatrical.  Doing so allows a controversial moment in her life be viewed in a strangely objective way. 

What is the most dramatic part of the musical?

I don't know if it's dramatic, but Tammy Faye's childhood is a story not well-known, yet provides the keys to completely identifying and learning from this unique life.  I think audiences like to be challenged to see a person in different ways.