Where Are They Now: Joe Bousard
June 25, 2021
Lynn Timmons Edwards
Joe Bousard was active in the New York cabaret scene for over 32 years. He reached out to me when a friend sent him the Cabaret Scenes magazine issue featuring his old friend, Sid Myer from Don’t Tell Mama, on the cover. He wants the world to know that he is alive and playing the piano and that life is still a cabaret right here in Arizona. As a pianist/accompanist, composer, director, and actor he continues to do it all.
Born in Boston, Bousard grew up in Phoenix and then received his BA degree in Speech Arts and Theatre from San Diego State College, where he performed and directed operas, plays, and musicals and was active in local radio and television. After a stint in the U.S. Army where he furthered his musical career, he settled in the Big Apple. He formed JBL Productions and recalls his cabaret shows that played all over New York City. The lunchtime gathering at the Hallmark Gallery, in the 1970s featuring the music of the Great American Songbook became a tourist attraction and was even featured on German television.
The Hallmark Company was so impressed that they invited Joe to perform for them in Kansas City several times where the company was and he was welcomed by Donald Hall, son of the founder of Hallmark Cards, and his wife, Adele. While living in NYC Bousard was invited to become a member of the Players Club, where people of the theater celebrated their peers. Meetings were held in Edwin Booth’s town house on Gramercy Park Square, and special events called Pipe Nights honored many well-known theatrical personalities. Joe played for and accompanied many of them including opera singer Joanna Simon, Broadway and film star Vivian Blaine, and comic actor Jack Albertson. He also served as Jack Gilford’s friend and his pianist and musical director for 12 years.
Bousard is a blend of old-school cabaret and “what’s next?” An e-mail to friends and colleagues this May shared that his song, “House of Cards,” which he wrote early in his career, is being featured in a film, Glass. The song can also be found on YouTube sung by his sister, Diane Fortune.
He continues to work as an actor/singer and as a commercial voice-over talent, and is signed with The Leighton Agency, Phoenix. He traveled to Japan for over 19 years to teach and coach at Showa Academia Musicae, alongside choreographer Peter Barry and dancer/director, Kathleen Conry.
I had the pleasure to study and perform with Joe while I was an artistic member of the Equity project house, The Theatre Artists Studio in Phoenix in the mid to late 2000s. As I said of him in my 2018 Cabaret Scenes review of A Swinging Christmas, “The show contained original songs by pianist and co-arranger Joe Bousard, including ‘A Swingin’ Christmas,’ ‘When Christmas Comes,’ and ‘The Beginning of the Magic.’ He is the pianist every singer covets. He has a strong dramatic baritone voice plus he has the ability to sing many comic character songs and he can play any song in any key.” Bousard has aged like a good wine, still full bodied, vibrant, and waiting for the next party.
