John Jennings enjoyed writing musicals and plays in his youth. In his 30s, the Evansville native wound up on a big stage.
He penned the music and book for the Southwestern Indiana-inspired musical โRiverwind,โ which ran off-Broad- way in December 1962. The musical was performed in smaller theaters throughout New England, but today, Jenningsโ work largely has flown under the radar โ even among residents of his hometown.
Jenningsโ sister, Joan Jennings Greif, doesnโt want people to forget her brother or his talents. Now in her late 80s, she has saved volumes of memorabilia and newspaper clippings of nearly everything her brother published, including his early works as a budding music man.
โHe was such a virtuoso on the piano,โ Joan recalls. โHe never refused to play or sing for us. He was such an entertainer.โ Jennings also had a great sense of humor and could play any song he heard by ear.
Itโs this skill of picking up a song and carrying a tune that propelled him to become a strong playwright. For all his plays, Joan says, he would write everything โ script, dialogue, and music. He produced a musical every year while attending F.J. Reitz High School and at least two while studying at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
After service in the U.S. Navy, Jennings set his sights on Broadway. He produced โRiverwindโ when he first went to New York; its off-Broadway debut at the Actorsโ Playhouse sold out. The musical plot reverberated with audiences: Set at a quaint inn on the banks of the Wabash River, three couples reignite their love against a sweeping score focused on bass, percussion, and piano. In reviews, theater critics enjoyed the plotโs โmiddle-age charms,โ and New York Times critic Howard Taubman wrote that โโRiverwindโ comes to life when it breaks into song.โ
After โRiverwind,โ Joan says, her brother worked on a few other music projects, but none panned out. Jennings was busy crafting something new for Broadway when he became ill and died at age 54. The Feb. 10, 1988, issue of the New York Times included a story memorializing him.
Although Jenningsโ life was short, his work continues to live on. Joanโs son โ an Evansville periodontist named for his uncle โ first saw โRiverwindโ in college when it was performed in New Harmony, Indiana, in the 1980s. John Greif hopes area theater programs would be interested in per- forming the musical, thus carrying on his uncleโs music.
โI think he left quite a wonderful legacy to Evansville,โ Joan says.
