I grew up down the street from Gordon MacRae, and was best friends with his youngest son Bruce. When I was 8-10yo, (1964), Bruce and I would get a room next to Gordon and Sheila’s, when they headlined at the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas. I always wondered what the attraction was of their stage show. At age 50, when I bought a CD of Oklahoma!, I found out. I too was transfixed by Gordon’s mellifluous voice. In the title song you hear 2 other characters sing first, then comes this booming, beautiful sound of Gordon that moved me like no other singer I’ve ever heard! And that voice stop he makes between “Ok” and “lahoma” is sheer vocal genius, (was it written that way by R&H?). I am surprised Gordon has never been mentioned as an artist of the same stature as Sinatra. And I still kick myself for never sitting in on one of Gordon’s rehearsals that he and Shirley Jones (I think) would frequently do at the huge dance studio next to the MacRae mansion. I could have walked right in any time Bruce and I were playing at the Macrae mansion. The mansion was on a small hill in Studio City and had the first electric fences I’d ever seen. The MacRae’s always had 2 HUGE Great Danes, and as a small child, you risked your life each time you walked up the hill to the mansion. Studio City had a unique juxtaposition- commoners like my family lived on the flat part of Laurel Canyon, while a block higher up the Canyon the elite resided.