![]() ![]() Over the years, he's toured with the likes of George Benson and Jimmy Witherspoon, as well as putting in time on the ivories at the Mayflower, 21 Federal, Charlie's Crab and Mel Krupin's. He's been playing music in Washington since the early '60s when he came to town to attend Howard University. "He put me in three or four of his books." Felton deserves the attention. police detective Alex Cross goes to the bar at Kinkead's to hear his favorite piano player, Hilton, when he needs to relax. ![]() ![]() He's played those songs for crime writer James Patterson, whose fictional D.C. It's different from what they hear on the radio."įelton can't count the number of times he's played "As Time Goes By," and similarly romantic numbers like "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "My Funny Valentine" at his piano, squeezed into a corner between the bar and the few tables downstairs (the main dining room is upstairs). You can look at them and tell they think it's romantic, hearing these songs. "Some of these young couples, they're practically kids," Felton says. People are singing along to familiar hits from years past, but it's not just older generations leaning on the pianos and belting out tunes. I've been spending time at several of these piano rooms over the past few weeks, and I've found that while some hotel bars have had to cut back on their live music schedules, most piano bars in town are as busy as ever. In some, the music is background noise to power cocktails, in some it's a rousing accompaniment to a loose chorus of singers. Most are attached to restaurants and hotels. It's got everything in it."įelton is one of dozens of pianists who play at piano bars and lounges throughout the area. "But it can make you feel kind of sad at the same time, in that nostalgic way. "That song can make you feel good," says Felton, who has been playing at Kinkead's since it opened nine years ago. When folks ask Hilton Felton to play "As Time Goes By" at his piano in the bar at Kinkead's restaurant in Foggy Bottom, they're doing the same thing that Bogie's old flame Ingrid Bergman was doing in "Casablanca," when she said, "Play it once Sam, for old times' sake." They're hoping to recapture a fleeting moment with a melody. It's the song that - by the reckoning of most pianists who play the area's piano rooms - gets requested and performed the most. This man from Montclair, N.J., 50 years dead, is known to piano players everywhere for this: In 1931 he wrote a catchy tune called "As Time Goes By" for a Broadway revue called "Everybody's Welcome." It was enough of a hit that Rudy Vallee promptly recorded it and had an even bigger hit.Įleven years later, "As Time Goes By" became the signature tune of the film "Casablanca," when Dooley Wilson crooned it from behind the piano at Humphrey Bogart's Moroccan gin joint, Rick's. He's beyond Gershwin, beyond Cole Porter, beyond the Beatles. In the world of the piano lounge, Herman Hupfeld is king. ![]()
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