Nightline Playlist: Idina Menzel
The Tony-award-winning singer describes the songs that inspire her.
June 20, 2008— -- From the Broadway stage to the Billboard charts, this Tony-award-winning star of "Wicked" and "Rent" seems to have done it all.
The daughter of a New York pajama salesman and a therapist, Idina Menzel grew up on Long Island, singing at bar mitzvahs and weddings.
Such a humble upbringing forced her to expand her musical repertoire, turning her into what she calls a musical "chameleon."
"I was a wedding singer, so I had to learn jazz and Motown and every Madonna and Whitney Houston song," Menzel said. "I was just this plethora of different influences."
Menzel, 37, started singing on the special-event circuit when she was 15 and continued singing to put herself through acting school at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Her big break came in 1995 when she was cast in "Rent," a Broadway musical that won her much acclaim and a Tony Award nomination.
Since then she has starred in numerous plays, including the Broadway musical "Wicked," which not only brought her a Tony Award, but several feature films as well, including "Enchanted" and the film adaptation of "Rent."
Menzel has also spun her theatrical fame into a successful solo career.
She released her third solo album, "I Stand," earlier this year.
To record the album, Menzel went through a lot of soul searching and personal growth.
"This current album is very important to me because it took me a while to figure out who I was as a singer and a songwriter and performer," Menzel said.
When she was a little girl, Menzel had her first breakout performance at a summer camp talent show, singing the classic song "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin.
Camp counselors, surprised by Menzel's innate sense of harmony and rhythm, encouraged her to take voice lessons.
"I was singing harmony and didn't even know what harmony was," Menzel said. "All the counselors ran to my parents and told them I had some kind of special voice."
The first vinyl record Menzel owned was Barbara Streisand's "A Star is Born."
