One of the biggest thrills of “Dancing With the Stars” is the way unlikely pop hits become quicksteps and rumbas. The man responsible for turning New Order’s “Blue Monday” into a pasodoble is musical director and bandleader Harold Wheeler. The Broadway vet orchestrated the likes of “Dreamgirls” and “Hairspray,” and even produced Gloria Gaynor’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.” We phoned Wheeler in LA to review some of his finest “DWTS” feats.
MORE: Q&A WITH HAROLD WHEELER ON THE POST’S THEATER BLOG
* “Paparazzi” This pasodoble version of the Lady Gaga hit embodies the Wheeler Touch: horns, and lots of them. “If we did this song true to the nature of the record, it wouldn’t support the dancing,” he explains. “When you put on this big production, you need that brass.”
* “Seven Nation Army” The White Stripes’ anthem became a tango for Ultimate Fighter Chuck Liddell. “He had to have a macho flavor. I added horns and changed the drumbeat to give it more power. Sometimes the producers pick songs they think fit the personality of the star. You just have to enhance that.”
* “I Want You To Want Me” For a quickstep, Wheeler used the Letters to Cleo cover rather than the Cheap Trick original. “When the producers license the material, they do it according to what’s available at what price. That’s why sometimes we get an odd version: It was probably cheaper [laughs]. But then, I can be more me in the arrangement.”
* “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” Turning Roberta Flack’s intimate ballad into a rumba meant amping it up. “That song was recorded with piano, bass and drums — which would be so boring on TV. Plus, when they hit certain sections of the dance, the audience is going to applaud and you wouldn’t hear the band. So I added rich-sounding strings to make it all lavish.”
* “Fever” More was more to make Peggy Lee’s minimal classic a fox trot. “I told the dancers ‘You’re going to hear some new things in the song and I don’t want them to surprise you. They’re really essential to keeping the audience’s attention, so don’t tell me to throw them away.”
* “Secret Agent Man” “Donny Osmond stopped dancing in rehearsal because toward the end I threw in a bit of the 007 theme. But he comes from performing. The pros tend to be more opinionated about the music than the stars.”
* “Anything Goes” For the Cole Porter classic, producers “picked the version from ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,’ which has a huge orchestra and a hundred women tapping. It took three times longer to do than any other arrangement. At the end the trumpeter was huffing and puffing.”
* “Fur Elise” For this Beethoven piece, “Toni Braxton and Alec Mazo had a concept about a battle between the Elizabethan and the heavy metal. So they asked if I could switch back and forth, and I weaved in and out between classical and rock.”
* “SOS” Nicole Scherzinger and Derek Hough were disappointed by this Rihanna pick for their jive. “They were expecting a ’50s or ’60s song. I superimposed little ’60s riffs over the modern drumbeat, and they were glad to hear them.”
* “Star Wars Theme” Joey Fatone and Kym Johnson danced a tango to the disco version, which was close to Wheeler’s heart. “I told the producers to Google the artist, Meco. They called me back and said, ‘You produced that record!’ ”