In his most iconic role, John Raitt played the ne'er-do-well carnival barker who tries, but failed to do right by love Julie Jordan in Carousel, one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's more darkly tinged musicals. As such, he first sang such classic tunes as "If I Loved You" and the towering musical narrative "Siloloquy."
Raitt called the song, in which Billy dreams about the kind of boy he might be father to, ``practically a one-act opera which took six and a half minutes to sing,'' the AP reported. He said Hammerstein had been inspired to write it when he heard him sing Figaro at an earlier audition for Curly in the road company of Oklahoma!. He sang Figaro's aria from The Barber of Seville as a way of warming up. He got the job, and the composing team remembered that booming, authoritative, distinctly male voice when casting their next show, Carousel.
John Raitt's other big Broadway hit was The Pajama Game
