How this harpist got “Cats” in the bag

Margot Krimmel is a harpist based in Boulder, Colorado. In the 1980s, she worked at a ski resort in Vail playing the harp.

“I was in my mid-30s, and I pretty much felt like I had won the jackpot,” Krimmel said about the job. Four hours a night she’d play the harp. The rest of her free time she’d spend skiing.

During her shift, she would often get requests from patrons to play a specific song. “Maybe ‘Greensleeves,’ Pachelbel’s Canon, “Stairway to Heaven,” those kinds of things,” Krimmel recalled. “And then sometimes people would request something that I didn’t know.”

Krimmel began getting requests for the song “Memory” from the Broadway musical “Cats.” The only problem was that Krimmel had never heard the song and couldn’t find its sheet music.

So she got help from her friend Mickey, who played at a nearby piano bar. Every night, she would show up at Mickey’s and ask him to play her the song. Over time, she learned the tune by ear.

Today, learning new music is a totally different experience for Krimmel.

“I can go to the internet, go onto YouTube, and find the song,” Krimmel said. “That is definitely a new thing.”

Click the audio player above to hear Krimmel’s full story.