We're riding in a limousine along Fifth Avenue. Joe has requested to be interviewed while he attends to some gift shopping. Because of a temporary leg injury, he has hired a limousine for the afternoon. As we go from store to store, Joe greets the merchants by name, then answers questions into a tape recorder while waiting for his merchandise. Long noted for his musical versatility, Raposo grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts, the only child of a classical musician father and a piano playing mother. "I learned counterpoint at the age of 6 or so by wandering around the concert hall as my father rehearsed Mozart." His parents taught him piano, violin and bass viol. At Harvard University he began to write and direct his own musicals. Soon after moving to New York City in 1966, he had all the work he could handle as musical director, composer and lyricist for both television and the stage. He is the recipient of three Emmy Awards and an Oscar nomination. As a record producer, he has won four Grammy Awards. "It's Not Easy Bein' Green," one of many songs he wrote for the _Sesame Street_ TV show, has become the international anthem for the Girl Scouts of America. Another Raposo hit, "You Will Be My Music," brought Sinatra out of retirement several years ago. His _Sesame Street Fever_ disco album has sold more than a million copies. An album of all-Raposo music recorded by the Boston Pops in 1976 led to a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra for an orchestral and choral work. The result is a 12-to-14-minute oratorio titled _From the Diary of Johann Sutter_, about the man whose quiet farm became the epicenter of the California Gold Rush. "It's the darndest story ever. Because it tells how a man who's a tremendous idealist came to this country from Switzerland to found a new utopian agrarian state, with cattle and fields of grain, and vineyards. ... When the Gold Rush started, Sutter's whole society was ruined. And it is an incredible parallel for our time, in that our pursuit of material goods tends to make us forget all the natural, beautiful things that surround us. "Sheldon Harnick has done a wonderfully literate libretto. It premieres this spring in Boston. Sheldon and I have been talking about the possibility of expansion, but we have a musical to write first based on _It's A Wonderful Life_, the Frank Capra movie." At the same time, Raposo is collaborating with Hal David on another musical and writing songs for a sequel to _The Muppet Movie_. But with all his success, Joe admits to having "a trunk of songs that are unrecorded, and many of them I feel are right up on a par with anything I've ever done. But they sit there and nobody grabs them. You have to wait. ... A lot of people think, 'Oh, if I only had the talent to write a hit song.' But writing a great song isn't enough: you have to get the right recording at the right time."