Ethel Merman: "World Take Me Back" from Hello, Dolly!- Page 2

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 10/4/11 at 9:30pm

As I mentioned, I know of two recordings of the final performance.

One of them sounds as if it was recorded from the balcony. Well, actually the sound is very variable on that recording. Sometimes it sounds very distant from the stage. Other times it sounds closer. Maybe it's actually two recordings of the same performance mixed together. Or perhaps the person who recorded it tried to hide the tape recorder sometimes. It's a bit odd. There is a muffled quality to the sound sometimes, which may suggest the hiding possibility.

The other recording consistently sounds as if it was recorded much closer and has better sound. Unfortunately, that one is missing Merman's entrance applause and also the entire finale/curtain call. It's hard to tell if the person who recorded the performance turned the recorder off at those points or if those sections were later edited out.

A friend has put in the missing sections from the other recording of the last performance and he did a good job, but the difference in sound quality is pretty extreme so it's a bit jarring.

The audience is generally going completely insane on both recordings. During the entrance applause for Merman (on the recording that includes it), you can hear someone say, "A standing ovation."

The person from whom I got the recording with the less good sound described it to me as you're describing the recording you have, Dollypop. But I don't find that it sounds that way. There is a change in volume for scenes on the runway, but it's not that extreme. Merman can still be heard very clearly.

If the recording had actually been made in the orchestra pit, wouldn't it be extremely difficult to hear the actors every time the orchestra plays?

Of course, it's possible that what you have is still another recording.

Btw, on both the recordings I'm discussing, there is applause at one point during "I Put My Hand In," as a dance break is coming to an end. I didn't know why it was there till you mentioned that Champion was dancing. So I think that both of the recordings I have that are described as being of the last performance must be of the last performance.

Yes, NoName3, people often describe recordings that clearly aren't soundboards as being soundboards. I wonder if people just don't know what a soundboard recording would be. There are times when it's a bit difficult to tell, but a lot of recordings that are described as soundboards are very clearly not soundboards.

I mean, if you can hear audience members talking and they seem to be sitting near the recorder, it's pretty definitely not a soundboard or sound system recording.

There's a lot of misinformation out there generally about such recordings.
Updated On: 10/4/11 at 09:30 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/4/11 at 9:35pm

Dollypop, Merman and Russell Nype had done a national tour of CALL ME, MADAM in 1966 or 67. It was my first professional production of a Broadway show.

Apparently like Benay Venuta, Nype was somebody Merman liked to work with. She used them both quite a bit.

But Nype was certainly too old to play Cornelius in the late 1960s.
Updated On: 10/4/11 at 09:35 PM

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/4/11 at 10:54pm

I have absolutely loved reading all the thoughtful, thorough replies on this thread. Thank you. HELLO DOLLY was the first musical I was ever in and it will always hold a special place in my heart. What a joy it must have been to have seen this wonderful show live during its original, history-making run... whether with the warm and lovable Carol Channing in the role that would grant her legend status or the incomparable Ethel Merman, making her last Broadway appearance after 40 years. Chills.

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 10/4/11 at 11:40pm

I too, have found this thread so wonderful. I just love HELLO DOLLY! so much.

We need to bring back the NO, NO, NANETTE thread.

And also, is ANYONE out there has this Merman recording in full, I have not heard it, and anyone willing to share the love would be forever indebted in my book.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 10/4/11 at 11:52pm

I've sent you a PM, inlovewithjerryherman.

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 12:19am

nobodyhome, please shower me with your 'pm' love too! After all, I STARTED this wonderful thread! haha :) You've.. Got.. Elegance..!

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 12:38am

It's funny - I don't know if this show could really work as it did again. I wonder if there are any divas out there that really have the fearlessness to dole the joy in spades as the Dollys of long gone - maybe Bernadette. or Beth Leavel. It's funny, so many brilliant women played this role in New York, and we all dream for a revival of "Hello, Dolly!"...but maybe the reason it hasn't quite happened is that we haven't found that "wonderful woman" since Merman, Channing, Bailey, Martin, et al.

EDIT: to elaborate on that a little further - I think Ms. Channing really inspired a string of brilliant performances, and it seems we haven't found the woman that can do that again, quite yet. Maybe just as well. Perhaps HELLO, DOLLY!, like CABARET, is not a perennial like GYPSY, blooming every so often like clockwork - perhaps it needs to sit, and grow, and live, and be reborn to live said life when the world really needs it.

One thing's for sure though, I'm very excited to see the cast who gets to be to Ms. Channing and Mr. Nelson Reilley, et al what Alan Cumming was to Joel Grey, and Natasha Richardson was to Jill Haworth/Liza Minnelli.




Updated On: 10/5/11 at 12:38 AM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 8:57am

There has been talk of reviving DOLLY! and LuPone was attached to the project for a while. That seems to have fallen apart. Tyne Daley is now being courted for the role.

Still, I think Georgia Engel would be a marvelous Dolly.

[madbrian]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 9:11am

If Dolly gets revived, it should be with Reba opposite Boyd Gaines.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 9:50am

For those who don't know what the Gower Champion staging was like, this clip of the Pearl Bailey production shows a bit of his very simple staging of "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" and then the dancers (and the locomotive) part to reveal Pearl sitting on the luggage cart, from which she (improbably) retrieves a hat and cane for the central bridge of the song.

http://youtu.be/84cXRKxaCpg

Finding hats and canes during musical numbers was something that happened frequently in 1960s musicals. Gwen Verdon happily comes upon them in the middle of "If They Could See Me Now." There must be others as well.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 10:10am

Gaveston, ibdb agrees with Dollypop: Russell Nype was a replacement Cornelius in 1970.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 12:23pm

Yes, Nype played the part and was in the cast for the last performance--even though he was too old for the role. Let it be noted that Merman was also too old for the role of Dolly, but that hasn't stopped anyone from playing it effectively.

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 12:27pm

Does anyone know what instrument is used at 1:36-1:39? Is it a flute or a piccolo? I love those bars and that sound. It's very 'Hello, Dolly!' to me.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 12:32pm

Thanks joey, that clip of Pearl is wonderful. Merrick's idea of stunt casting (the entire cast) was inspired. Pearl was a perfect match for Dolly and she had the audience literally in her palm.
The night I saw her, she brought Bob Hope out of the audience and they did a half hour of schtick (sans her shoes, of course).

[NoName3]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 12:45pm

>>Still, I think Georgia Engel would be a marvelous Dolly.

Indeed she would, Dollypop. Were you remembering that Engel played Minnie Faye in Merman's company?
Updated On: 10/5/11 at 12:45 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 1:19pm

I like both songs, however I don't feel they belong in the show any longer. They do nothing but provide Dolly with more chances to show off- they don't further illuminate the character or add new points. They also unbalance the show, adding substantially to Act One.

[RagtimeRay]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 7:41pm

Regarding the hat and cane in the Pearl Bailey clip, the scene before "So Long Dearie" was with Horace Vandergelder, who has the hat and cane. Dolly takes them as she starts the number (which she sings to him, initially), and then a red drop came between her and Horace and she finished the number down front.

I would so like to see a revival of HELLO, DOLLY! My personal favorite to lead the cast is two time Tony Award winner for Best Actress in a Musical - Christine Ebersole.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 7:55pm

Reginald, Dollypop, I don't know what I wrote that made it seem I was contradicting Dollypop. I guess it was the line "Nype was too old..." But I was just agreeing he was technically too old for the part, not suggesting he wasn't in DOLLY with Merman.

My point was that Merman used him in a lot of things, so Dollypop's memory of him in the show made perfect sense. (He was still terrific when I saw him a couple of years before.)

But speaking of too old, Channing wisely used a lot of the same people in her various revivals, so that by the time I saw her in NYC in 1978, the "Waiters' Gallop" was performed with walkers. But it did keep her from out-growing her ensemble.

I have no idea what they were doing by the time of the 1990s' revival.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/5/11 at 8:34pm

Sorry, Gaveston, I misread your comment. I actually thought Dollypop might have made a slip of the fingers on the keyboard and that Nype had actually played Horace, which is why I checked ibdb.

Anyway, we're all agreed, he was too old--but so was she, and he was still 14 years younger than she was.

And I'm still admiring of folks like Dollypop who so generously share their memories of Golden Age shows with the board.








Updated On: 10/6/11 at 08:34 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/6/11 at 1:09pm

^^^^

So am I, Regi, so am I. And before I'd contradict Dollypop, I'd at least check IBDB! LOL. Many of my contemporaries have crystal clear memories of performances I tend to blur together.

[beaemma]

Posted: 10/6/11 at 1:26pm

I don't really understand why some posters are saying that Ethel Merman was too old for Dolly. She was 62. No exact age is given for the character, but she's a widow who has been scraping up a living at various jobs for years while ignoring her own personal life. In my mind, she could be almost any age, except very young. Some people are suggesting Bernadette Peters for a revival. She's 63. Yes, she looks better than Merman did; but wouldn't a woman who looks her age be more believable in the era in which the show is set? Are you saying that a woman in her sixties is incapable of deciding to "rejoin the human race?" Merman was far from decrepit in the role. She met and exceeded the demands of the part, and her age seemed perfectly okay to me the seven times I saw her as Dolly. As for the songs--yes, they are redundant; but no one was complaining about hearing Merman raise the roof a couple of extra times. All the audiences I was in went nuts.

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/6/11 at 10:17pm

Testify, beaemma! Well said. And soooo jealous of you that you got to see her 7 times!!

[beaemma]

Posted: 10/7/11 at 2:08am

And I loved every one of those seven times! I've met knowledgeable people who weren't crazy about her performance; but I thought she was very touching, warm, and human in the role. In 1979, I happened to be in New York when Merman did a signing to promote her disco album. There was a young woman sitting beside her who I got the impression was working on an article for, I think, PEOPLE. When I got to the head of the very long line, I mentioned to Miss Merman that I had been lucky enough to see her in DOLLY those seven times and that I'd had to travel from Wisconsin more than once to do it. She pointed at me and gave the writer a look that said, "Didja hear that?" It struck me as a very Ethel Merman moment!

[WestVillage]

Posted: 10/7/11 at 9:58am

Count me in as one of the lucky people who got to see Merman in Dolly .. only once though. I was 14 years old, and had all the Merm's Broadway recordings, and still to this day don't think I have ever been so excited to see anyone on stage. The anticipation was enormous. I had seen Dolly once before (with Phyllis Diller), so I knew when the Merm would be making her entrance (on the horse-drawn cart, reading a newspaper). It was an "on the edge of your seat" experience. I loved the 2 new songs .. yes they were redundant, but they were Merman all the way.

I remember buying the 45RPM at Colony Records.

On a tragic side note, the adorable Danny Lockin (who was Barnaby to Diller and the Merm, and also in the film version), was horribly murdered 1977, stabbed over 100 times, presumably by a man who picked him up in a bar. He was only 34 years old.

[ggersten]

Posted: 10/7/11 at 11:57am

So much for a tale I heard so long ago about Merman and Hello Dolly. I'd heard that on her first night as Dolly, she literally stopped the show after applause and said "Do you want to hear more?" and then launched into the songs that had been written explicitly for her for the show but had been cut. But from this thread, I guess that tale wasn't true. Too bad.