Best Selling Musical Cast Recordings of All Time — Page 2

Updated On: 5/21/15 at 12:49 PM

If I had to guess about why My Fair Lady did not go back and release the OBC vinyl recording in stereo, and didn't release the London cast vinyl recording in monaural, it could have been that there was a great deal of overlap between the two casts -- Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, and Stanley Holloway all reprised their Bway roles in London. I'm not sure about any of the others, although Robert Coote (Pickering) may have appeared in both original casts as well.

Those of us who remember the days of vinyl, let alone monaural vinyl recordings, are getting up there in age. The My Fair Lady soundtrack came out in 1964 or 1965. If I recall, the mono version was $6.99 and the stereo version was $7.99 -- a hefty chunk of change for a kid whose allowance was 25 cents a week!

I don't know why they didn't bother to record the OBC of My Fair Lady in stereo. I believe Columbia payed the entire budget of the show for the rights to record it, so it surprises me that they didn't spend the extra money for stereo. Not only that, but the OBC isn't ever particularly good mono, and I can think of several recordings released several years earlier that sound way better (the original Oklahoma! for example)

interesting stuff. thanks for sharing.

hey Mr Nowack

fascinating additions to the cast recordings discussion-had never read or heard about the history anywhere else. Has anyone you know of ever written a book on cast recordings and their history and development?

At one time I collected OBC recordings on 78s. I have only a few. What some of you may not know is that some of these 78rpm album sets came with booklets containing the lyrics for each recorded song. Photographs from the original Broadway production were printed on the inside of the front and back covers of some albums as well. The shows which I have on 78 are:

Allegro

Annie Get Your Gun

Call Me Mister

High Button Shoes

One Touch Of Venus

Porgy and Bess, sets 1&2

South Pacific

St. Louis Woman.

I also have a few 78 sets, HIGH BUTTON SHOES, ST. LOUIS WOMAN and the 1943 revival of A CONNECTICUT YANKEE. They are quite elaborate!

Pretty much any show recorded before the advent of the LP in 1948 was released originally as a set of 78s, as well as many shows recorded till maybe 1951. 48 EP sets were also common during that period.

Interesting information about how much the cast gets paid per day of recordings... a couple ALW questions come to mind:

1- For The Woman in White, they recorded the show live on opening night at the Palace Theatre - does the cast get the same compensation even though they didn't have to spend a whole day in the recording studio?

2 - Is that another advantage to the "concept album" (reduced costs?) ala Love Never Dies (even parts of the World Premiere Recording of Sunset Blvd came from the Sydmonton workshop?)

Was always curious why ALW would issue/record these scores in these types of set ups --particularly when he usually continues to revise them at least a few weeks after the show opens (i.e. Aspects of Love, "There is more to Love" was added a few weeks into its run)

I have raised the following question once before, but not as formally: Does anyone know why there are TWO versions of the Phantom of the Opera so-called OLC two-CD and two-LP recordings? Adding in the 1-discb "highlights" concept album, that makes three.

I've researched the POTO discography and found out that the album was re-released years later, but the discography sites don't even agree on the dates. The album covers on the two releases of the two-disc recordings are slightly different. If I recall, one version uses the concept album version of MOTN. The clearest distinction is that, on one version of the 2-disc recording, Joseph Buquet is sung by a bass who sings in the musical equivalent of the Phantom's fifth cellar. That singer has a heavy-duty foreign accent. The other album has a less distinctive-sounding Buquet.

The two versions are not easily identifiable by looking at the album covers. I'm mystified by this whole matter, and I'd love to write an article about it for my new Web site, All Things Phantom dot com. Any information would be greatly appreciated, and will result in an acknowledgment on the site, using your real name or your discussion board name -- whichever you prefer.

Audrey (AKA Madame Half-Mask on my Web site)

hi there

whats your source for the 10M number?

nielson is the gold standard on music sales, and as of april 2015, they say 4 million sales

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6524148/billboard-200-frozen-four-million?mobile_redirection=false