Favorite Cast Recording(s) of the 16/17 Season? - Page 5

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/10/17 at 10:03pm

OlBlueEyes, the big theater-in-the-round space in Nassau County used to be called the Westbury Music Fair. It was part of a circuit of such theaters that ran down the Eastern Seaboard to Gaithersburg, MD.

I saw John Davidson at Westbury in 1975; The Captain and Tenille were the opening act (and not as bad as one might think). But I worked at proscenium theaters in Florida and we shared book shows with the Westbury circuit. The director would come back to restage the show when it headed north from us (or south to us).

***

If you're hanging with Jimmy Hoffa, it must be hard to breathe through all that concrete. But at least you have great seats for the games.

***

Here are some of my personal favorite swing songs (not counting the many, many covers of earlier hits):

"Murder He Says" -- filmed by Betty Hutton as a USO short and appears as audio on most of her greatest hits collections. As Miss Hutton tended to do, she sings the complicated Frank Loesser lyric at 100 mph. I discovered the Anita O'Day version (at half the tempo) while looking it up for you and immediately downloaded it. But perhaps the clearest enunciation is the Dinah Shore version. (I'm not sure which of the above came first.) ETA: NOTE--O'Day's version only includes the first of two choruses; I'd go with Shore or Hutton, depending on how much you care about a singer's pitch.

"Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" -- love the Anita O'Day version, but the Kay Starr is probably the best. In both cases the lady sings the verse and the band sings the refrain.

"Tangerine" -- Johnny Mercer was never better, but do get the Jimmy Dorsey/Bob Eberly/Helen O'Connell version: the chorus we all know done seriously by Eberly, then a comic parody of that chorus sung by O'Connell. (Personal trivia: the gay disco in my hometown of Fort Lauderdale was called "Tangerine" and they hired Helen O'Connell to perform in the mid-70s. Of course, she sang the song and we queens all went wild!)
 

"I Can Dream, Can't I?" -- you probably know this if you have the Andrews Sisters greatest hits album, but this may be my favorite ballad of the period.

Updated On: 7/11/17 at 10:03 PM

[NYadgal]

Posted: 7/10/17 at 10:12pm

(I have nothing to add at the moment, other than to THANK those engaging in a thoughtful and informative discussion in this thread.  It's what I love about BWW and keeps me coming back)

[Jamminman]

Posted: 7/11/17 at 12:34am

Dreamgirls London for sure.  What a cast! And the recording quality is amazing.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 7/11/17 at 11:58am

It's nice to know that we are entertaining and that may be worth throwing this thread wildly off-topic.

Gaveston, I'm know the Westbury Music Fair well, with the family home about a half hour away for the last 50 years, but I thought the location might be more helpful to others unfamiliar with it. Sadly, I knew the Music Fair when it was still just a tent. I think I saw my first musicals there at about 10 or 11:. Paint Your Wagon and The Student Prince (an operetta?). An MGM mid-50s film of Student Prince, starring Mario Lanza, explains the revival of the operetta and the interest of the Italian side of my family. I think it is best known, if not only known, for "The Drinking Song." I think I also saw No, No, Nanette with Ruby Keeler still in the lead.

I may have exaggerated my dumbness in 40s music, particularly the vocals. There were maybe 20 (?) Big Bands touring the country and charting a hit or two, but I'm only familiar with about a half dozen. I figure there must be some of them that didn't achieve the fame of the others, but like Bandstand at its best, produced some minutes of sheer joy.

The ballads I'm pretty well up on. There were so many gorgeous ballads during the war years that it almost makes you wish you had been there. "It's Been a Long, Long Time," "It Could Happen to You," "We'll Meet Again," (Remember Julie Andrews singing this on her short lived TV series. Can you imagine that the country couldn't make room for an hour of Julie Andrews every week?), "I Don't Want to Walk Without You," "I Remember You," "I'll Be Seeing You," "The Last Time I Saw Paris," and of course the Johnny Mercer contribution, the not so sentimental "G. I. Jive."

After you wash and dress
More or less
You go get your breakfast in a beautiful little caf they call "The Mess"
Jack, when you convalesce

Outta your seat
Into the street
Make with the feet
Reet!!


This is the G. I. Jive
Man alive
They give you a private tank that features a little device called "fluid drive"
Jack, after you revive

Chuck all your junk
Back in the trunk
Fall on your bunk
Clunk!!

One of my best playlists is alternating songs by Peggy Lee and Jo Stafford, 15 apiece. The Sinatra channel on Sirius XM played a lot of those ladies, but in recent years they have been pushed back in favor of Billie Holliday. To my great regret, I just don't find Holliday's voice pleasant to hear. I must be in a small minority.
 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/11/17 at 12:24pm

Well, I love Holiday, but that still leaves room for lots of other great lady singers in the 1940s.

I should have mentioned "G.I. Jive". It is also a favorite. (I worked several seasons at The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies. The highlight of every show, for me, was the 1940s sequence.)

Funny you should mention THE STUDENT PRINCE. Are you sure you didn't see the production in the mid-1970s? I ask because we originated a production, starring Allan Jones and Harry Danner (Blythe's brother; Gwyneth Paltrow's uncle). It went on to play the Westbury circuit and I actually saw the in-the-round staging in Gaithersburg, MD. The exact year would have been late 1975 or early 1976. If you saw it, you might remember that Jones sang "The Donkey Serenade" ever performance after the curtain call; it was his hit from a film he made with Jeanette MacDonald.

Yes, "The Drinking Song" was a hit, but also "Golden Days" and, especially, "Serenade" (the melody of which is borrowed in part from Massenet's violin interlude in THAIS). 

(More trivia: Harry arranged a boat to take the entire company to the Bahamas during their two days off and I was sent along to make sure everybody got on the boat to come home. We made it about 2 miles off the coast of Miami before we hit a log and the boat split in half! The crew immediately disappeared with the lifeboat and we discovered there weren't enough life jackets to go around. Fortunately, a garbage barge came by just as the bow detached and went under; none of us got wet.)

Updated On: 7/11/17 at 12:24 PM

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 7/12/17 at 12:32am

It's great that you can call a life-threatening incident "trivia." You sound like you really enjoyed those days.

No, if I had seen Student Prince in the 70s, I would have a much more vivid memory of it. It's just a shadow of a memory now, probably dependent on "The Drinking Song" for any recollection.

You keep leaving hooks in your messages that draw me onward. You mentioned Jeanette MacDonald. She was one of the important women in my life during a five year period that ended early last year. I accompanied my mother down that road to dementia and death, and she had no one else in the world. But her girlish heros, for whom she still had strong feelings, were Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. Before the dementia advanced, she had a great desire to see some of their films again. No DVDs had been issued in the U.S. yet, so I ordered them from Brazil. English language, with optional Portuguese subtitles. (The DVDs are now very available from TCM and Amazon.)

She enjoyed them, at least when she didn't doze off in the middle. As for myself, I don't think that I could sit to watch any of the films twice, except for the first of the series, "Naughty Marietta." I give this a high grade compared to similar romantic comedies of the 30s and 40s. Victor Herbert wrote two fine songs, "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" and "Italian Street Song." The last song is highlighted in a scene that could hold its own among the best scenes of similar, with Nelson Eddy, as a military officer who rescued Jeanette, but with no idea that she is a princess. He has been showing off his voice to her, and in this snippet of the scene she chooses to finally reveal to him that she has some talent as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3korUTUVzEk

Of course you have to be able to stomach operettas. Anyway, she was a talented and classy woman. After achieving film stardom she worked on her voice until she was ready to sing opera. A nice woman, but a tough negotiator with the studio. 

She also appeared in the unique pre-code comedy Love Me, Tonight, with Maurice Chevalier and a young Myrna Loy as a nymphomaniac. This film introduced Rodgers and Hart's "Lover" and in a very unique way, "Isn't It Romantic." (Richard Rodgers thought that Peggy Lee's hit recording of "Lover" was not at all as he had perceived the song being sung, and told her so. Ms. Lee had the big hit nevertheless.) And of course she did San Francisco, with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. Judy Garland, in her famous Carnegie Hall concert, mocks Jeanette in the film before she sings "San Francisco herself." I've assumed that it was all in fun, with no animus intended, but I don't really know.

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/12/17 at 2:02am

Allan Jones held "movie night" every Wednesday after the show when he would roll 8mm versions of his films in his hotel room. I was fortunate to be invited and saw for the first time the original talkie of SHOW BOAT.

One member of the cast asked him about working with Jeanette MacDonald, and Allan replied, "You mean the Iron Butterfly?" He said it with a chuckle, but his point was made.

***

Yeah, the shipwreck was scary, but more so for those who woke up below deck when the sea water lapped over their beds. Since many were city kids from the Northeast who didn't swim, there was a lot passing the few life jackets to those who needed them most. Oddly, everyone was preternaturally calm, even before rescue appeared.

I was 21, a Florida native and a strong swimmer, and very, very drunk. In my mind at the time, a two-mile swim to the shore was no big deal. Fortunately, I never found out. (I had given away my life preserver, of course.)

It wasn't until I got home and took a nap that the nightmares started. But that was all more than 40 years ago. THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was still a personal favorite when it came out. LOL.

***

Thanks for reminding me of LOVE ME TONIGHT. I've never seen it, but I've read how Rodgers & Hart were experimenting with musical styles for dramatic purposes. I'll have to find it one of these days.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 7/12/17 at 3:10pm

I used to say that I drove best when drunk. I don't say that anymore. Do you swim best when you're drunk?

In case you think you might never get to Love Me Tonight, here is the long scene at the beginning which introduces "Isn't It Romantic" as it travels from the poor Paris taylor to the Princess on her balcony (Yes, Jeanette is a princess, again). This is probably the first thing although not the only thing that people recall when they call the film inventive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGNQ7TrVDrg

Sometimes I just can't believe that the Richard Rodgers of Rodgers & Hart was the same Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The way his daughter has described him -- straightlaced, almost humorless, a worrier and a business associate much more than a friend of Hammerstein -- how could he have written so many wacky songs with Lorenz Hart?

[jtishere]

Posted: 7/12/17 at 3:26pm

Richard Schickel, the former film critic at Time, speaks very fondly and highly of that "Isn't It Romantic?" sequence in his book Keepers.

The dichotomy of Rodgers' career is truly fascinating. It really does feel like two very separate parts of a whole. Although, I must say - and this may sound blasphemous - "Something Good" from the film version of The Sound of Music has echoes of the "Hart" Rodgers in a way, as does some of his Do I Hear A Waltz? score - to me anyway. There's a slightly "off" and wacky quality to it. 

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 7/12/17 at 11:21pm

I've never listened to the whole recording of Do I Hear a Waltz. I guess I should.

I know there are quite a few critics who would put Love Me Tonight near the top of the heap of musical comedies. I find the first half to be pretty memorable screwball comedy, but the second half not so much. Still, a film that works in the Weird Sisters of Macbeth and a desperate nymphomaniac in Myrna Loy should definitely be seen - at least once.

I guess someone should do a film biography of Hart, not counting that awful biopic Words and Music in which Mickey Rooney plays Hart. It might be hard for me to watch, though, with the anguish of Hart's life alternating with the joy of his songs. He could write songs like "Lady is a Tramp" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," the latter sung or recorded by every serious female vocalist who ever lived, and then produce the hauntingly sad "Little Girl Blue," in which he might have been writing about himself.

When I was very young the world was younger than I

As merry as a carousel

The circus tent was strung with every star in the sky

Above the ring I loved so well

Now the young world has grown old

Gone are the tinsel and gold

Sit there, and count your fingers What can you do? Old girl, you're through

Sit there, and count your little fingers, Unlucky, little girl blue.

 

Janis Joplin sung this. It's up on YouTube. I guess that won't be much of a surprise to those who saw the 2015 documentary: Janis Joplin: LIttle Girl Blue. It was originally on the Kozmic Blues album.

And from Little Girl Blue" we'll go on to these famous lyrics from "I Wish I Were In Love Again."

When love congeals it soon reveals

the faint aroma of performing seals

the double-crossing of a pair of heels.

I wish I were in love again!

Then circle back again to "Spring is Here," or "Ten Cents a Dance."  (Ella, not Doris Day)

Hart belongs with the best.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/13/17 at 8:26am

Thank YOU, BlueEyes. That was exactly the clip from LOVE ME TONIGHT that I wanted to see!

Although his popularity with the public is unequaled, I sometimes feel Rodgers doesn't get the same critical respect that is afforded to Kern, Gershwin and Porter. That's a mistake. Whatever his demeanor at the office, the man was a genius who wrote as effortlessly with Hart as with Hammerstein.

Definitely listen to DO I HEAR A WALTZ?, BlueEyes. Even NO STRINGS has several wonderful songs. But EricMontreal, a poster here, insisted I listen to WALTZ and I have been forever grateful. It's hard to set aside the gripes of Laurents and Sondheim, but they are influenced, it seems, more by Rodgers the person than the actual score.

I'm not saying it's CAROUSEL, mind you, but it's quite lovely. (And, man, can Sergio Franchi sing!)

The only exception is you should sub in the original version of "We're Gonna Be Alright", which was recorded for SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM. Rodgers accepted what I consider Sondheim's most brilliant "clever" lyric, then rejected the following day. Sondheim left him with a bastard version, as a sort of Eff You, I feel sure.

[jtishere]

Posted: 7/13/17 at 11:12am

I adore Sergio Franchi's performance on the cast recording. I wish I had been able to see the recent Encores! version of Do I Hear A Waltz.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 7/13/17 at 9:08pm

The only time I ever wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper in my life was on the occasion of the death of Richard Rodgers. He inconveniently passed away on December 30, 1979 and most received the news on New Year's Eve. The death was barely covered at all by the media, and certainly was not given that status of a major historical event. One of our country's greatest composers had died. Not one of our greatest musical theater composers, or popular music composers, but one of our greatest composers.

Long Island Newsday at the time published the syndicated columns of Boston Globe opinion columnist Ellen Goodman. Goodman wrote a column on Rodger's death that appeared the next day in Newsday. It was a textbook case of damning with faint praise. I only remember a couple of snippets. No, Rodgers had not been one of the most talented composers, on the level of the Beatles. But he had written many pleasant tunes to hum around the house.

So I wrote the angry letter, received nothing in return of course except a form letter, and in 1980 Goodman won a Pulitzer. I did not.

Updated On: 7/13/17 at 09:08 PM

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 7/15/17 at 9:36am

Dear Evan Hansen and Bandstand

Updated On: 7/15/17 at 09:36 AM

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 7/16/17 at 1:58pm

We had a pleasant discussion here and I want to thank Gaveston for holding his tongue every time he violently disagreed with something that I wrote.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 7/16/17 at 7:42pm

This thread made me listen to the GHD cast album again (and again), which I thought was dreadful the first time, and I have to say I've really grown to like it a lot. Especially the "Day One" sequence and "If I Had My Time Again." Some really fine rhythms and music and flow of the lyrics. Still, the barely even half rhymes hit my ear like a freight engine!

I still CANNOT get through the COME FROM AWAY album despite several tries. Would love to see the show at some point, the album has kindof a rambling nature that probably works marvelously in the theatre, but the music alone just isn't doing it for me.

[10086Sundays]

Posted: 7/16/17 at 9:16pm

Mr. Nowack said: "This thread made me listen to the GHD cast album again (and again), which I thought was dreadful the first time, and I have to say I've really grown to like it a lot. Especially the "Day One" sequence and "If I Had My Time Again." Some really fine rhythms and music and flow of the lyrics. Still, the barely even half rhymes hit my ear like a freight engine!"

Glad you gave GHD another chance Mr. Nowack! "If I Had My Time Again" is probably the most accessible standalone song, except for the crude lyrics. From your post, it sounds like you haven't seen the show live, is that true? Just out of curiosity.

I haven't been able to see or listen to Come From Away.  I can't get past that it's a musical about  9/11. I know it's about more than that, but still.  I haven't been able to watch any of the dramatizations of that day.  Live was enough.

[Kitsune]

Posted: 7/29/17 at 10:22pm

10086Sundays said: "Mr. Nowack said: "This thread made me listen to the GHD cast album again (and again), which I thought was dreadful the first time, and I have to say I've really grown to like it a lot. Especially the "Day One" sequence and "If I Had My Time Again." Some really fine rhythms and music and flow of the lyrics. Still, the barely even half rhymes hit my ear like a freight engine!"

Glad you gave GHD another chance Mr. Nowack! "If I Had My Time Again" is probably the most accessible standalone song, except for the crude lyrics. From your post, it sounds like you haven't seen the show live, is that true? Just out of curiosity.

"

I hope it's okay to be reviving an older thread, but...I absolutely loved "If I Had My Time Again" on the cast album.  My first exposure to GHD was via streaming the cast album in the background at work.  I had enjoyed it up until then, but that was the song that made me stop and seriously start paying attention.  I also loved the "making of" video of the cast album, as you can see most of Andy and Barrett's acting choices. 

I've seen the live show twice now.  I really, really love the show, but "If I Had My Time Again" somehow fizzles in the theater and I don't know why.  The only thing I can pinpoint is that both times I saw the show, I felt like I was having trouble hearing Andy and Barrett over the instrumentation.  The song still does its job, but I wish it *felt* like more of a showstopper.

Anyway, "If I Had My Time Again" still would have been my choice for the Tonys, as it does a better job of combining the humor and pathos of Phil's arc.  I guess the verse about masturbation disqualified it?  ("Seeing You" is gorgeous, but it has less impact outside of the context of the show IMO). 

[Robbie2]

Posted: 7/29/17 at 11:17pm

War Paint

DEH

Hello Dolly

[Itonlytakesajourney]

Posted: 7/29/17 at 11:47pm

My favorites this season are Anastasia, Hello Dolly, and Bandstand. Great Comet is up there too as well. The classic golden age and traditional Broadway sound are very prevalent in these scores, which I love since a lot of stuff these days can be very contemporary (not a bad thing, but still). I'm confused when people say the Anastasia / Dolly recordings have no character or life, whenever Journey to the Past or Sunday Clothes plays, I'm an emotional mess. Bandstand is just good old fun, the songs have real personality.

[brian1973]

Posted: 7/30/17 at 9:16am

Dolly is such a disappointment. Bandstand is dull. Comet- Yuk.

I loved DEH, Groundhog Day.. but I have to mention Holiday Inn which is just wonderful!