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Favorite version of "The Miller's Son"

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#1

Favorite version of "The Miller's Son"

Posted: 6/7/07 at 7:14pm

Hey, I don't usually start these types of threads, but I've been listening to A Little Night Music over the past couple of days and wanted to get a consensus of the most popular version of my favorite song from the show. So if you will please entertain me and just say which is your favorite version of the song then this can be an interesting thread. Here are the different recordings I know of...

The ones I've listened to in order of preference:
Diane Langton (OLC) - my personal favorite, her vocal range is outstanding
Kate Baldwin (Wall to Wall Sondheim) - the best interpretation of the song
D. Jamin-Bartlett (OBC)
Liz Callaway (A Stephen Sondheim Evening)
Rachel York (Putting it Together)

The ones I haven’t heard, except for 1 minute excerpts:

Emily Skinner (Unsepecting Hearts)
Frances Ruffelle (Frances Ruffelle)
Cleo Laine (Cleo Laine Sings Sondheim)
Maria Friedman (1989 Studio Cast Recording*)
Issy van Randwyck (1995 Royal National Theatre)- haven’t heard any of this one

If there are any other that I’m leaving out please add on.

*Thanks Eric.

Updated On: 6/7/07 at 07:14 PM

#4

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 7:44pm

I can't stand Friedman's, I think it sounds like any other Friedman song. I too have a soft spot for the OBCR, D. Jamin-Bartlett truly shines with this number and I think she makes this one number so memorable in a cast recording that includes stars like Glynis Johns, Len Cariou, et al.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#6

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 7:53pm

I was just going to bring up Goldsberry's version, wiggum2. It's from the Broadway Under The Stars concert last year.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
#7

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:00pm

yeah goldsberry sounds wonderful! I would love to hear Audra record this. random but true
RIP Natasha Richardson. ~You were a light on this earth ~
#8

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:05pm

The only version I have that you didn't mention is Tia Riebling, from the 1997 Sondheim: A Celebration concert that featured the Cassidy brothers (see amazon link for complete track list)

I think I, too, have a soft spot for the OBC, though I am certainly also a fan of Langton's version from the OLC. I do also appreciate Baldwin's Wall to Wall performance for the clarity and simplicity.

Haven't heard Friedman's (never got around to getting that recording) but I can see where she would be polarizing based on her other work. Though I love her Cabaret recording.

Cleo Laine brings a nice sense of class, sophistication, and diction to her Sondheim album, but she just comes off too old for my tastes for a song like Miller's Son.
1997 Sondheim: A Celebration
#9

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:06pm

I'm partial to the OBC, D. Jamin-Bartlett.

Also, I, of course, love Patti LuPone's at her concert at Carnegie Hall where she screwed up the lyrics. So cute.
Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. -John Patrick Shanley
#10

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:07pm

Goldsberry is OK IMO, it is a hard song to do in a concert setting, so I think I'm being a little too harsh on her. Her diction is very good, but she crosses over to the wailing part of belting.

Personally, I have dreamed of Kristin doing this song.

Updated On: 6/7/07 at 08:07 PM

#11

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:09pm

wyou17, how is Tia Riebling (and the CD in general)?

Oh and I used to like the Original the best, but Langton's phraising of every line is perfect! She also hits the notes a little better than D. Jamin-Bartlett.

Updated On: 6/7/07 at 08:09 PM

#12

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:25pm

That concert is pretty hit or miss. Not required listening by any means, but worth it for a few moments and oddities. The cast of Forever Plaid doing an arrangement of the Ballad of Sweeney Todd is...interesting. As is The Tonics new arrangement for More. Those interested in gender-bending song interpretations should note Billy Porter's Not A Day Goes By/What Can You Lose?, David Cassidy's Sooner or Later, and the Cassidy brothers (David, Patrick, and Shaun) doing You Could Drive A Person Crazy. And Tim Curry singing/reciting Losing My Mind must be heard to be believed. I'm also partial to Joely Fisher and Patrick Cassidy's Barcelona, which plays the song for more cheap laughs than usual (which I'm fine with in a concert setting)

Tia Riebling's Miller's Son is nice enough, though not necessarily my favorite. Nice enough phrasing, a bit nasal perhaps at times. Like a more angst Rachel York version, if that makes any sense.
#13

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 8:31pm

I used to have all the songs from that album, then deleted most of them one by one. I love the Cassidy brothers singing "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" as well as David's "Sooner or Later," both are actually very effective. I also enjoy the Kiss Me I/Ladies and their Sensitivities/Kiss Me II Sequence as performed by Dale Kristien, Billy Hutton, Calvin Remsberg, and Brock Peters. And since I'm a big Joely Fisher fan, "Barcelona" is definitely a highlight for me. The best? Michael Jeter's showstopping "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid."
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#14

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 9:03pm

I have a DVD of the NYCO production from 1991, I think. No idea what the woman's name is, but she's my favorite. I love all of her moments in the song and the ending beat.
Some people paint, some people sew, I meddle.
#15

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 9:08pm

Emily Skinner's is my favorite, I think.

Rachel York's Putting it Together recording is pretty thrilling too.

I think Sara Ramirez's Ravinia Miller's Son is my number two.

I think Skinner and Ramirez's big and full bodied voices suit the song AMAZINGLY.
Personally, I think I have too much bloom.
#19

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 10:04pm

I enjoy the Royal Nat'l Theatre cast all around the most. Personal favorite, really. And incredibly unfair. I don't care.
-Benjamin
--http://www.benjaminadgate.com/
#20

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 10:18pm

York's is lovely, but it sounds thin...

The OLCR is great but it irritates me when she sings the high notes, the transitions are just better with Barlett on the OBCR.
#21

re: Favorite version of 'The Miller's Son'

Posted: 6/7/07 at 11:14pm

B3 why the Hell would an opinion be unfair?

I love that recording and the Petra is good but her Miller's is a tad rough (which kinda fits the character)

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