GOLDEN BOY - Let's appreciate this Strouse-Adams score!

Posted: 10/16/05 at 10:18am

I dropped the cd of this Strouse-Adams score into my player this morning. I bought the OBC LP in the Spring/Summer of 1964 at the same time I bought my first copy of HELLO, DOLLY! Both so different. GOLDEN BOY has always been a big favorite of mine since that time.

From the opening musical rythmic sounds of boxers training {"Workout") this score hits you with with a one-two punch that says, "class." The score is intelligent, sophisticated, and contemporary in its Broadway-meets-jazz-and-the-blues sound. The cast is superb, starting with the energetic and multi-talented Sammy Davis. He and Paula Wayne, she of the husky, late-night-bar voice, blend their voices beautifully, and are convincing, and in the moment, at every note. Billy Daniels adds authenticity to the nightclub sound of the score with his dreamy crooning.

Sammy's cuts on the cd a not quite the same as on the original monoaural LP pressing. [My orignial LP came with a souvenir booklet, which Capital Records tried for a while as a marketing tactic, which I still have by the way.] I recall reading somewhere a number of years ago that Sammy re-recorded his cuts later in the run of the show.

I never saw GOLDEN BOY as it played in my pre-NY days, so I can't personally comment how this troubled show worked on the stage, or didn't. However, from the score which I've listened to hundreds of times over the decades, and compared to the hundreds of shows I've seen on Broadway in those intervening years, the GOLDEN BOY score contintues to be a contender for one of the best original cast recordings in the last 40 years.

If you know it, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't know it, get in the ring and be prepared to quickly find yourself on the mat, knocked down by the talent and class of all involved.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 10:46am

I saw it & really liked it. I even got Sammy to sign the Playbill although it was done with a dark pen on a dark background.

I always liked the score. I had the LP but got a reissue cd & some of the songs had different endings. I especially like Night Song, Can't You See It,While The City Sleeps , Colorful & Don't Forget 127 th St

What a cast Sammy, Billy Daniels & Lola Falana ( what happened to her )

Updated On: 10/16/05 at 10:46 AM

[dReAmiNgAwAkE]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 11:53am

i sang , "Night Song" i raised it a key or two and it is just glorious ...musically and acting wise...LOVE IT>....where can i find a RECORDING?!! dying to hear the whole thing

[ChrisLovesShows]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 11:53am

SOOO glad to see a thread on this show -- it is so rarely discussed.

I was not familiar with this show until I became a fan after seeing the 2002 Encores! concert version with Alfonso Ribeiro (soooo handsome) and Anastasia Barzee. Their plaintive "I Want To Be With You" was the highlight of the show for me. I PRAYED that Encores! would record that cast -- I thought Ribeiro was terrific -- but of course I was thrilled that the CD with Sammy and the Broadway cast was still available. (It appears that sometime since then, it has gone out-of-print. Jose', do you know?)

It's definitely on my "high rotation" play list of cast recordings and is still one of my favorite Encores! concerts. Glad to meet other fans!!


BTW - "Winners" is included on Jay Records' recently-released "The Musicality of Strouse" CD.


CD on Amazon (used copies - expensive)

Updated On: 10/16/05 at 11:53 AM

[Marquise]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 12:03pm

After GOLDEN BOY, Lola Falana went to Italy where she starred in several Italian films. She was extremely popular in Italy in the late 1960s. They dubbed her something along the lines of "The Panthress". After her success there she returned to the States and made her American movie debut in William Wyler's THE LIBERATION OF L.B. JONES (she received a Golden Globe nomination). She then became a staple in Vegas showrooms. She quickly became one their highest paid entertainers. After a stint in the 1980s on the daytime soap CAPITOL, she was stricken with multiple sclerosis which left her crippled and partially blind.

She spent a good year and a half recovering and then made a triumphant comeback at the Sands Hotel in Vegas before abandoning the business altogether. She is now a Catholic evangelist.


EDIT: Technically Falana's movie debut was in A MAN CALLED ADAM (1966). She was known in Italy as "The Black Venus". She also had a minor pop hit in 1966, "My Baby" on Mercury Records. She later recorded for Warner Bros. and Motown. Updated On: 10/16/05 at 12:03 PM

[Demitri2]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 12:26pm

One of my favorite ever theater going Wednesdays was catching a matinee of "Golden Boy" and an evening performance of "Funny Girl" in the same day. To be able to see Sammy and Babs in their primes within a ten hour period has been unsurpassed for me especially since Davis and Streisand had been my favorite male and female singers at the time. "Golden Boy" was thoroughly enjoyable and everything I had expected. I especially liked the sparse abstract sets and the lighting. The score for the time was very contemporary and totally different from Strouse's scores for "Bye Bye Birdie" and "All American". The music was LOUD and riveting. I remember Sammy Davis standing on the stage, looking out to the audience and singing for all he was worth. The ensemble numbers were very exciting and Paula Wayne's slight laryngitus didn't effect her vocals at all. There are two CD'S of the score. One is on Bay Cities, the other on Angel. I highly suggest finding/getting both. The endings/finales are totally different but equally enjoyable. "Night Song" and "Stick Around" have different arrangements with higher ending notes on different versions of "Stick Around". There was a song on Davis' solo album "If I Ruled The World" titled "There's A Party Going On" that I always liked but was ultimately cut from the score. I still love cranking up the volume and listening to the opening cut of this much underappreciated score.

[ChrisLovesShows]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 12:30pm

Lola Falana was on of the last stars of that era in which you could become sufficiently well-known by appearing on TV talk, variety, and game shows that you could parlay the exposure into success elsewhere, such as Vegas. As Marquise said, she was HUGE in Vegas.

Posted: 10/16/05 at 2:12pm

Demitri and Chris, thanks for your insights as well. Marquise, your update on Lola was terrific to have learned and particularly touching.

The cd recording I have is the Bay Cities one. I'll have to look for the Angel release.

This remains a true original original Broadway score, and oh, so woefully underappreciated to date.

[AuditioningWaitress]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 2:16pm

Did anyone see this at Long Wharf a few years back with Rodney Hicks and Michael Rupert?

[justme2]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 4:43pm

Love it! Encores did it justice in 2002; made me wish I could have seen Sammy's version as well.

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 8:01pm

Absoluely ADORE this CD! My favorite songs are "Don't Forget 127th Street", "I Wanna Be with You" and "This Is the Life".

[AuditioningWaitress]

Posted: 10/16/05 at 8:03pm

I'm surprised Collectors Choice hasn't reissued this...They've reissued a lot of Sammy Davis' back catalog...My dad is a huge fan, this is why I know this...

[goldenboy]

Posted: 10/17/05 at 10:27am

The song, "If I Ruled the World" is from the Broadway Show
Pickwick with Harry Secombe---

Harry and the cast performed it on Ed Sullivan (God I'm old)

I don't think there was another song cu t from Golden Boy with that title.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 10/17/05 at 10:40am

Hmmm goldenboy...reread my post. The song I referred to ("There's A Party Going On") which was initially written for the show and cut was on Sammy Davis' solo album titled "If I Ruled The World". Yes, the album was titled after the song from "Pickwick" but the song cut from "Golden Boy" appears on his CD with the title, "SAMMY DAVIS - IF I RULED THE WORLD".