John Raitt "Soliloquy"

After seeing the clips of this on the PBS documentary, does anyone know if there's any complete audio recordings of John Raitt's "Soliloquy" where he sings the optional high note at the end? Just curious.

On the PBS "Broadway: The American Musical" documentary, there's a clip of the very end of "Soliloquy" where instead of the notes on "or die" that he sings on the original cast album and the Lincoln Center one, he goes up to what someone said on another board was a B-flat.

That note was beautiful. Whenever I've listened to recordings of that song, it's sounded like Billy should go up to the B flat there anyway, but I'd imagine few baritones can hit that note.

Wait, was John Raitt a baritone in his prime, or a tenor?

Wow...that would be worth having. Flipping the vinyl in the middle of a song, huh? Thank goodness THAT, at least, was before my time.

Flipping Vinyl? LOL, 78 RPMS were pressed in heavy shellac. Very breakable. A 12-inch record played about 4 1/2 minutes per side. The more standard 10" discs played about 3 minutes. Ever wonder why the early OCRS have such short selections? the numbers had to be cut down to fit on the records. So the CAROUSEL album (which was five 12-inch 78s, plus a booklet with all the lyrics!) cut the middle section of the waltz, and eliminated the whole "bench scene" leading up to "If I Loved You." They combined "Blow High Blow Low" and "Real Nice Clambake" to make one side, and the same with "Stonecutters" and "What's the Use of Wond'rin'" The final side starts with Billy's "The Highest Judge of All" with that final high note. Then Julie's dialogue ("he's dead, Nettie. What am I gonna do?") leading into Nettie's "You'll Never Walk Alone." After her solo the chorus picks up the refrain from "Walk on through the wind..." and the record ends with those final few lines from the finale.

As a kid I had only seen the movie (which dropped "Highest Judge") so I figured in the play Billy sang that big aria then expired after that high note. It wasn't until I read the script that I learned how much Decca had fudged the running order of the songs. When Long play records came out, Decca put CAROUSEL out in the new speed, but moved "Solioquy" back to close the first side of the Lp, placing it right after "If I Loved you" !!
So they meet all in love and bam right away Julie gets pregnent!

I should add that the CD tries to put the songs back in their proper order.

---