Posted: 9/22/17 at 7:19pm
I have never listened to The Music Man (I know, I know) and would love to listen to a cast recording. IYO, what would be the best recording to introduce myself to the show with?
Posted: 9/22/17 at 8:02pm
I actually grew up with the 2000s revival album, so it is a sentimental favorite and probably the most complete. But the show kinda belongs to Robert Preston and Barbara Cook. The original is the best place to start.
Posted: 9/22/17 at 8:13pm
Preston and Cook. Original cast. Full stop.
Preston is so good, they actually let him repeat the role in the film version.
Cook is the definitive soprano of her era.
There is some dance music missing, but the OBCR is basically complete.
Posted: 9/22/17 at 10:10pm
I would go one step further and say the film soundtrack with Preston. It's essentially the same as the stage album but bigger and more precise.
Posted: 9/22/17 at 10:26pm
I love the soundtrack also probably because I have seen the movie gazillion times...and it just brings back so many memories. Shirley Jones was not Barbara Cook but she was damn close. It pretty much had a perfect cast all around.
However, you have to remember that "My White Knight" which is in the original production was altered to a newish song called "Being in Love" - which has one verse the same but the rest of it is different.
You really can't go wrong with either...
Posted: 9/22/17 at 10:34pm
Yeah, you can go wrong. Omit "My White Knight" and you are left with a rather thin score. Great novelty numbers, but not much else.
Don't get me wrong. I worked with Shirley Jones and she is a lovely lady and very talented. But her Marian is one of a number of soprano heroines she did in a short period (Laurie, Julie Jordan, etc.). Cook's Marian is unique.
Posted: 9/22/17 at 11:13pm
The performances are the best on the OBC, but there's a lot of energy in the 2000 revival album and some of the orchestrations are really nice. Also, it's more complete, so it's better to use in you're doing a production of the show. Basically, the OBC is the best, but owning the 2000 recording has it's perks.
Posted: 9/22/17 at 11:27pm
I would argue the 2000 revival recording best captured the energy & excitement of the score. It also features orchestrations far superior to the original.
Posted: 9/22/17 at 11:43pm
I wholeheartedly agree with GavestonPS. Nothing compares with the OBC recording with Preston and Cook. I saw the revival with Bierko and Luker and I can recommend that recording as a second choice. I enjoyed Bierko mostly because he reminded me of Preston. Luker was excellent, but Cook's performance is in class by itself. It is vocally flawless and very touching.
Updated On: 9/22/17 at 11:43 PM
Posted: 9/23/17 at 12:11am
Original Cast Recording 100%, but I wish it had the full dance arrangements for 76 Trombones, Marian the Librarian and Shipoopi. But it's still the best there is by a long shot.
Posted: 9/23/17 at 12:51am
Add another vote for the OBC with Preston and Cook. The film recording is good, but you miss something really special if you miss "My White Knight". It would have been amazing to have the original dance music, true. If you are doing a production and looking for the dance music, the 2000 revival has (in many places) different dance music than the original score. Personally, I also think the 2000 recording orchestra sounds thin. The original orchestrations are glorious. The OBC recording doesn't have the quality of sound to show off all the myriad details, but if you ever get a chance to hear the original orchestrations live with a full orchestra, you'll understand what I mean.
Posted: 9/23/17 at 1:16am
The original recording is the perfect realization of Meredith Willson's vision. Period. I agree with those who feel "My White Knight" is indispensible to a complete recording of the score. By the way,what do you all make of the longstanding rumor that Frank Loesser actually wrote it? Gaveston, any opinion?
Posted: 9/23/17 at 3:29am
GavestonPS said: "Yeah, you can go wrong. Omit"My White Knight" and you are left with a rather thin score. Great noveltynumbers, but not much else.
Don't get me wrong. I worked with Shirley Jones and she is a lovely lady and very talented. But her Marian is one of a number of soprano heroines she did in a short period(Laurie, Julie Jordan, etc.). Cook's Marian is unique."
Oh? Where did you work with her? Just curious. I disagree about My White Knight - Willson kept the best part of it in the middle of Being in Love, a song I prefer - I know I'm in the minority about that. I'm sure Cook was wonderful, but Shirley Jones was superb in the film - actually everyone is superb in the film and the Ray Heindorf Warners orchestra can't be beat nor can the beefed up orchestrations, which are brilliant. So I take it you saw Ms. Cook do the role? In any case, I love Shirley - I worked with her a mere eight years after The Music Man came out, and that gig turned into a little recurring thing so I worked with her several times over the next three years. I adored her and every time I see her these days, we reminisce about those days.
So, the OBC is great, the film soundtrack is great. I don't think much of the revival recording itself, although I kind of enjoyed some of the production. Finally, I find nothing "thin" about the score to The Music Man - there isn't a song I don't love.
Posted: 9/23/17 at 4:37am
I vote for the original cast recording with Preston and Cook. Back in when the show was new, original cast recording seldom included all the dance music and the bow music. The original orchestrations were done by Don Walker. Here are his credits. He wasn't chopped liver.
https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/don-walker-12540
Posted: 9/23/17 at 6:58am
There was a studio recording with Timothy Nolan and Doc Severinson as Marcellus that was really good. It had all the dance music. When my grandsons were younger, one of them threw it out the window of my car. Alas!
Posted: 9/23/17 at 6:18pm
Thanks for sharing this info about Don Walker! He orchestrated far more shows than I realized. Would you put him in the same category as Robert Russell Bennett?
Posted: 9/23/17 at 9:06pm
Better than Bennett. Bennett’s work is great for certain things, but with jazzy work, he was a little out of his element. Walker could do it all.
Posted: 9/23/17 at 9:45pm
GavestonPS said: "Preston and Cook. Original cast. Full stop.
Preston is so good, they actually let him repeat the role in the film version.
Cook is the definitive soprano of her era.
There is some dance music missing, but the OBCR is basically complete."
Not just that, but the thing is, the powers that be for the film didn't originally want Preston because they wanted a bigger name at the time. It's took a lot of teeth pulling to get Preston do it again. There's always those roles that somehow got so iconic that anyone else just falls short and Preston as Harold is one of them. I also still haven't come across a better Captain Hook in PP than Cyril Ritchard either.
Posted: 9/23/17 at 9:52pm
The Original Broadway Cast first. Then, for a more complete recording and for the divine lush orchestra, the 1991 Cincinnati Pops recording (with Tommy Nolan and Doc Severinson).
Posted: 9/24/17 at 12:18am
Mister Matt said: "The Original Broadway Cast first. Then, for a more complete recording and for the divine lush orchestra, the 1991 Cincinnati Pops recording (with Tommy Nolan and Doc Severinson)."
Almost, but not quite. It was Tim Noble, not Tom Nolan, who sang Harold Hill on the Cincinnati Pops disc. He's a wonderful singer who has taught at U of Indiana for many years. Not a graduate of Gary Conservatory class of aught 5,however!
Posted: 9/24/17 at 12:47am
I like the film version a lot- Shirley Jones and Robert Preston are both terrific. I love the 2003 TV version though with Chenoweth as Marian and Debra Monk as her mother. Broderick is obviously no Preston and is miscast in the role, but his work is not awful.
Posted: 9/24/17 at 1:36am
I usually prefer revival recordings because of improved sound/recording quality and they're often more complete... but you really can't beat the original cast recording here. I like the revival recording and the soundtrack for the original film... but... there's a spark of magic to the OBC that I don't think it matched by the other recordings.
Posted: 9/24/17 at 1:57am
green waver said: "The original recording is the perfect realization of Meredith Willson's vision. Period. I agree with those who feel "My White Knight" is indispensible to a complete recording of the score. By the way,what do you all make of the longstanding rumor that Frank Loesser actually wrote it? Gaveston, any opinion?"
I had long pondered that rumor myself; but when I voiced it in a post here, someone (in fact, it might have been Someone in a Tree) pointed out that Cook performs an earlier version of "My White Knight" on her Carnegie Hall debut CD. It is basically a patter song--much like "Trouble"--with a few 32-bar lyrical sections, the latter being all that was left by opening night.
Definitely a Meredith Willson song. And though I suppose Frank Loesser (a producer of the show) could have written the lyrical sections, I doubt Willson needed the help. If we compare Marian's songs to Leadville Johnny Brown's songs (heavily lyrical) in MOLLY BROWN, it doesn't seem so odd that Willson would have written an operetta aria for his librarian.
Posted: 9/24/17 at 2:12am
JennH said: "GavestonPS said: "Preston and Cook. Original cast. Full stop.
Preston is so good, they actually let him repeat the role in the film version.
Cook is the definitive soprano of her era.
There is some dance music missing, but the OBCR is basically complete."
Not just that, but the thing is, the powers that be for the film didn't originally want Preston because they wanted a bigger name at the time. It's took a lot of teeth pulling to get Preston do it again. There's always those roles that somehow got so iconic that anyone else just falls short and Preston as Harold is one of them. I also still haven't come across a better Captain Hook in PP than Cyril Ritchard either.
"
I'm not sure whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with me about Preston. LOL. I'm sure they did want a bigger star (Preston had basically done B-movies at that time), but couldn't find one nearly as good in the part.
And I absolutely agree with you about Ritchard as Hook.
******
bk, Shirley did a summer tour of THE SOUND OF MUSIC in 1977, that played in the theater I ran in Miami Beach. I didn't "know" her to the extent you did, obviously, but I spent some time with her because of our house's sound problems and found her charming and entirely professional. And even at 43, she made a lovely Maria. (Though, hell, in our 3,000-seat barn, she could have played Gretl!) I wasn't trying to drop a name so much as attest that I have no anti-Jones bias. LOL.
I talked to her for a long time at the opening night party and then we went to the ballroom to hear her son sit in on drums with the house band. I'm thinking now that must have been Patrick Cassidy, a later favorite due to the ASSASSINS recording.
Posted: 9/24/17 at 2:21am
I could actually really go for a revival of this show right now. Maybe with Zachary Levi and Kelli O'Hara. It never ceases to put a smile on my face.
I actually just listened to the OBC and it seems to be missing the 76 trombones/Goodnight my someone reprise near the end of the show. That's one of my favorite portions of the score. It's a shame that it's missing.
It's also the first time that I've listened to the recording since the passing of Barbara Cook and oh my did it hit my heart. It's so wonderful that she's immortalized on so many beautiful cast recordings.
