PR: Masterworks Broadway announces Working, Call Me Madam and The Desert Song

[cinemediapromo]

Posted: 6/22/12 at 9:52am

MASTERWORKS BROADWAY TO RELEASE
NEW SERIES OF RARE AND FORGOTTEN CAST ALBUMS

Working – July 10th
Call Me Madam – August 14th
The Desert Song – September 11th


MASTERWORKS BROADWAY continues to make good on its promise to open its vaults with more classic cast recordings previously unavailable in the CD era. Working (1978 Original Broadway Cast), Call Me Madam (Dinah Shore and the Original Broadway Company, 1950) and Desert Song (1959 Studio Cast) will be available as downloads through all major digital service providers and as disc-on-demand with the original cover art, via Arkivmusic.com and Amazon.com. All releases will be accompanied by new album pages and photos on MasterworksBroadway.com.

Based on the book by Studs Terkel, Working (197 tells the story of average working people through original songs written by Stephen Schwartz (who also directed the show), James Taylor, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers and Susan Birkenhead. Terkel described the production as a celebration of the “ordinary” people whose lives are unsung. Though Working only ran for a total of 24 performances, it was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Steven Boockvor and Rex Everhart). The formidable cast also included Joe Mantegna and Lynne Thigpen, plus Bob Gunton and Patti LuPone who would be reunited a year later as husband and wife in the original Broadway cast of Evita. Working continues to be revised and performed throughout the world and was adapted for an episode of PBS’s “American Playhouse” in 1982. The 1978 Original Broadway Cast recording of Working will be available on July 10th.

Call Me Madam is a pure adrenalin shot of circa-1950 zeitgeist, a screwball comedy pulled from the headlines with impeccable timing. The show was conceived as a vehicle for Ethel Merman, at that moment arguably the biggest star in Broadway musicals, and reunited her with Irving Berlin, composer/lyricist of her blockbuster 1946 hit Annie Get Your Gun. A red-hot ticket when it opened on October 12, 1950 at the Imperial Theatre, Call Me Madam proved to be the blockbuster Merman and Berlin hoped for. They were in the very best of hands: George Abbott directed, Jerome Robbins choreographed and the casting was supervised by Abbott’s new young assistant, Harold Prince. The cast included an Oscar-winning leading man (Paul Lukas), the bright new presence of Russell Nype as Mrs. Adams’s lovelorn attaché and – as Merman’s underutilized understudy – the young Elaine Stritch. The capitalization for the entire show came from NBC and its record division, RCA Victor. Unfortunately a big problem loomed as Merman was under contract to Decca Records who refused to release her to star in what was sure to be a hit record. Ultimately, RCA Victor turned to one of its hottest singers, Dinah Shore, to step into Merman’s shoes for the original cast recording. It rose to No. 6 on the Billboard album chart but by the late 1950s, it had been deleted from the catalog. The recording got an LP reissue in 1977 but it disappeared again until this Masterworks Broadway release on August 14th, and is the first and only authorized CD version of RCA Victor’s Call Me Madam digitally remastered from the original tapes.

Desert Song, Sigmund Romberg’s classic musical with lyrics Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, is brought to life in this 1959 Living Stereo recording available September 11th. The cast features Giorgio Tozzi – a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera at the time – Kathy Barr and Peter Palmer (Lil’ Abner). Legendary maestro Lehman Engel provided brand new arrangements as well as serving as musical director for the recording. Long unavailable in any format, this is the first release of the 1959 Studio Cast recording of Desert Song in the digital era.

Masterworks Broadway is a label of Sony Masterworks. For email updates and information on Masterworks Broadway please visit www.masterworksbroadway.com.

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[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 1:20pm

This IS good news. The RCA Victor album of CALL ME MADAM has been available on Public Domain labels from the U.K. - bootlegged from previous Lp editions. It will be nice to hear it mastered from the original session discs/tapes.

Surprised that Masterworks was unable to get the rights to mix in Merman's tracks from her Decca album and create a composite original cast recording.

THE DESERT SONG album was almost impossible to find for many years and the CD edition of WORKING by Fynsworth Alley went out-of-print almost as soon as it was issued.

All three releases will be most welcome.

Now...how about SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING or JUNO (which were also issued briefly on CD by Fynsworth Alley.)

[sephyr]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 2:31pm

I really liked Working (which I saw on DVD). I wonder are they remastering the three cast recordings?

[tazber]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 3:15pm

I'm pretty sure they are. Working desperately needs a remaster!

[Mildred Plotka]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 4:24pm

Isn't the Fynsworth Working remastered from the original tapes? Sounds great to me.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 7:29pm

Really excited about THE DESERT SONG. I've always loved that score!

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 9:11pm

In his book THE WORLD OF MUSICAL COMEDY Stanley Green summed up the available DESERT SONG recordings (as of September 1960) writing "The Columbia and RCA recordings are almost identical in content, and both are conducted by Lehman Engle. However, the singing on the former (Nelson Eddy, Doretta Morrow) is preferable to that on the latter (Giorgio Tozzi, Kathy Barr.)"

While the Columbia Album was usually pretty easy to find (and kept in print for many years by Columbia Special Products), the RCA was quite scarce and gone from the catalog by the mid 1960s. (My April 1968 Schwann does not list it.) A copy surfaced at a used record store in Montreal for $1.00. I bought it but only played it once. The record was in good condition but I found it a dull performance. Still, I'm willing to give it another chance.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/25/12 at 9:14pm

I have a studio recording with Mario Lanza. I consider it a vanity recording because Lanza sings lots of songs not written for his character. Still, Mario Lanza had a glorious voice.