Question RE: The Sondheim "Opening Night Audios"

Is there any chance that these could ever be cleaned up professionally and released for sale? I think they're amazing and would give anything to hear them all fixed up but I don't now the legalities of that.

I certainly would like to 'hear' about them :P

---

The FOLLIES one is godly. Though I don't get why the prologue's tempo is so fast. I wonder if that was really the tempo on opening night? Or did something happen to the file over the years?

ljay when you say Follies Opening night audio are you referring to the one where Gene Nelson mistakes the lyrics in Buddy's Blues?

I always wonder why the theatre community isn't as 'on top of' older bootleg recordings as the general music world. There have been countless 'bootleg' recording releases professionally and otherwise for rock concerts and such for half a century and more now, but I can't think of a single time its happened in the Broadway community. I haven't heard any of these opening night audios, but I do hope that some time Broadway will get on top of seeing that even though the magic of theatre is fleeting, sometimes its nice to have a bit of a record centuries later.

---

Thanks Jordan, I figured that's what they were.

---

I always wonder why the theatre community isn't as 'on top of' older bootleg recordings as the general music world.

I think sites like BWW contribute to a hysteria about them. Remember when you couldn't even type the words "you tube" because if someone listened to a bootleg there and clicked from BWW then BWW was going to explode?

I know there's some precedent for releasing old bootlegs commercially, but I imagine it's usually more trouble than its worth. Equity, for one, would be a barrier.

I hate how some of these and demos get the speeds messed up over time and become slower or faster (and lower or higher pitched). I think it simply would be such a legal hassle, and would never happen--it wouldn't justify the price, until ages from now when all copyright, etc, is gone from these. Look at the fiasco that happened with Broadway's Lost Treasures and those were legal tv airings... It would prob be even more likely to see videos from the Lincoln Center Archive (God how I wanna see their Company Tour video) released, before these, and you knwo that will never happen...

Are there two for Follies? I seem to have a Boston and a New York one but am not sure if both are sound board recordings... I haven't listened in a while (my recordings are actually still on casettes I got as a teen) but I remember having the exact same prob with pitch and speed as PJ mentions.

I find the out of town ones especially fascinating--I'd love to find one for Company when Happily Ever After was still in, a song I've yet to hear recorded with its Tunick orchestrations... (Thank god we have some legal recordings of some such cut songs--like the original Frid doing Silly People with full orchestration on the "Scrabble" album even though it was cut out of town... On the same recording it always makes me mad that Larry Kert does so little of Happily Ever After before it goes into Being Alive, although that's just with piano anyway, and he obviously wasn't Bobby out of town).

*ahem* Sorry another ramble... But yeah, I doubt this could ever happen, unlike the Sondheim sung demos--would just be too much money and too many issues to deal with.

"I always wonder why the theatre community isn't as 'on top of' older bootleg recordings as the general music world. "

Quite simply I think it's largely because it's much easier to either get clearance, or sneak through a bootleg of a five member band, often the band doesn't even mind, than dealing with a cast and orchestra of 30-50+ people, plus composers and book writers, all represented by rather intense unions.

Eric,
I believe including the Los Angeles production there are 4 FOLLIES.

Imagine in the theatre future, how different our perspective on history and the great performances of the past will be. We hold Edwin Booth and his ilk to be the greatest actors of all time, simply on word of mouth and reputation. A hundred years from now, performers debating the merits of the actors of our time will have a wide variety of videos and audio footage to show how they "really were," not just the edited and often sanitized cast recordings.

Also, consider how different the process of recreating the original staging of "Oklahoma" would have been if there were audios and videos from that time period.

Husk way back when I paid a lot more attention to, *ahem* less than legal recordings, I remember being told about a Boston Company with the pre Shire Tick Tock and Happily as well, but I never have managed to track it down... I think you just got me to start looking again, lol.

Tick Tock was finalized at the last minute when they brought in David Shire to do it with themes from the score. No one was much satisfied with the earlier versions (which McKechnie incidentally danced in bras and underwear back then).

Bumping. If anyone has information, please PM me. The users who used to have all the inside knowledge on Follies, Pal Joey and Phyllis Rogers Stone, no longer post here.