What’s The Best Production/Cast Recording of Follies?

Yes, definitely start with the Original Broadway Cast recording. It was remastered about 8 or 9 years ago, but the remastered version is out of print I believe. 

The OBC album is not complete. It's missing a lot of music, dance music, etc. It's considered a real loss that it was not recorded properly...but at least the remaster improved the sound.

A 2 CD recording of the last big revival was recorded and released by PS Classics. It's available digitally and physically. It's a great recording with, I believe, all of the music and a lot if dialog, too. Definitely worth having.

The book EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE, by Ted Chapin, is a great read. It chronicles the out of town tryout in Boston...some great stories!

That said, if the goal is to familiarise yourself with the show surely the best place to start is the NTlive recording of the London revival (is this widely available?). You can watch Imelda Staunton steal Bernadette’s performance with none of the vocal ability but I’m sure actually seeing it will be the best introduction. A few people have also uploaded bootlegs of the 2011 recording on YouTube that you could also look at. 

Updated On: 7/30/21 at 05:04 PM

Skip the OBC recording. With that cast and that production, it should be heaven. Would have been if Thomas Z. Shepard recorded it for Columbia. But Prince stupidly, stupidly, stupidly gave the rights to Capitol because he was miffed at Columbia over another project, and the  ensuing crappy audio and ridiculous cuts (not just numbers, but portions of numbers actually recorded) make it worthless. NOTHING of the greatness, or even the meaning, of the show is conveyed. One neat thing: the original orchestrations for "Beautiful Girls" had the on-stage band being fairly 1970's up-to-date, so that it makes the number sound wrong (there's what sounds like an electric guitar, at one point); this is an incredibly clever intentional example of how standards get ruined over the years by second rate nightclub bands, and no other recording reproduces it. All other versions just have piano until the full orchestra comes in.

The Follies in Concert recording is quite good, if also not quite complete. It's only rival is the Paper Mill Playhouse version, which is complete but not quite as good (not quite as energetic, not quite the cast, but a very good cast--and lots of additional songs that never made it to the final show in 1971).

The 2011 album is not good. The performances aren't there. And for some reason Peters gives Sally a voice like she's recreating Marie from Sunday in the Park. Sally's about 50, not 80. Maybe they should have cast her as Hattie.

Updated On: 8/1/21 at 06:15 AM

The PS Classics/Tommy Krasker-produced 2011 revival recording is beautifully done, gives a sense of the complete show, and restores parts of the original book that were not performed onstage in that production. 
 

But… the original cast album, warts and all, is the best. And if you can find the recording Jordan C. mentions, that’s really the best audio document of the original production. 
 

I don’t like the Philharmonic recording at all. Barbara Cook and Lee Remick (and Betty and Adolph!) are ideal, but the rest of it is badly and bizarrely miscast. Oh, Arthur Rubin is great, too. But the two men and Stritch are particularly wrong. That puts a damper on it for me. 

Has anyone seen the French production (performed in English) that was released on dvd some years ago? 

Martijn-j said: "Has anyone seen the French production (performed in English) that was released on dvd some years ago?"

Yeah it's rubbish. The cast isn't bad, but the direction and production values are abysmal. The camera work too.

Smaxie said: ">I don’t like the Philharmonic recording at all. Barbara Cook and Lee Remick (and Betty and Adolph!) are ideal, but the rest of it is badly and bizarrely miscast.<

I love Barbara Cook in general, but I don't much like the higher keys she's singing in for Sally's songs. There have been very good Sallys on the other recordings but... I don't think anyonetouches Dorothy Collins."

You’re not wrong. I should be honest and say I worship Barbara Cook, so perhaps that seeps into my feelings. But Collins is just brilliant, and unsurpassed. 
 

That’s the problem with FOLLIES— the original casting was not just so apt, but those kinds of performers who had that kind of “Whatever happened to?” showbiz baggage (or is that a poor choice of word?) don’t exist anymore in quite the same way as in they did in 1971.

I can't say this counts because it's not available (certainly not from me).  But what I listen to is this- in the 70's I acquired a copy of Steve Sondheim's archive tape from the Winter Garden sound board (he was somewhat generous with it when the score was in eclipse.).  It also had the recording session for the original Boston Prologue and the then-unavailable Capitol session of "One More Kiss".  Quite an archive tape. The tape had its issues, as did the bootleg I myself did during a performance I saw (I saw it 4 times).  I was able to graft the two into a pretty seamless note-complete performance with some audio sweetening, later adding "Can That Boy Foxtrot!" and "Uptown Downtown"  from Boston bootlegs for good measure as bonus material.

Nowadays, on YouTube, there's a decent complete run of the show (with Helon Blount as Hattie) and the cut material from Boston, so anyone can go wild.

Updated On: 8/2/21 at 08:29 PM

I really think the Paper Mill Album is terrific.

And the songs that they recorded that are deleted being FULLY orchestrated?

I mean there's such a rich discography of "Follies songs" 

All Things Bright and Beautiful is so haunting and chilling