alternates on recordings instead of the main actor — Page 3

It really is no great loss that Joan Jett didn't record the cast album. Her voice was pretty rough and she screamed her way through the part. Her guitar solo, though, as ghostlight said, was really something. It can be seen on YouTube.

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Gypsy,

I enjoy no such thing.

As for my "picking on" him, I don't know what you're talking about. Do you?

Fact is, I've never called him, or anyone else, for that matter, a liar, an idiot, insane, etc., as he has me.

You're right. It's none of your business. But I admire your sticking up for someone you admire. But you should get the facts straight.

Slight digression here but a good place to document a bit of Broadway cast album recording history....


OKLAHOMA!

Decca recorded the key songs from the show for a 6-record set (10 songs plus Overture and finale) in October 1943. The set (Decca Album #359) was released in December 1943 and quickly became a best-seller.

Decca's 78-rpm "albums" were sets of records in a an album of sleeves - like a photo album - which is where the term originated - but the label often made the individual records available as well. This made sense because 78's are very brittle and easily broken. And it gave people the option of buying just the songs they wanted. (You paid 50 cents more for the album which had a cover with pictures of the show inside.)


In May 1944, Decca decided to issue a second volume of OKLAHOMA! selections covering the 3 songs left out of the first set BUT the second volume did not appear in record stores until January 1945 as Decca Album # 383. (Decca had issued an album of highlights from PORGY AND BESS in 1940 and when the Broadway revival happened in 1942 they issued a second volume. So a Volume 2 was not unheard of at the time.)

Apparently Jack Kapp of Decca wanted Alfred Drake's name on the cover, and as DaSilva wasn't much of a singer it has been suggested that Rodgers wanted a more musical voice on the record.

Kapp did not contract with show managements, but instead signed each performer on an individual basis. (Years later Actor Equity got into the act and demanded that EVERY cast member - even those in non singing roles be paid a weeks salary for each day in the recording studio.) This gave Kapp the option of replacing someone he didn't like with one of his contract performers. Kitty Carlisle was a Decca recording artist, and Irra Petina was under contract to Columbia Records. So, Decca had Carlisle step in for the role of the Countess on their SONG OF NORWAY album. Petina recorded her songs with Robert Weede for a Columbia album of selections from SONG OF NORWAY. (The LP side break came between two lines of dialogue involving the Countess. I had always assumed that this was where the 78-rpm record had to be flipped but when I finally found the original album of SONG OF NORWAY I found this was not the case. Decca had abridged many sections for the score for their Lp transfer and the break just happened where it happened.)

The contracts were fairly detailed and even recently, Joan Roberts reported still getting residuals for the OKLAHOMA! album.

Volume One of OKLAHOMA! continued to sell well, but Volume Two sold far fewer copies. Volume One was transferred to Lp in 1949 (sadly, running tad fast...the LP editions were always about 1/2 tone sharp!) but the label felt that 20 minutes was the most that an Lp could comfortably hold on each side. (They also cut songs from CARMEN JONES and portions of songs from BLOOMER GIRL an SONG OF NORWAY for the LP editions.) Over the years as Decca was absorbed into larger companies no one ever bothered to go back and correct this. OKLAHOMA! was kept in circulation and reissued in a new cover in 1955, the again in the late fifties in a "fake" stereo remix. When MCA took over Decca they re-released all the old cast albums but OKLAHOMA! was still just Volume One. (By this time technology allowed an LP side to include up to 30 minutes of music.)

In 1980 Time-Life put out a series of albums celebrating great Broadway musical writers and their Rodgers and Hammerstein set included OKLAHOMA! and put the extra Volume Two songs into the program. This series was available by mail-order subscription only.

It was not until the first CD edition from MCA that the full program was issued commercially, but sound was poor. The Volume One songs were taken from the 1955 LP master but the Volume Two songs were taken from shellac disc copies and sounded noisy.

Starting in the early 1940's Decca began covering all their recording sessions with 16-inch glass-based transcription records. (Masters for 78-rpm discs were cut into wax blanks which were then coated to form metal stampers. The transcription records had been used in radio for many years and had quieter surfaces.) In 1993 as part of major celebration of the 50th anniversary year for both OKLAHOMA! and Rodgers and Hammerstein, Max Preeo (of Show Music magazine) and Ron O'Brien put out a box set of 4 Cd's including OKLAHOMA!, CAROUSEL an KING AND I (all OBCRs made by Decca) plus a 4th disc of pop covers of R&H songs.

For this set they went back to the rarely used glass master discs which yielded a much richer more full-bodied "high fidelity" sound. They also put the Volume One cover on the front of the CD booklet with Volume Two's cover on the back. This is essentially the same version that Decca Broadway still has in their catalog.

Most of the recent Decca Broadway reissues of these older shows have been taken from the glass masters (where they survived... A CONNECTICUT YANKEE was a sad story where the mater discs were broken.) So the CD editions of CARMEN JONES, BLOOMER GIRL and SONG OF NORWAY are all complete and with even better sound than any previous issues.

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Updated On: 5/17/12 at 01:25 PM

On the Secret Garden Broadway Cast Recording, John Babcock, the opening night Colin, records the entire role EXCEPT for "Come to My Garden / Lift Me Up," which was recorded by an alternate (probably Understudy Joel E. Chaiken, but I don't have the liner notes in front of me to confirm this. It is listed somewhere in the credits who sings the song, though). I believe Babcock had already stopped performing as his voice had changed bringing the role above his range, but they let him record what he could. This is why he sounds almost like an adult male speaking in falsetto on the recording.

Then there is always the Jane Froman OBC of Annie Get Your Gun. Again, Merman had a "contractual" clause which didn't allow her to record for whatever the company was that issued the OBC of Annie Get Your Gun.

This was eased when Columbia [or RCA] issued the Merman recording of the Lincoln Center 'revival' in the 60s. This one had Bruce Yarnall as Frank, and Jerry Orbach.

paljoey, that's very interesting to hear that you found Kert more moving than Jones in COMPANY. I fear a lot of us compare the actual performance we saw Kert give with an imaginary Jones performance we construct from the OBC recording and the companion documentary.

Don't get me wrong: I thought Kert was very good in COMPANY and I loved working with him and watching him perform in MUSICAL JUBILEE a few years later.

But I've always thought Bobby's songs were almost too easy for Kert. With Jones, I still wonder if he will get through "Being Alive", even though I've heard the recording hundreds of times. The Jones recording is the musical equivalent of an open wound.

Updated On: 5/14/12 at 05:58 PM

Wait, I'm confused--I thought Merman did do the 40s OBCR of Annie Get Your Gun?

Judy Kuhn had left SHE LOVES ME by the time the recording was made to originate the role of Betty Schaffer in the LA production of SUNSET BLVD. Diane Fratantoni (who now works under her married name, Diane Sutherland) replaced her and recorded the role of Amelia.

(And, as we now know of course, Kuhn didn't make it to Broadway with SUNSET due to pregnancy. Alice Ripley took the role. But Kuhn is on THAT cast recording.)

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The Decca reissue of that 40s Annie Get Your Gun has four bonus tracks, three that weren't recorded for the original and the added Old Fashioned Wedding, all I believe (without checking my disc) recorded in the early 70s and I guess owned by Decca. The el cheapo UK reissue with inferior sound is missing those.

I could be wrong about this, but I think when Les Miserables first opened, Donna Vivino was doing the majority of performances as Young Cosette and Braden Danner was the main Gavroche. They had understudies/alternates, but they were each doing at least six shows a week. So they would deserve to be on the cast album. Lion King and Beauty and the Beast were the same way. There is only one credited Chip and one pair of Young Simba/Young Nala in the opening night Playbills.

In the case of Little Mermaid, I think there were four Flounders at one point as the older pair was aging out and the new pair coming in, and I think two Flounders, possibly the original two, recorded the cast album.

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The Company national tour video at Lincoln Center was recorded on the last day of the tour in Washington D.C., May 20, 1972. By that time Chakiris had been replaced, first by Allen Case, and then by Gary Krawford, who is on that video.

Larry Kert is not on the OBC of Company....they had him sing over the Bobby parts for the OLC ..but Dean Jones recorded and sounds much better actually-Larry Kert was the stiffist performer i ever saw...good voice no emotion in it...Saw him in LA CAGE looked like he had a coat hanger still in his clothes

Thanks so much for your info on both counts AfterEight. Do you know who played Joanne in the video?