Thursday, September 10, 2015
Film Soundtrack, 1939 (MGM/Rhino-Turner) Is it an overstatement to call MGM's The Wizard of Oz the world's most beloved film? Happily, a superb job has been done with the latest edition of t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:55PM[SHARE]Studio Recordings, Piano Rolls, Music-Box Discs, 1903-08 (Hungry Tiger Press, 2CDs) Shortly after L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a stage musical version became the bigge…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:47PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1975 (Atlantic) L. Frank Baum hit theatrical pay dirt with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Two years after the novel's publication in 1900, Baum and partners launched a m…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:18PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1952 (RCA) Eddie Fisher's mega-hit recording of the title tune helped turn this Catskills summer romance, based on Arthur Kober's play Having Wonderful Time, from an …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:38PM[SHARE]Original Cast Members, 1995 (RCA) Composer Jeffrey Lunden and lyricist-librettist Arthur Perlman deserve credit for tackling such difficult source material: Arthur Kopit's acclaimed play Win…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:30PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1982 (EMI/Ange1) Much of Tony Macaulay's music is too pop-rocky for an adaptation of the classic 1920s Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur comedy The Front Page, but Macaulay a…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:51AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1991 (Sony) Chameleonic composer Cy Coleman and stalwart Broadway lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the songs for The Will Rogers Follies, a fanciful musi…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:40AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1955 (RCA) Cole Porter's last Broadway show is a charming and sophisticated musical based on the Greta Garbo film Ninotcka. Only Porter could have given that heady ci…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 07:14PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1997 (Sony) Based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton, twins who were born joined at the hip and who had minor show business careers that exploited their oddity, …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 06:56PM[SHARE]Original London/Broadway Cast, 1976 (RCA) When Side by Side by Sondheim opened in London, it was warmly received, as half of Sondheim's shows had not yet been seen in the West End. In New Yo…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 06:36PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (Roulette/no CD) Carol Channing spent many years between Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly! touring in a successful nightclub act that was gussied up for…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 06:18PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2000 (RCA) This was the first of the entries in the 2000 competition between two stage musical adaptations of Joseph Moncure March's epic poem. Although Andrew Li…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:13PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2000 (Decca) Composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa was not unknown when The Wild Party, his adaptation of Joseph Moncure March's 1928 poem of the same title, hit Br…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:57PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (RCA) Why did the star of Wildcat choose to make her Broadway debut in a show with requirements so far afield from her abilities? Lucille Ball had looks and char…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:46PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2003 (Decca) Don't go to this recording for a perfectly accurate representation of what's heard in the theater; the songs were somewhat edited for the cast album to r…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:52PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1958 (MGM/Polydor) With music by Moose Charlap and lyrics by Norman Gimbel, Whoop-Up was a quick failure set in a Montana bar ("where you don't have to wear a tie to …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:37PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1998 (Deutsche Grammophon) The recording of a previously unrecorded musical theater score is usually a cause for celebration, but A White House Cantata is a maddening misfire. T…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:20PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1998 (Polydor) Labeled Songs from Whistle Down the Wind, this collection of 12 numbers performed by a lineup of pop stars is easier to take than the subsequent London stage cast…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:05PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1958 (Columbia/Angel) Based on Charley's Aunt, the reliable old farce by Brandon Thomas, Where's Charley? was a big hit on Broadway in 1948 with Ray Bolger in the lead.…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:53PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1997 (RCA) The second of two revues that showcased the talents of outré costume designer Howard Crabtree was an evening of bright, largely gay humor. Though seve…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:37PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (Columbia/GL Music) Longtime theatergoers will recall that, for a brief time decades ago, Steve Lawrence was touted as the next great Broadway leading man. Exhib…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:44PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1990 (JAY) No stars; not recommended. The only reason to musicalize a play is to add something to it, to enrich the original material. But again and again in this show based on …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:31PM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1958 (Columbia/Masterworks Broadway) Strong reviews kept Simply Heavenly on the boards for about four months in all. The show opened Off-Broadway, later moved to Broa…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:05PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (Columbia/Sony/Masterworks Broadway) Conceived by Jerome Robbins, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (and an uncredited Bernstein), and …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:24PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1993 (Columbia) Composer Alan Menken wrote some of his most dazzling and sophisticated music for this largely forgotten pair of one-act musicals. He and his colla…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:50PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Off-Off-Broadway Cast, 2001 (Original Cast Records) Irving Berlin's first hit was exhumed by the Off-Off-Broadway company Musicals Tonight! in 2001. According to the CD notes, the show is a …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:51PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Capitol/Angel) One of the problems with Walking Happy, which is set in England, is that it seems too American. Still, the show has an entertaining score with so…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:39PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (Resmiranda) Dorris Betts' short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" " about a young woman who, maimed by an axe blade as a child, goes on a journey of healing " was…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:22PM[SHARE]Film Soundtrack, 1982 (MGM/Rhino/GNP Crescendo) The Blake Edwards film that served as the basis for Julie Andrews' last Broadway musical is really a comedy with a few incidental songs. Based…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:46PM[SHARE]Broadway Cast, 1975 (DRG) Very lively, very catchy, very melodic " but not Very Good Eddie. The Goodspeed Opera House's revival of the 1915 Jerome Kern musical " the first show in the famed …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:36PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1979 (Original Cast Records) This was a good idea: a sort of unofficial musical version of the old "St. Trinian's" stories and movies about an English school filled w…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:28PM[SHARE] 
