Thursday, August 27, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (Casablanca) Neil Simon based his book for They're Playing Our Song on the real-life relationship of the show's composer and lyricist, Marvin Hamlisch and Carole…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:05PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1949 (Decca) Although it is now forgotten, this mild satire on Texas politics ran out the season, and a near-hit song or two came out of its score by composer Robert …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:59PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1960 (Capitol/Angel) It all starts with a marvelous opéra bouffe-style overture that sets the tone perfectly for this tale of the Tenderloin, New York's most notorio…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:40PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1998 (New World, 2CDs) This was one of the Gershwins' middling, mid-1920s musicals, chock-a-block with mistaken identities, society marriages, and principal comics delivering nu…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:15PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1984 (Polygram) Onstage, it was an entertaining, beautifully put together, old-fashioned show, but the cast album of The Tap Dance Kid reveals an uninteresting score.…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:04PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (Painted Smiles) One of the most colorful personalities in show business history, Tallulah Bankhead was so imitable that any impressionist worth his or her s…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:41PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (DRG) This show managed only a brief run " not because there was anything wrong with the writing or the production, but perhaps because the general public di…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:15PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2000 (Original Cast) [user=5] This is a gilt-edged tribute to lyricist John Latouche, who wrote in a number of genres and had only occasional good fortune in any …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:43PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (RCA) Eugene O'Neill's uncharacteristic comedy Ah, Wilderness! seemed a natural candidate for stage musical treatment " even though the MGM musical Summer Holida…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:32PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 2003 (First Night) Who would have imagined Boy George as a theater composer? Yet with this show, partly about George's rise to fame in the London club scene of the earl…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:08PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1966 (Kapp/no CD) For a tantalizing glimpse of the talent and creativity spawned Off-Broadway in happier times, seek out this 1966 hit, a Restoration-style comedy…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 08:50AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Studio Cast, 1997 (Performing Arts Preservation Assn.) When producer William Repicci caught a performance of a work in progress by Linda Thorsen Bond that was being staged in Midland, Texas,…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:58PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1996 (After 9) No stars; not recommended. Subtitled "The Johnny Burke Musical," this show tried to avoid being just another composer tribute revue by placing the song…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:08PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1999 (Sony) No stars; not recommended. On Broadway, this revue's main selling point was Lynne Taylor-Corbett's ultra-strenuous choreography. What's left on disc is a …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:57PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2002 (Sony) With a book by John Guare, this musical based on the dark film Sweet Smell of Success found few fans during its three-month Broadway run, but the cast rec…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:41AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Columbia) This is a practically flawless recording of a Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields score that ranks as one of the best of the 1960s. Bob Fosse's adaptation of th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:44AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (RCA, 2CDs) Every musical theatre fan has a personal favorite Sondheim score, and the man's oeuvre is so rich and diverse that it's impossible to argue what is t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:10AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 25, 2015
World Premiere Recording, 1993 (Polydor, 2CDs) Andrew Lloyd Webber heard a semi-operatic, sung-through musical in Billy Wilder's 1950 melodrama film noir, but he made a mistake in choosing D…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:22AM[SHARE]Friday, August 21, 2015
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1990 (TER-JAY) No stars; not recommended. In 1978, a musical titled Platinum had an extremely brief run on Broadway. It starred the stylish Alexis Smith in the ro…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:17PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (B'way Entertainment/Varèse Sarabande) Lavishly produced, beautifully designed, lovingly directed, Sugar Babies was a burlesque show featuring very funny old sk…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:16PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1972 (United Artists/MGM) Sugar was a shocker, the first indication that the great David Merrick production machine of the 1950s-'60s was breaking down. Gower Champio…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:03PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (Columbia/Fynsworth Alley) A legendary title, if for no other reason than David Merrick's scandalous marketing of the show: He looked in the phone book, found se…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:37PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1950 (Decca) Operetta albums from decades ago often sound even more dated than the material itself, with white-bread orchestrations and stilted singing. You'd expect the 1924 wa…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:11AM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1991 (Elektra, 2CDs) The "Roxbury Recordings" series of restored Gershwin scores was a mixed bag, but this double CD of Strike Up the Band, recorded here in its unsuccessful 192…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:53AM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1964 (AEI) For a long time, this was an extremely rare recording, so AEI's CD release was especially welcome. With music by Richard Chodosh and lyrics by Barry Al…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:49AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1947 (Columbia/Sony) Composer Kurt Weill and lyricist Langston Hughes set Elmer Rice's 1929 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene to music as an opera, although th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:40AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 20, 2015
Original London Cast, 1961 (Decca/Hallmark) This may not be a great musical, but it has a great score by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. These are inventive, compelling songs. The lyrics…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:19PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1997 (RCA) The idea of a John Kander and Fred Ebb musical set during a 1930s dance marathon sounds like a natural; this milieu would seem to be an ideal backdrop for …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:41PM[SHARE]Selections From 1945 and 1962 Film Soundtracks (Varèse Sarabande) The Rodgers and Hammerstein score for the 1945 film version of State Fair is unlike any of the team's other efforts in that…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:17PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1977 (RCA) Few cast recordings are as good as this one, made up of songs written by Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire for about 10 years' worth of unsuccessful …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:56AM[SHARE]Ethel Merman With Studio Artists, 1939 (Liberty/AEI) The first musical with a score by composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Dorothy Fields, Stars in Your Eyes reunited Ethel Merman and Jimm…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:31AM[SHARE] 
