Original London Cast, 1930 (Columbia/Pearl) 
(3 / 5) One of the quintessential musicals of the 1920s, Rio Rita was also a bit of an oddity, poised as it was on the brink between musical comedy and operetta. It has a typically lush and improbable plot (romance and intrigue on the Texas/Mexico border), a lot of comic relief, and an excellent score by Harry Tierney with lyrics by Joseph McCarthy. Florenz Ziegfeld thought enough of the show to use it to inaugurate his colossal Ziegfeld Theater, where it opened in 1927 and ran for a year, then inspired two movies — a musical and an Abbott and Costello comedy. Since then, it has been little in evidence; with its haciendas and banditos, Rio Rita probably isn’t a candidate for a politically corrected revival. This album of six selections from the score features members of the original London cast. (“You’re Always in My Arms,” a song that Tierney wrote for the first movie version, is interpolated here.) Edith Day is fine as Rita. Geoffrey Gwyther, as her romantic Texas Ranger, is virile of voice but so implacably British in manner that’s it’s a hoot to hear him singing of his patrols along the Rio Grande. The nationality of the chorus members is just as obvious, but this doesn’t detract from their enthusiasm, or from the enjoyment these recordings still give a listener so many years after they were made. (Note: Selections from Lilac Time and A Southern Maid are also included on Pearl’s CD.) — Richard Barrios
All posts by Michael Portantiere
The Rink
Original Broadway Cast, 1984 (Polygram/JAY) 
(4 / 5) For Broadway diva lovers, it’s the Fight of the Century. In this corner: Chita Rivera as Anna, a feisty, middle-aged widow who’s about to walk out on the decrepit seaside roller rink she inherited from her husband, Dino. In the opposite corner: Liza Minnelli as Angel, her estranged, ex-hippie daughter, who’s racked up plenty of mileage on the road and in the bedroom. The stage is set for wisecracks, arguments, tears, and many flashbacks as Anna and Angel relive their tormented past, battle over the rink, and finally come to terms. Critics complained that Terrence McNally’s book, with its profane leading ladies and its preponderance of ugly incidents including fraud, rape, and domestic abuse, was unpleasant and manipulative. It is a shock to hear Liza sing to Chita, “Your ass is in a sling!” Still, the show is a true original. The only possible complaint about the score by composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb is that their songs are too knowingly tailored to the stars’ talents. But anyone who loves Rivera and Minnelli will find this cast album irresistible. Rivera has never been better, sardonically recalling her homemaking career in “Chief Cook and Bottle Washer” and belting her heart out in “We Can Make It.” Minnelli, cast as a wilted flower child, movingly reflects on her aimless life in “Colored Lights” and wackily imagines the rink as “Angel’s Rink and Social Center.” The stars pair up beautifully, trading barbs in “Don’t Ah Ma Me,” ogling men through a pot-induced haze in “The Apple Doesn’t Fall,” and kicking up their heels in “Wallflower.” The exclusively male supporting players, representing the wreckers who have come to tear down the rink, portray everyone in Anna and Angel’s pasts. (Included among these performers are future director Scott Ellis and future Broadway and TV star Jason Alexander.) The score reaches its peak in “Mrs. A,” featuring Anna, Angel, Lenny, and a clutch of leering neighborhood suitors; the number has the complexity of a one-act opera as it explores Anna’s loneliness and frustration, her anger at God, and Angel’s troubled awareness of her mother’s sex life. The show climaxes on a sour note with “All the Children in a Row,” a eulogy for the 1960s that sounds phony coming from Minnelli. Still, there are plenty of glitzy pleasures to be found here. — David Barbour
Original London Cast, 1988 (JAY) 
(2 / 5) As Anna and Angel, Josephine Blake and Diane Langton are surprisingly good and, at times, they sound like their Broadway predecessors. Still, this is a star vehicle without stars, and the performances of the London leading ladies don’t display Chita and Liza’s tough, malicious wit and all-enveloping warmth. Blake and Langton don’t get many laughs out of “The Apple Doesn’t Fall,” but on the plus side, Langton doesn’t sound as silly as Minnelli when delivering “All the Children in a Row.” As is the case in many London cast recordings of Broadway musicals, the entire performance is a bit too slow and lacks a certain edge — a real debit in a show that’s nothing if not edgy. — D.B.
Rex
Original Broadway Cast, 1976 (RCA) No stars; not recommended. This late-career Richard Rodgers flop, about the marital problems of Henry VIII, revealed the composer to be out of touch with contemporary Broadway. He wasn’t the only one: Librettist Sherman Yellen and lyricist Sheldon Harnick couldn’t decide if Henry, played by Nicol Williamson, was a monster of ambition and ego or a misunderstood paterfamilias like Captain von Trapp. Yellen’s big gimmick was to have Penny Fuller appear in Act I as Anne Boleyn and in Act II as her daughter, Elizabeth I; this created a neat psychological triangle with Henry, but the show’s melodies are often slow and stentorian, while the lyrics explain themselves to death. The best items are the opening madrigal “No Song More Pleasing” and the Henry-Anne ballad “Away From You.” The rest of the cast album is taken up by such awful numbers as “The Chase,” in which the men of the court keep score of Henry’s conquests, and “In Time,” a solo for Elizabeth that sounds like a first draft of “Do-Re-Mi.” (On the plus side, Irwin Kostal’s orchestrations frequently have a pleasant Renaissance patina.) Williamson croons mournfully through seemingly dozens of songs wherein he complains about the lack of an appropriate heir. Stargazer alert: Glenn Close can be heard in one or two numbers as Mary Tudor. — David Barbour
Rent
Original Broadway Cast, 1996 (Dreamworks, 2CDs) 
(5 / 5) Rent is a heartbreaking work in more than one sense. First, it’s a moving reimagination of La Bohème as a portrait of struggling artists on New York’s Lower East Side in the 1990s, coping with poverty, drugs, and AIDS. Second, composer-lyricist-librettist Jonathan Larson died before the first preview, depriving us of a major voice in the musical theater. Larson’s rich melodic gift is on full display here as he cunningly creates a Broadway opera in a modern musical idiom. Among the best items are “One Song Glory,” sung by the creatively blocked, HIV-positive musician Roger; “Light My Candle,” the seductive entrance for the ailing Mimi; the clever catalogue song “La Vie Bohème” (surely the only lyric to reference Maya Angelou, Stephen Sondheim, Susan Sontag, and the Sex Pistols); and the time-spanning “Seasons of Love.” But the score is filled with alluring, propulsive melodies and a fresh lyrical wit that undercuts any sentimentality. Rent has long since become a period piece, yet it remains viable because Larson captures the wounded idealism of his characters and makes you care deeply about them. The original production launched the careers of Adam Pascal (Roger), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Mimi), Anthony Rapp (Mark Cohen), Idina Menzel (Maureen), Taye Diggs (Benny), Jesse L. Martin (Tom Collins), and Wilson Jermaine Heredia (Angel). There’s not a weak performance in the bunch. The two-disc recording preserves the entire score and therefore reveals the breadth of Jonathan Larson’s ambition and talent. This is a key work that reached a new generation of young theatergoers. — David Barbour
Film Soundtrack, 2005 (Warner Bros., 2CDs/1CD highlights) (3 / 5) The film is but a shadow of the show, and the soundtrack can be summed up as smother, shorter, and slighter. Gone is much of the show score’s connective tissue in the form of brief musical sequences such as the phone calls from Mark and Roger’s mothers and the predatory television producer Alexi Darling. Also regrettable is the deletion of the “On the Street” and “Contact” sequences, which reveal much about the characters. Most of the Broadway principals repeated their roles in the movie, with two exceptions: Rosario Dawson is an acceptable Mimi, but the raw immediacy of Daphne Rubin Vega’s interpretation is much missed; and Tracie Thoms as Joanne isn’t as witty a sparring partner for Idina Menzel’s Maureen as was Fredi Walker. On the plus side, Wilson Jermaine Heredia’s rendition of the percussive, rapid-fire “Today for You” is more intelligible. The decision to begin the film with the breakout hit “Seasons of Love” is an indication that something has shifted here. When Rent opened, it was already a look back at a vanishing Lower East Side; the film and, by extension, the soundtrack recording treat it as a distant era in history, and as a consequence, a lot of the excitement is lost. Still, there are some fine cuts, and this version may be enjoyable to casual fans. A bonus track, “Love Heals,” written by Larson but left out of the show, was probably added in a vain attempt at garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Song. — D.B.
Reefer Madness
Original Los Angeles Cast, 1999 (Madness Records) (2 / 5) Musicals don’t come any sillier than the Kevin Murphy (lyrics-book) and Dan Studney (music-book) adaptation of Reefer Madness. This wacky show based on the legendary 1938 “masterpiece” of film propaganda was a big hit in Los Angeles; an Off-Broadway production two years later only ran for two weeks. It would seem that the tale of teenagers whose lives are corrupted and ultimately destroyed by “the green menace” of marijuana would be a natural for musicalization, but the songs are devoid of sincerity, and the whole thing gets tiresome quickly. A few moments stand out: the catchy title number, a strong first-act finale, and one great song, “Listen to Jesus, Jimmy.” The cast is uniformly terrific: Christian Campbell and Jolie Jenkins as the doomed young’ns; Robert Torti as both Jack (the villainous dealer) and Jesus Christ; the hilarious Harry S. Murphy in a variety of roles; the big-voiced Lori Alan as Jack’s pot-addled mistress; Erin Matthews as a self-described “reefer slut”; and John Kassir as a couple of colorful characters. The company is rounded out by a lively ensemble that includes Gregg Edelman, Michele Pawk, and Kristen Bell. David Manning and Nathan Wang lead the strong six-man band, and the recording ends with a pair of bonus tracks: one of them is a nice ballad from a work in progress, the other is a song dumped from Reefer Madness early in its run. — Seth Christenfeld
Red, Hot and Blue
Ethel Merman With Studio Artists, 1936 (Liberty/AEI) {usr=4] Hoping for another Anything Goes, producer Vinton Freedley put Cole Porter and Ethel Merman together again, this time adding Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope to the mix. But Red, Hot and Blue, about a missing heiress who can only be identified by a waffle-iron brand on her buttock, ran only about half as long as its predecessor. Merman recorded her four major songs from the show with pianists Fairchild and Carroll and their orchestra, and she’s in top form here — belting “Ridin’ High” to high heaven, breaking your heart in “Down in the Depths (on the 90th Floor),” and swinging with insouciance through the title song and “It’s DeLovely.” Also included are a Fairchild-Carroll instrumental medley and the amusing “The Ozarks Are Calling Me Home,” performed by Ramona and her Grand Piano. (Note: AEI’s CD also contains selections from the Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields show Stars in Your Eyes. Other songs from Red, Hot and Blue can be found on Ben Bagley’s Cole Porter Revisited album.) — Jeffrey Dunn
Redhead
Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (RCA/Fynsworth Alley) (3 / 5) With a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, Sidney Sheldon, and David Shaw, music by Albert Hague, and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, Redhead is certainly among the least-well-known shows to have won the Tony Award for Best Musical, in addition to several other Tonys. RCA’s initial “Living Stereo” release was missing “Essie’s Vision,” an exhilarating dream dance arranged by Roger Adams, but the original recording of that number was added for a later LP release. The CD release includes three new recordings of songs that were cut from the show: “You Love I” (sung by Jennifer Piech and Mark Price), “It Only Takes a Minute” (sung by Liz Callaway), and “What Has She Got?” (sung by Faith Prince). The 18 tracks from the original album may not enable you to follow the show’s intricate murder-mystery plot but, once heard, many of the tunes will likely run through your head for weeks. Gwen Verdon as Essie scores strongly in the effusive waltz “Merely Marvelous” and the tongue-twisting ”’Erbie Fitch’s Twitch.” Richard Kiley vacillates amusingly between “She’s Not Enough Woman for Me” (a comic duet with Leonard Stone) and “My Girl Is Just Enough Woman for Me” (a solo ballad); he also does a great job with “I’m Back in Circulation,” his character’s paean to freedom. Together, Verdon and Kiley shine in the romantic “Look Who’s in Love” and the climactic “I’ll Try.”Further delights include “The Simpson Sisters’ Door,” a sprightly opening chorale; “Behave Yourself,” a funny duet for Essie’s maiden aunts; and “The Pick-Pocket Tango,” with music that conjures images of the choreography that a young Bob Fosse devised for Verdon and Buzz Miller in the role of a jailer. As the song says, “merely marvelous” is how you’re likely to find this recording. — Jeffrey Dunn
Ragtime
“Songs from Ragtime,” 1996 (RCA) (4 / 5) One of the most precious gems of the American musical theater, Ragtime is replete with beautiful performances on this first recording of the magnificent score by Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), which was released to coincide with the show’s world premiere in Toronto. Based on the epic novel of the same title by E.L. Doctorow, the musical charts the fortunes of three families living in America just after the turn of the 20th century: an upper-class WASP clan settled in New Rochelle; a Jewish immigrant and his young daughter; and an African-American entertainer, his lover, and their baby son. Most of the principals heard here — Brian Stokes Mitchell as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., Audra McDonald as Sarah, Marin Mazzie as Mother, Mark Jacoby as Father, Peter Friedman as Tateh, and others — were also in the Broadway production two years later. (Camille Saviola, this album’s Emma Goldman, was not.) In contrast to the subsequent Broadway cast album, “Songs from Ragtime” gives us only highlights of the score; the show’s major musical moments, including such expertly crafted songs as “Journey On,” “Your Daddy’s Son,” “New Music,” “Wheels of a Dream,” “Till We Reach That Day,” “Back to Before,” and the more than nine-minute long “Ragtime” prologue, are performed movingly by the stellar cast. The recording also contains some material that didn’t make it to New York: “The Show Biz” (a song for Evelyn Nesbit and Harry Houdini) and the stirring original bridge for “The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square.” Since this album was made and released while the show was still being developed, it’s somewhat lacking in theatricality, yet there is a decided freshness about it. — Gerard Alessandrini
Original Broadway Cast, 1998 (RCA, 2CDs) (5 / 5) This spectacular, complete recording of the Ragtime score documents what few other musicals have achieved: The show actually improves upon its source material, in this case, the best-selling novel by E.L. Doctorow. As adapted by librettist Terrence McNally, lyricist Lynn Ahrens, and composer Stephen Flaherty, Ragtime includes almost every vivid character and gripping plot point of the epic novel while expanding the emotions of the story with a superb score that underlines the sociological thrust of the story to great effect. Unfortunately, the show did not receive the critical kudos and mass popular acceptance that it deserved during its Broadway run, but this recording adds greatly to its legacy. Brian Stokes Mitchell has the role of a lifetime as Coalhouse Walker, Jr.; his finely balanced mix of haughtiness and optimism turned to disillusionment is so compelling that a potentially unsympathetic character is transformed into a heartbreaking, tragic figure. Marin Mazzie’s performance as Mother, who reacts nobly to a changing world, is just as expertly acted and sung, and is the emotional heart of the musical. Audra McDonald is phenomenal as Sarah, one of the six roles for which she has won Tony Awards (as of this writing). Judy Kaye is stellar as Emma Goldman; so are Peter Friedman, Mark Jacoby, Lynette Perry, and Steven Sutcliffe as Tateh, Father, Evelyn Nesbit, and Mother’s Younger Brother, respectively. This two-CD cast album includes two numbers that were added to the show on its way to Broadway: “Atlantic City” brings pageantry and fluff to the proceedings, while “Sarah Brown Eyes” is a tender flashback musical moment for Mitchell and McDonald. Offered as an appendix is a beautiful “symphonic portrait” of Ragtime. — G.A.
Rags
Original Broadway Cast Members, 1986 (Sony) (4 / 5) High on the list of flops that deserved better is this four-performance heartbreaker by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Stephen Schwartz. The reviews ranged from respectful-bad to whiny-bad, with most of the bile reserved for Joseph Stein’s fragmented book. Maybe the show, set on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1910-11, had too much happening in terms of plot; three love stories, multiple immigrant experiences, ward-heeler intrigue, and so on. To many, the leftist agitprop spirit got in the way of the story. But what a score! Like master illusionists, Strouse and Schwartz put a mirror up to early-20th-century song styles and produced a reflection brighter than the actuality. Irish ballads, Yiddish folk music, vaudeville specialty numbers, patriotic marches, ragtime tunes — they’re all here, only smarter and more sophisticated than their original models, and packed with meaty ideas. The show’s top-billed star, Teresa Stratas, elected not to record the album, so Julia Migenes was brought in. With a stunning voice and plenty of fire, she makes an excellent Rebecca Hershkowitz. And she is surrounded by an A-list company. Judy Kuhn is remarkable in the title song, pouring anger, regret, and contempt into a rollicking Strouse rag. Marcia Lewis and Dick Latessa wring laughs and poignancy out of “Three Sunny Rooms.” Terrence Mann and Lonny Price are fine in their roles, and Josh Blake is as non-irritating as child singers come. Only Larry Kert, as Rebecca’s husband, doesn’t quite convince; he’s okay from a vocal standpoint, but he doesn’t seem to inhabit the character. The recording includes “Cherry Street Cafe” and “Nothing Will Hurt Us Again,” two songs dropped from the show for the Broadway run. They’re welcome bonuses to a score that’s a rich panorama of the American dream in old New York. If you alphabetize your cast albums (and who doesn’t?), this one goes right before Ragtime. As sweeping musical storytelling, it’s not far behind. — Marc Miller
Original London Cast, 2020 (Ghostlight Records) (3 / 5) Rags seems to be one of those titles, like Mack and Mabel and Merrily We Roll Along, that people are always trying to fix and never quite succeeding. This West End revisal, based on one a couple of years earlier at Goodspeed Opera House, has a new book by David Thompson that solves some of the original’s problems and creates others, and a heavily reworked score. Characters are dropped and added, songs rewritten and reassigned, and there are several new numbers, especially in the first act. Carolyn Maitland is an ardent Rebecca, if not vocally in the same class as Julia Migenes (or Teresa Stratas). She does well by the title song, though Thompson had to put the plot through wild contortions in order to hand it to her. Dave Willetts and Debbie Chazen are lovely on “Three Sunny Rooms,” but turning that number into a quartet (they’re joined by Martha Kirby’s Bella and Oisin Nolan-Power’s Ben) robs it of some of its charm. Among the new songs, “Meet an Italian” and “If We Never Meet Again” are standouts, and while Nick Barstow’s orchestrations are hardly Broadway-size or Broadway-caliber, they get the job done. It’s a full album, and it’s fun to compare it with the original, noting the musical and lyrical detours Strouse and Schwartz took, and pondering why they took them. Not a must-have, but a pleasant sidekick to the 1.0 version. — M.M.
Radio Gals
Original Cast, 1995 (Varèse Sarabande) (2 / 5) In this comedic concept musical by Mike Craver and Mark Hardwick, we’re supposed to be hearing a radio broadcast emanating illegally from the home of an Arkansas matron in 1927. (This recording documents the premiere staging or Radio Gals in Pasadena; the show subsequently had a brief run Off-Broadway.) Although no plot synopsis is included, the song titles almost speak for themselves: “Aviatrix Love Song,” “Fairies in My Mother’s Flower Garden,” and the immortal “That Wicky Wacky Hula Hula Honka Wonka Honolulu Hawaiian Honey of Mine.” These are interspersed with jokes about “Doc May and His Musical Goats” and a series of commercials for “Horehound Compound.” All in all, it’s a heapin’ helpin’ of folksy humor. While Radio Gals was amusing onstage, the cast album has a somewhat cloying effect; but there are some priceless bits, such as “The Tranquil Boxwood,” consisting of crashing piano chords reminiscent of the work of Béla Bartok. And there is considerable musical cleverness to be found in the songs “Edna, the Elephant Girl,” “Dear Mr. Gershwin,” and “Buster, He’s a Hot Dog Now.” For some reason, Craver and cabaret luminary Mark Nadler are cast as women. But the oddly named Helen Geller is effective as Hazel Hunt, mistress of the airwaves, and she and the rest of the cast sing well. This show is made up entirely of novelty material, totally unconnected to any plot. Fans of the down-home whimsy heard on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion will probably appreciate Radio Gals more than the average musical theater aficionado. — David Barbour
Raisin
Original Broadway Cast, 1973 (Columbia/Sony) (3 / 5) Despite its healthy Broadway run and its Tony Award for Best Musical, Raisin is almost completely forgotten. Fortunately, the Robert Nemiroff-Charlotte Zaltzberg adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, with a score by composer Judd Woldin and lyricist Robert Brittan, yielded a wonderful cast album. Stunning vocals tell the story: The matriarch (Virginia Capers) of the ghetto-bound, black Younger family wants to use her late husband’s insurance money to buy a nice house that’s up for sale in a white neighborhood, but her son Walter (Joe Morton) and daughter-in-law Ruth (Ernestine Jackson) have different ideas about how to use the money. There’s also fine work from Debbie Allen as Walter’s striving sister and Ralph Carter as Walter and Ruth’s son. The score is alternately soulful, driving, and tender. The pulsating prologue sets the tone, followed by “Man Say,” Morton’s explanation of the differences between men and women. Jackson shines in “Whose Little Angry Men” and “Sweet Time.” Other highlights are the lovely “Sidewalk Tree,” the biting “Not Anymore,” and the rousing gospel tune “He Come Down This Morning.” Capers’ 11-o’clock number, “Measure the Valleys,” is one of the most powerful theater songs of the period. — David Barbour
Putting It Together
Off-Broadway Cast, 1993 (RCA) (2 / 5) There have been tons of Stephen Sondheim revues, but the big attraction of Putting It Together was unique: Julie Andrews singing Sondheim, live, in a tiny theater. Indeed, her work on this album is an unalloyed pleasure and a master class in theatrical clarity. Andrews is dryly funny in “Sweet Polly Plunkett,” the goofy Victorian parlor song from Sweeney Todd, and her vitriolic “Could I Leave You?”from Follies makes you dream of the Phyllis that never was. In “Getting Married Today” from Company, Andrews gives a tour-de-force performance, singing the parts of both the frenzied, motormouth bride and the soprano who rains down churchly blessings. However, the rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Director Julia McKenzie had contrived a “let’s party!” mise en scene for the show, but the characters’ interactions feel less urbane than brittle. Playwright and sometime-performer Christopher Durang is no great singer, though he does lend an impish, Oscar Levant quality to his songs. Stephen Collins is no great singer, either, but he brings grown-up gravitas to his numbers. Rachel York, as an oddly glamorous maid, is lush and sexy; she has a stratospheric vocal range, and comic timing to spare. Michael Rupert’s throbbing vibrato and tenor ping are characteristically intense here. Adding to the problem that two of the five performers are not trained vocalists, the instrumentation for keyboards, bass, and percussion sounds thin. — Robert Sandla
Purlie
Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (Ampex/RCA) (3 / 5) With music by Gary Geld and lyrics by Peter Udell, this show is based on the play Purlie Victorious (1961) by Ossie Davis, who is credited along with Udell and the show’s producer, Philip Rose, for the musical’s book. Neither version is often revived — presumably because, in both, the portrayals of African-Americans living in the Deep South “in the recent past” might be considered dicey by current standards. On the other hand, Purlie can still be quite palatable if viewed and presented as a broad satire, which was the approach taken by a well-reviewed 2023 Broadway revival of the original play. At any rate, the score of Purlie is quite wonderful, from the Gospel anthem “Walk Him Up the Stairs,” led by the roof-raising vocals of Linda Hopkins, straight through to the end. In the title role, Cleavon Little is dynamic and charismatic in the character-establishing “New Fangled Preacher Man” and other numbers. As Lutiebelle, the sweet, naïve, not very bright girl who’s in love with him, Melba Moore displays a thrilling voice of great range and power, especially in the show-stopping “I Got Love.” Novella Nelson is a worthy partner to Moore in the soulful duet “He Can Do It,” and it’s fun to hear Sherman Hemsley, who later gained fame on TV’s The Jeffersons, delivering the comedic “Skinnin’ a Cat.” Also offering colorful vocal portrayals (pardon the pun) are John Heffernan and C. David Colson as the musical’s only two white characters: the ridiculously racist Ol Cap’n Cotchipee and his progressive son, Charlie. Overall, the sound quality of the cast recording is excellent. — Michael Portantiere
Pump Boys and Dinettes
Original Cast, 1982 (Columbia/Sony) (4 / 5) An unexpected delight when it opened, this revue of countryish songs doesn’t have much in the way of a story line. The setup of a roadside stop populated by a quartet of service-station fellas and a pair of flirtatious waitresses was simply an excuse to keep on singing. Cast members Jim Wann, Mark Hardwick, John Foley, John Schimmel, Debra Monk, and Cass Morgan wrote material for the show and/or played instruments convincingly, performing with nice dollops of personality. The recording contains 19 numbers that would still perk up any country-music play list. Three of the tracks — “Be Good or Be Gone,” “The Night Dolly Parton Was Almost Mine,” and “Sisters” — were produced by Billy Sherrill, the rest by Mike Berniker. Don’t try looking for conflict or character development in these songs; just kick back in your boots, and listen up. — David Finkle
Promises, Promises
Original Broadway Cast, 1968 (United Artists/MGM/Kritzerland) (3 / 5) Based on the film The Apartment, this show was the only Broadway effort of pop songwriters Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics), who had written such hits as “Alfie,” “One Less Bell to Answer,” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” As originally released, the cast recording of Promises, Promises was highly problematic. To begin with, the usually wonderful Jerry Orbach sounded under pitch as Chuck Baxter in several cuts, notably in “She Likes Basketball” and two duets, “Our Little Secret” (with Edward Winter as J. D. Sheldrake) and “A Young Pretty Girl Like You” (with A. Larry Haines as Dr. Dreyfuss). In those last two named songs, it was hard to tell who was singing farther off pitch, Orbach or his duet partners, but both cuts had some painful-to-hear moments. Also, in the original mix of the album, there was an excessive amount of reverb in the vocals, while the percussion sounded too heavy and the strings remote. The happy news is that a latter-day remastering of this recording for the Kritzerland label ameliorated most of these problems (not including the excessive reverb, which wasn’t fixable) through skillful remixing and pitch correction, greatly improving the overall listening experience. As Fran Kubelik, the young woman caught between Baxter and Sheldrake, Jill O’Hara displays a voice with a folk-singer quality that some Broadway aficionados may not appreciate, but this score is far from typical Broadway, and in fact, Bacharach has gone on record as saying that he wrote Fran’s songs with O’Hara’s sound specifically in mind. The score in general is flawed due to David’s sometimes ham-fisted lyrics, but the good work (“Half as Big as Life,” “Knowing When to Leave,” “I’Il Never Fall in Love Again,” the title song, and others) finally outweighs the bad. Note: According to the album credits, you can supposedly hear Donna McKechnie singing along with Baayork Lee and Margo Sappington in “Turkey Lurkey Time,” but the number was actually recorded by the show’s “orchestra voices.” — Michael Portantiere
Original London Cast, 1969 (United Artists/Kritzerland) (3 / 5) This recording was out of print for years, until it finally received an excellent if belated digital transfer and release by Kritzerland. The two leads, Tony Roberts and Betty Buckley, were still in the very early stages of their careers in 1969, but both went on to become established Broadway stars. Roberts is charming in Baxter’s songs, and if Buckley’s steely belt/soprano certainly won’t appeal to everyone, her performance is committed. (Buckley’s best vocal moment by far is “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” sung softly and lyrically rather than belted.) James Congdon as Sheldrake sings “Wanting Things” well, if not with quite as much voice as Edward Winters on the recording reviewed above. It’s interesting to note that the three leading performers heard on this London cast album are American, and it’s amusing that Buckley adopts a British pronunciation when she sings certain words — for example, “portrait” in “You’ll Think of Someone” and “return” in “Knowing When to Leave.” A major plus of the recording is its superb technical quality; Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations sound magnificent here, with the strings more prominent than on the OBCR, while the voices are recorded with a great deal of presence and no excess of reverb. Note: Donna McKechnie traveled to London with the show and is again credited on the cast album, but you won’t hear her singing on “Turkey Lurkey Time” track here, either. — M.P.
London Studio Cast, 1969 (Fontana Special/no CD) (2 / 5) While this studio cast album of Promises, Promises would never be chosen as anyone’s preferred recording, it has some strong points and intriguing elements that make it worth a listen. (The album never got a commercial CD transfer but is available online as a download.) Ronnie Carroll brings more of a pop crooner’s sound than a Broadway baritenor to Chuck Baxter’s songs, but he does so very pleasantly. Following in the footsteps of Jill O’Hara and Betty Buckley, Aimi MacDonald gives yet another vocally controversial performance as Fran Kubelik; her voice has a very bright, little-girl quality that some listeners will find charming, others annoying. Also, she’s pitch-shy at times, and her thick Brit accent is distracting in that she’s playing an American in a story set in NYC. On the plus side, Patricia Whitmore as Marge MacDougall is a delightful partner for Carroll on “A Fact Can Be a Beautiful Thing.” Five songs from the score are nowhere to be found here — “Grapes of Roth,” “Our Little Secret,” “Wanting Things, “A Young, Pretty Girl Like You,” and the wistful “Christmas Day” — so those are five more strikes against this recording. Among the songs that are included, three of them have had their keys transposed: “You’ll Think of Someone,” “Whoever You Are,” and “Promises, Promises” are all slightly higher than on the original Broadway and London cast albums. Keith Roberts conducts the score with verve, in orchestrations and vocal arrangements for the “orchestra voices” that sound like the brilliant originals slightly revised in certain sections. “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” has been thrown into the overture, between “She Likes Basketball” and the title song; it’s an unnecessary addition, but fun to hear in an alternate version of one of the most excitingly written and orchestrated overtures in Broadway history. — M.P.
Broadway Cast, 2010 (Masterworks Broadway) (2 / 5) The 2010 Broadway revisal of Promises, Promises was marred by poor direction (Rob Ashford was responsible) and the ill-advised, unnecessary interpolation of two Bacharach-David hits that were not in the original score, “I Say a Little Prayer” and “A House is Not a Home.” But the slack direction is, of course, not evident on the cast album, and the added songs are enjoyable in their own right out of context, so this recording is an agreeable listening experience overall. A stumbling block for some listeners may be the buzz-saw vibrato of Sean Hayes’s voice as heard in Chuck Baxter’s multiple songs, surely not to everyone’s taste. More pleasant to hear is Kristin Chenoweth as Fran, even if her songs are sung in keys much lower than the soprano range in which she’s most at home. Although Tony Goldwyn is not known as a singer, he does a fine job with Sheldrake’s “Wanting Things” and his duet with Hayes, “Our Little Secret.” Katie Finneran is a comic delight as Marge MacDougall, playing off Hayes expertly in “A Fact Can Be a Beautiful Thing,” and Jonathan Tunick’s adaptations of his own original orchestrations sound pretty great. — M.P.
Promenade
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1969 (RCA) ]usr=1] Two prisoners identified as “105” and “106” escape from jail and wander through various settings, including a park, a banquet, and a battlefield. Among the people they encounter are Mr. R., Mr. S., Miss 0, and a bereaved woman who thinks she’s their mother. At the end of the day, they return to prison. Only in the 1960s could something like this get a commercial production, let alone achieve a half-decent run and earn a measure of critical respect. Promenade is obvious in its details — the usual points are made about rich and poor, there’s a scene spoofing the foolishness of war, and so on — and utterly impenetrable in its overall intentions, but the show gained a following in its seven-month run at the theater of the same name. Today, it seems just another baffling artifact of an era when plot and character were regularly thrown to the wind. Maria Irene Fornes is the gnomic librettist-lyricist. Composer AI Carmines’ melodies owe a debt to Kurt Weill, but there are several catchy tunes. Among them are “Unrequited Love,” “The Clothes Make the Man,” and “Capricious and Fickle,” the latter belted by Alice Playten. As recorded, the score is not unpleasant, but neither is it compelling. — David Barbour
The Producers
Original Broadway Cast, 2001 (Sony) (5 / 5) Here is Mel Brooks’ full-blown musical version of his semi-musical 1968 movie about a has-been Broadway producer’s backfired scheme to bilk his show’s investors by staging a colossal flop. This recording has all the excitement of the Broadway smash hit, and the star power of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick comes through in one of the brashest cast albums ever made. The Producers epitomizes Borscht Belt humor; Brooks’ clever songs are charming and hilariously offensive at the same time. While many of the numbers are obvious pastiches of Tin Pan Alley standards, they’re sturdy enough to progress the uproarious plot rapidly and effectively. The show opened to extravagant critical and audience acclaim, and it garnered a record 12 Tony Awards. The performances of Lane as the frantic producer Max Bialystock and Broderick as Leo Bloom, the panicky accountant who becomes Max’s co-producer, display a comic brilliance unheard on cast albums since the days of Zero Mostel and Carol Channing. Also brilliant is Gary Beach as Roger De Bris, the effete, delusional director who ultimately portrays a Judy Garland-like Hitler in the show’s outrageous centerpiece production number, “Springtime for Hitler” — one of this recording’s major highlights. Roger Bart as De Bris’ “common-law assistant,” Carmen Ghia, shines no less brightly. Other highlights are Cady Huffman as Ulla belting out “When You’ve Got It, Flaunt It” and Brad Oscar as Franz Liebkind selling “Haben Sie Gehört das Deutsche Band?” Nathan Lane’s marathon “Betrayed” is a tour de force, and the finale, “Prisoners of Love (Leo & Max),” is spine-tingling in classic Broadway style. — Gerard Alessandrini
Film Soundtrack, 2005 (Sony) (3 / 5) Although the movie version of this hysterical Broadway smash was generally regarded as an inferior stage-to-screen adaptation, the soundtrack album is highly enjoyable overall. The film may have lacked a cinematic flair in being overly faithful to the stage version, but the score was given a full-blown movie musical treatment, to wondrous effect. The orchestrations by Doug Besterman and Larry Blank are a joy to listen to, as are the expanded choruses, and the zippy musical direction of Patrick S. Brady adds just the right amount of over-the-top frenzy. Almost all of the songs from the show score are retained, as well as the brilliant performances of Nathan Lane and Mathew Broderick. Vocally, these two sound even better here than on the original Broadway cast album. A new performance, by John Barrowman as the lead tenor in “Springtime For Hitler,” is at once vocally thrilling and appropriately campy. On the minus side, a major let-down is the absence of Brad Oscar singing “Haben Sie Gehört Das Deutsches Band?”’ The rendition heard here, by the better-known Will Ferrell, lacks enough energy to be funny. And while Uma Thurman may have looked good in the movie as Ulla, her solo “When You’ve Got It, Flaunt It” also misses the punch of the original stage performance by Cady Huffman. But if you skip these tracks, this is a fine and very listenable recording of one of the funniest musicals ever created. — G.A.
The Prince and the Pauper
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (JAY) (2 / 5) Based on Mark Twain’s novel about a pair of 16th-century London lookalikes who swap identities, this adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper played a respectable 194 performances Off-Broadway. With music by Neil Berg, lyrics by Berg and Bernie Garzia, and a book by Garzia and Ray Roderick, the show is an adventure-soaked musical with pop-opera inflections. The score is sprightly, performed by a strong cast of 13 singing actors, many of whom play multiple roles and give their all on this recording. Most notable for their talent and energy are Dennis Michael Hall as the Tudor prince who pretends to be a commoner and Gerard Canonico as the slum lad masquerading as royalty. John Glaudini’s orchestrations and arrangements, played by a three-person combo — Glaudini on piano, Anne-Marie Tranchida on cello, and Frank Basile on reeds — lend a full, swashbuckling sound to the proceedings. True to Twain’s source material, this is a children’s piece with enough satiric edge to be enjoyed by adults as well. — Charles Wright
Prodigal Son
Original Australian Cast, 2000 (Prodigal Son Productions) (3 / 5) Australian librettist-lyricist Dean Bryant and composer Matthew Frank took inspiration from the Bible for their musical Prodigal Son. They updated the story to present-day Australia and made the central figure of the straying son returning to the fold a young man named Luke, who’s coping with his homosexuality. As the recording reveals, this is an intimate show, with only piano accompaniment played by the composer. The score deals with the larger implications of small issues, capturing the oppressive aspects of an everyday rural existence (“Happy Families”) and the allure of a life with more choices (“Run With the Tide”). Several moving songs express the growing pains experienced by children (“Out of Myself,” “Epiphany”) as well as their parents (“My Boy,” “Love Them and Leave Them Alone”). Bryant himself gives an engaging performance as Luke; Jules Hutchinson is persuasive as his mother; Barry Mitchell is a bit bland as Luke’s father; Graham Pages is adequate in dual roles as Luke’s brother and boyfriend; and Amanda Levy as Maddy, a performance artist, gives fine if undistinguished support. The disc includes a bonus track of a song from a subsequent Bryant-Frank musical, Emoh Ruo, sung by Levy. — Matthew Murray
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (JAY) (3 / 5)The title of Bryant and Frank’s musical was shortened to Prodigal for its 2002 York Theatre production, but the show lost none of its emotional power on the journey from Australia to New York. In fact, this recording has more energy and humor than the original. Joshua Park embodies Luke’s youth and naivete very well, and Kerry Butler makes Maddy a force to be reckoned with. David Hess and Alison Fraser depict Luke’s parents with plenty of outer strength to mask the fragility of their frightened inner selves. The only weak link is Christian Bode in the boyfriend/brother roles, which seemed vital onstage but aren’t well established through song. Australian musicals with original scores don’t often show up in America, but this recording makes an excellent case for Prodigal. — M.M.
Prettybelle
Original Cast, 1971 (Original Cast Records/Varèse Sarabande) (4 / 5) A woman who lives in the Deep South wants to repent for her husband’s deplorable hostilities toward minorities — so she beds black and Hispanic men. With such a contrived plot, it’s no surprise that Prettybelle folded quickly in Boston, but a tuneful, Southern-tinged score by the great composer Jule Styne survives and was recorded years after the show closed. From the lazy waltz of the title tune to a rollicking Dixieland march, Styne’s music, joined to wonderfully evocative lyrics by Bob Merrill, is performed by one of Broadway’s greatest leading ladies, Angela Lansbury. She’s absolutely brilliant in the plaintive “To a Small Degree,” wherein Prettybelle describes her marriage. Her angry delivery of “How Could I Know?” reveals the character’s devastating discovery of her husband’s vileness, and Lansbury really socks it to us with “When I’m Drunk, I’m Beautiful,” the 11-o’clock blockbuster. — Peter Filichia