Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (Columbia/Sony) (1 / 5) Michael Bennett’s big post-Chorus Line flop is beloved by those who saw it, but sadly, the show’s special qualities are not retained on an audio-only disc. Jerome Kass’s libretto is based on his script for the television film Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. Dorothy Loudon stars as Bea, a lonely Bronx widow who finds glamour and romance at the local dance palace. Fans remember Loudon’s performance and Bennett’s magical staging, but the score by Billy Goldenberg and Alan and Marilyn Bergman contains only a handful of book numbers; everything else consists of dance sequences featuring faux-pop hits covered by the ballroom’s house singers. These tunes are very pleasant in a Steve-and-Eydie kind of way, especially in Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations, but they don’t convey a sense of the show’s story. Given a chance, Loudon scores big — especially with her nervy, volatile delivery of the scorching 11 o’clock number “Fifty Percent,” in which Bea chooses to accept the love of a married man (played by Vincent Gardenia). Overall, the recording is a disappointment, but if you want to understand what made Loudon one of the most distinct theatrical personalities of all time, it’s worth a listen — David Barbour

Original Cast, 1976 (Take Home Tunes) (5 / 5) This beautiful cast album continues to mystify listeners as to why The Baker’s Wife was a huge flop. Based on the play and subsequent film La femme du boulanger by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giono, the musical’s book is by Joseph Stein, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. The fable is set in long-ago provincial France, where a middle-aged baker’s young wife leaves him for a torrid affair with a handsome young villager. The show closed on the road to Broadway; most of the cast and creative-team members were replaced during its lengthy tryout tour. When it finally shuttered in Washington, the leads were Paul Sorvino, whose semi-operatic voice sounds great in the songs of Aimable, the baker, on this abridged recording score; Patti LuPone as his wife, Genevieve, belting to high heaven when she has to, but wonderfully warm in the more lyrical passages of the score; Kurt Peterson, appropriately sexy as her young lover, Dominique; and Teri Ralston as Denise, a village woman who gets to sing the lilting “Chanson” in her silvery soprano. All ten songs sung by the principals are superb, from character-establishing numbers like “Merci, Madame” to ravishing ballads like “Endless Delights.” Other highlights include “Gifts of Love,” a gorgeous and poignant piece in which Genevieve resigns herself to a marriage that’s based on companionship rather than passion; “Meadowlark,” the magnificent story-song that the baker’s wife belts out when deciding to go off with her young stud; and “Proud Lady,” sung by the strutting peacock Dominique. Schwartz’s score differs impressively from the style of his monster hits Godspell and Pippin, and the recording boasts lovely orchestrations. — Michael Portantiere

Original London Cast, 1990 (JAY, 2CDs) (1 / 5) Even as musical theater completists appreciate the fact that a high-profile London production of The Baker’s Wife yielded this much lengthier recording of the score, it must be said that the results are unpersuasive in terms of both text and performance. Directed by Trevor Nunn, this version has some new Stephen Schwartz songs, along with several that were in the original production but not previously recorded. Still, the two-CD album is disconcerting.  First of all, as presented here, the songs carried over from the earlier recording have many unfamiliar lyrics; Schwartz has a penchant for tinkering with his own work after the fact, but it’s hard to understand the point of such revisions when the new lyrics don’t represent an improvement over the originals. In “Chanson,” for example, we now hear lyrics about gulls crying rather than sheep bleating. Was this change necessary? Severely truncated as the original recording is, it’s sad to report that the new/old songs included on the JAY recording aren’t very interesting. Many of them involve the villagers gossiping about the Aimable-Genevieve-Dominique affair (although, here, the young man’s name is spelled “Dominic”). As for the leading players: Alun Armstrong’s attempt to compensate for his substandard singing voice with fine acting isn’t successful. He also sings the baker’s songs in much lower keys than Paul Sorvino’s, and the results are dispiriting. The plum role of Genevieve is filled by Shar Lee Hill, who is…no Patti LuPone. As Dominic, Drue Williams sings poorly and sounds effeminate, which certainly doesn’t work for this character.  Jill Martin displays the best voice of all the London principals  in Denise’s “Chanson,” but here again, the song is performed in a considerably lower key than on the American cast album, and is therefore far less effective. — M.P.

Original Broadway Cast, 1965 (MGM/Decca) (2 / 5) One of the last in the cycle of My Fair Lady wannabes, Baker Street is complete with handsome Victorian settings, a misogynistic hero (Sherlock Holmes), and a Cockney chorus high-kicking all over London. The problem was that songwriters Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel emphatically were not Lerner and Loewe, not even with Bock and Harnick ghostwriting three numbers (”I’m in London Again,” “Cold Clear World,” and “I Shall Miss You”) during the troubled tryout period. The melodic lines are facile, the lyrics occasionally intricate — as in the ironically named “It’s So Simple” — yet it’s all on the surface. As Holmes, Fritz Weaver is fine, but he can’t make anything memorable of the material. His leading lady, Inga Swenson, by all accounts impressive onstage, doesn’t come across on this recording. Even the old-fashioned, three-part, would-be showstopper “Letters” lands with a thud. Martin Gabel as Moriarty, Peter Sallis as Watson, and Teddy Green as a leading Baker Street Irregular round out the cast; they all work hard, but in vain. Although the album is well designed, with color photos and a verbose synopsis, it never convinces you that this was “the hottest musical of 1965.” It’s worth noting that an even shorter-lived show from that year, Drat! The Cat!,  had one throwaway number in it (“Holmes and Watson”) that encapsulated what was special about the duo better than this entire score. — Marc Miller

Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (Columbia/Sony) No stars; not recommended. Some ethnic groups have all the luck — and some don’t. The same year that Fiddler on the Roof so beautifully celebrated the joys and sorrows of Jewish life, Bajour featured Nancy Dussault as an NYU anthropology major who latches onto a tribe of gypsies led by Herschel Bernardi. Top-billed Chita Rivera plays the daughter of a rival tribe, doing her trademark spitfire thing and belting out cheesy numbers like “Mean.” Ernest Kincy’s libretto and Walter Marks’ score (astonishingly, inspired by New Yorker stories by Joseph Mitchell) are a mishmash of gypsy intrigue that’s enough to induce a heart attack in the politically correct. The recording starts off with a dynamic overture orchestrated by Mort Lindsey and Dussault’s amusing “Where Is the Tribe for Me?” But too often, Bajour is merely desperate and loud. The second-act show-stopper, “Honest Man,” with Bernardi and rival gypsy king Herbert Edelman trying to con each other, is pretty embarrassing. Give it one star if you’re a Chita fan. — David Barbour

Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (Polydor/]AY) (5 / 5) The too-busy opening sequence is a bumpy ride, with some smarmy humor about the conception of a child. Then Liz Callaway sings to Todd Graff, “Picture a flailing spermatozoan / Not even knowin’ where he is goin”‘ — and the sun breaks out, never to leave. The David Shire-Richard Maltby, Jr. score is easily one of the best of the decade, thoroughly contemporary yet melodic and as clever and hilarious as it is heartfelt. When Callaway lets loose with the soaring “The Story Goes On” or when Graff offers the beautiful ballad “I Chose Right,” you could weep at the bad career luck of Maltby and Shire. Other highlights: the strong women’s trio”I Want It All,” the joyous “Fatherhood Blues,” James Congdon’s funny-sad “Easier to Love,” and Beth Fowler’s “Patterns.” (The last-named song was cut from the Broadway production but is generously included here.) Martin Vidnovic and Catherine Cox are wonderful as an infertile yuppie couple, and a belting Kim Criswell figures prominently in the chorus (she’s the mom lamenting the pain of childbirth in “The Ladies Singing Their Song”). Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations make a great score sound even better, as does Peter Howard’s conducting. Although this musical couldn’t find an audience in its Broadway mounting, it has done well in community and regional theaters. Thanks to Polydor for having given the score such a full recording; just zip past the first two minutes or so, and bliss out.  — Marc Miller

Off-Broadway Cast, 2023 (Yellow Sound Label) (2 / 5) For the Out of The Box Theatrics production of Baby, which had pre- and post-pandemic runs with slightly different casts in 2019 and 2021, lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr. collaborated with the Off-Broadway company’s leadership on a major revision of the show, including Sybille Pearson’s book. The biggest change is that the characters Pam and Nick are now Pam (Christina Sajous) and Nicki (Gabrielle McClinton), a lesbian couple struggling with IVF. The gorgeous voices and moving performances of Sajous and McClinton are the main reason to listen to this recording, even if the rewritten lyrics range from very effective (the ironic “Romance” works even better in the context of Pam’s injections) to overly on-the-nose (“Look, a turkey baster’s coming your way,” sings Nicki in the opening number). McClinton’s thoughtful “At Night She Comes Home to Me,” featuring some new verses, is also an improvement over the original. Most of the other discernible alterations are minor, including some sort-of-modernizing lyric swaps — such as, among the notable personages and characters name-checked in “I Want It All,” Althea Gibson replacing Scarlett O’Hara and Margaret Atwood replacing Margaret Thatcher.  (Very different people!) Four 30-second “Transitions” that were not included in the OBC have made their way onto this recording; they help tie the score together, especially the choral “Transition #3—Commencement.” Johnny Link’s “I Chose Right” is sweetly affecting, and Julia Murney brings appropriate pathos to “Patterns,” but the majority of this album pales significantly in comparison to the superbly produced original recording. It’s hard not to miss Jonathan Tunick’s full orchestrations, which so superbly conveyed the inexpressible immensity of the pregnancy and birth experience. (This new album has some mixing issues, too, with the band often drowning out singers in ensemble moments.) The absence of expansiveness feels especially disappointing in the performance of the score’s greatest asset: the eruptive “The Story Goes On,” here rendered unconvincingly by Out of the Box’s founder Liz Flemming with frequent semi-spoken lines and abrupt shifts in vocal register that work against the song’s epic build. Credit Flemming, though, with giving Baby new life and giving us a ripe reminder of the score’s joys, even if they’re captured more potently on the 1983 cast album. — Dan Rubins

Studio Cast, 1951 (Columbia/Sony) (2 / 5) Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s 1937 classic, the father of all those hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show movies with Mickey and Judy, has an expendable book and a gold-plated score: The first song on this recording is “Where or When,” and only a few tracks away are “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” “My Funny Valentine,” and “The Lady Is a Tramp.” While Babes in Arms was a good show to inaugurate Lehman Engel’s studio cast series, this 36-minute sampler LP plays more like “Mary Martin and Friends Sing Songs from Babes in Arms.” Miss M. commandeers most of the hit songs and overworks her adorableness, yet she delivers a spectacular “The Lady Is a Tramp.” Engel’s orchestrations reflect the originals, but they’re heavy on strings and include some obvious effects — whistles in “Johnny One Note,” clip-clops in “Way Out West.” Jack Cassidy leads a stirring performance of the title song, with chorus; he also brings intensity to “You Are So Fair,” but he doesn’t get to do the whole number. And Mardi Bayne, rather than singing both great verses of “Way Out West,” does the first one twice! How nuts is that? — Marc Miller

Studio Cast, 1989 (New World) (4 / 5) Now, this is more like it: a nearly complete recording with restored Hans Spialek orchestrations, all the ballet music (Babes in Arms was a George Balanchine show), and Evans Haile energetically conducting the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. All that’s missing is the now-unacceptable “All Dark People,” written by R&H as a specialty for the Nicholas Brothers. Although the ballet music isn’t all that interesting, the orchestrations are terrific, from the pearly celesta in “My Funny Valentine” to the twangs and woodwinds in “Way Out West.” There’s also some spiffy close-harmony work from the guy group JQ and the Bandits. While the casting is vocally deluxe, Judy Blazer, Gregg Edelman, Judy Kaye, and Jason Graae aren’t convincing age-wise as the needy teen offspring of down-on-their-luck vaudevillians. But it would be hard to top Blazer’s reading of “My Funny Valentine,” Kaye’s sarcasm in “Imagine,” or the sheer joy of the title song. It makes you want to go paint a barn, wheel the piano in, and start the auditions! — M.M.

Encores! Concert Cast, 1999 (DRG) (4 / 5) This is a welcome addition to the musicals-in-concert canon. Surprisingly, it doesn’t surpass the 1989 studio version in terms of theatricality; the lead-in dialogue to the songs merely betrays what a wispy book Babes in Arms has. Rob Fisher’s conducting isn’t as vibrant as that of Evans Haile, but the orchestrations come through with more clarity here. Melissa Rain Anderson is no vocal match for Judy Kaye, nor can Erin Dilly wring nuances from a ballad as Judy Blazer can. But David Campbell is more ingratiating than Gregg Edelman and, in general, this cast is more age-appropriate than the other. The New World album has more ballet music, but this one has “All Dark People” — although it’s listed as “Light on Their Feet,” and only the verse lyrics are included. Which of the two most recent recordings to buy? The New World, 10 minutes longer, is for the archivists; the DRG has a less expert but more persuasively up-and-coming cast. As listening experiences, both are just dandy. — M.M.

Original Broadway Cast, 2003 (RCA) (5 / 5) What a devilishly clever parody of Sesame Street this Tony Award-winning musical is! Robert Lopez and ]eff Marx’s songs are mostly upbeat and catchy (“Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”), yet tender when called for (“Fantasies Come True”). The guys have come up with everything from a fast, funky waltz (“My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada”) to upbeat rock (“Purpose”) to soul (“You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want,” which Natalie Venetia Belcon growls perfectly). But there’s also a fine, fine melody line in “There’s a Fine, Fine Line.” The Lopez-Marx lyrics are often monosyllabically simple, which they should be for a kid’s-show spoof, yet they can also be wildly funny and raunchy. Talent-wise, along with librettist Jeff Whitty, are Lopez and Marx the real turtle soup (or merely the mock)? To quote their own creation, Lucy T. Slut: “Yeah, they’re real.” By the time you reach “Mix Tape” — a masterstroke of a song in which one puppet infers that another likes her from the songs that he’s selected and recorded on a cassette for her — you’ll realize that you don’t want a mix tape of songs from different shows, you just want the Avenue Q CD, which showcases the superbly talented ensemble cast of John Tartaglia, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Rick Lyon, Jennifer Barnhart, Ann Harada, and Jordan Gelber, along with the aforementioned Belcon.  — Peter Filichia

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1991 (RCA) (3 / 5) There’s no doubt that Stephen Sondheim’s scores are brilliant. His lyrics are innovative; he’s the master of intellectual argument in rhyme. His best melodies, though often overshadowed by acclaim for his superb wordsmithing, are slyly inventive. Yet when the messages in his musicals are examined, they sometimes turn out to be less than the sum of the sung parts. So it is with this revue, written in collaboration with librettist John Weidman, which trots out a bevy of men and women who shot at, and in some instances killed, U.S. presidents. Sondheim and Weidman suggest that, for many unfortunate citizens, the American Dream is a nightmare. Accordingly, they set forth a series of songs — some portentous, some ironically lighthearted — to show how a sense of disenfranchisement can lead to assassination. Sondheim’s pastiche score is jaunty. Weidman’s sketches aren’t included in their entirely on this recording, with the exception of the attenuated Lee Harvey Oswald sequence, wherein John Kennedy’s murderer is visited in his Texas Book Depository hideout by the spirits of assassins past and future. (The idea is that Oswald acted as a representative of a continuing, perhaps inevitable tradition.) The cast assembled to play this group of history’s outcasts includes some of the best musical theater performers of the time, although only Victor Garber as John Wilkes Booth really gets to shine. Among the others warbling and emoting are Annie Golden, Jonathan Hadary, Patrick Cassidy, Eddie Korbich, William Parry, Terrence Mann, Lee Wilkof, and Debra Monk. — David Finkle

Broadway Cast, 2004 (PS Classics) (4 / 5) It’s likely that there will never be a better production of this revue about bumping off presidents as a pastime for disgruntled citizens with irrational gripes. From start to finish, the Roundabout Theatre Company staging was a honey. Tony Awards were handed to the production, director Joe Mantello, and supporting actor Michael Cerveris, who infused the plum role of John Wilkes Booth with great fervor. The same kind of care has been given to the recording, on which Becky Ann Baker, James Barbour, Mario Cantone,  Mary Catherine Garrison, Alexander Gemignani, Neil Patrick Harris, Marc Kudisch, Jeffrey Kuhn, Denis O’Hare, and Cerveris raise their voices in disturbing song. Sondheim’s Americana pastiches, with big-and-brassy and plangent arrangements by Michael Starobin, fully demonstrate the composer-lyricist’s mastery — most definitely including a powerful new song, “Something Just Broke.” Much of the dialogue by John Weidman is retained on the CD, including the penultimate scene in which Lee Harvey Oswald’s predecessors come out of the shadows on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository and cajole their hesitant boy into firing. This is bold if not always convincing material, polished to near perfection.  — D.F.

Off-Broadway Cast, 2022 (Broadway Records) (5 / 5) In common with other works of art, some musicals become “dated” in a negative way over the years and decades, but quite the opposite has happened with Assassins.  When the show premiered Off Broadway and the score was first recorded in 1991, many critics and audience members were put off by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s often ironically vaudevillian, sometimes earnest exploration of certain Americans expressing their unhappiness, frustration, and rage over their sorry lots in life by killing, or at least attempting to kill, Presidents of the United States. But subsequent events, such as the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President and the attempt by a violent mob  to overtake the Capitol when Trump was not reelected four years later, have underlined the remarkable prescience of this show in identifying and examining a cancerous underbelly of national disaffection that shows no signs of healing. All of which may at least in part explain why Assassins was largely hailed as a masterpiece in the Classic Stage Company’s 2022 Off-Broadway revival. The minor flaws of that production, directed by John Doyle, were limited to a few moments of unfocused staging and an odd inconsistency in costuming; but neither of those issues arise when one is listening to this superbly well produced cast album, sparked by the excellent performances of Eddie Cooper as the Proprietor, Ethan Slater as the Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald, Steven Pasquale as a compellingly tormented John Wilkes Booth, Judy Kuhn as Sara Jane Moore, Brandon Uranowitz as Leon Czolgosz, and Will Swenson as an absolutely insane Charles Guiteau. The entire album is aces, with especially strong performances of “The Ballad of Booth,” the “Gun Song,” “The Ballad of Guiteau,” “Something Just Broke,” and “Unworthy of Your Love,” the eerily sweet ballad that has been a highlight of every Assassins recording, here sung and acted to creepy perfection by Adam Chanler-Berat as John Hinckley and Tavi Gevinson as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme.  Talk about eerie: Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, was released from psychiatric care in 2016, and all court restrictions on his lifestyle and freedom were lifted in 2022 — the very year of this Assassins revival. — Michael Portantiere

Original Cast, 1989 (Polydor) (1 / 5) Beyond being one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most inscrutable shows, Aspects of Love is also one of his most ridiculous — more soap opera than pop opera. Though the show’s story doesn’t diverge much from the 1955 David Garnett novella on which it’s based, you may wish it did when listening to this almost complete recording (only a few bits are missing). The endlessly foolish romantic machinations of the characters are not made more palatable by the performances of the leads, Ann Crumb and Michael Ball; they serve the score well, but they can’t do much to make their sex-obsessed characters ingratiating or sympathetic. Kevin Colson, Kathleen Rowe Martin, and Diana Morrison, who have supporting roles in this game of musical beds, come across better. With lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart, some of the score is attractive, and musical director Michael Reed gets rich results from the orchestra, but the performers’ emoting is so overwrought that suffering through the whole thing for the sake of a few good songs is exhausting. The recording is worthwhile for “Love Changes Everything,” “Seeing Is Believing,” “The First Man You Remember,” and “Anything but Lonely,” but not for the sort of plot twists and relationship games that even daytime television might reject. — Matthew Murray

Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Columbia/Sony) (4 / 5) What could Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick do to follow Fiddler on the Roof? The team answered that question with an unconventional evening of three one-act musicals, each only tangentially connected to the others. It was a concept that would show off the versatility of the performers as well as the writers. The first act, “The Diary of Adam and Eve” (adapted from a Mark Twain short story), is written in standard musical theater form; the second act, “The Lady or the Tiger” (based on a Frank R. Stockton story), has a pop-operetta writing style; and the third act, “Passionella” (based on the Jules Feiffer fantasy book), is cartoonish with a mid-’60s flavor. The Apple Tree is primarily remembered for the tour-de-force performance(s) of Barbara Harris as Eve, Barbara, and Passionella (plus Ella). Listening to this recording, one can fully understand why Harris won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical over Mary Martin in I Do! I Do! and Lotte Lenya in Cabaret. After using a light, dry voice for Eve’s innocent exploration of her first feelings and singing the lullaby “Go to Sleep, Whatever You Are,” the star then rises to a sexy combination of breathlessness and belting for the almost-striptease number “I’ve Got What You Want.” She employs a wonderfully realized, barely-on-pitch sound for the determined dreamer Ella and then, finally, her voice rises to a full-throated Broadway belt for Passionella. Equally versatile, if not quite as dazzling, is Alan AIda: He morphs from a simply acted and sung Adam to a pseudo-legit Captain Sanjar and then to a rock ‘n’roll star turn before a surprise reconciliation with Ella. The recording works hard to give you enough of each segment so that you can almost follow the stories; this is aided by the presence of Larry Blyden as The Snake, The Balladeer/Lion Keeper, and The Narrator. If one laments that even more music and dialogue (especially from Act I) was not recorded, the cuts were very well thought out. Those who want a more complete document of the score should seek out the hard-to-find two-CD Takarazuka recording in Japanese.  — Jeffrey Dunn

Original Broadway Cast, 1970 (ABC/Decca) (3 / 5) When librettists, composers, and lyricists take on a masterpiece, they rarely improve it. Such is the case with this musical version of the classic film All About Eve. Though Applause was a hit in its day, it has dimmed in the public’s consciousness, and the Charles Strouse-Lee Adams score can best be described as one that has its moments. Lauren Bacall is Margo Channing in the disco era, and though her opening song, “But Alive,” could be better, “Who’s That Girl?” — in which Margo sees herself on TV in a movie she made many moons ago, and comments — comes across as extra-special material. The title song, sung here by Bonnie Franklin in a supporting role,  is sometimes known as The Actors’ Anthem, although many performers may relate more readily to the acerbic “Welcome to the Theater.” There are laid-back charms in “Good Friends” and “One of a Kind,” the latter a pleasant, jazz waltz duet sung by Bacall with Len Cariou (heard here before A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd) as Bill Sampson, but the rest of the score seems little more than filler. Still, Penny Fuller manages to shine in the songs that Strouse and Adams wrote for Eve Harrington, as does Lee Roy Reams in the role of Duane, a gay male equivalent to the Thelma Ritter character in All About Eve. The CD offers four fascinating bonus tracks taken from demos that Strouse played and sang during the show’s creation. One is the title song, but the other three numbers were dropped. They indicate that the show was more ambitious in the planning stages;  ”’Smashing!’-New York Times” is a smart idea set to a haunting tune. — Peter Filichia

Original Broadway Cast, 1946 (Decca) (3 / 5) When this recording was made, cast albums were still a fairly new concept. It’s a major disappointment that the classic Irving Berlin score for Annie Get Your Gun is presented here as little more than a collection of songs from the show, with little or no attempt to recreate the theatrical experience. Yes, Ethel Merman is on hand to raise her golden voice, and she is at her peak vocally in such brilliant songs as “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun,” “Moonshine Lullaby,” and “I Got the Sun in the Morning” — but this makes it even more disappointing that she doesn’t really play Annie Oakley on the recording, and instead simply introduces the Berlin songs as potential standards. It’s also unfortunate that a good amount of the show’s music and lyrics were not recorded: There’s no overture, no “Colonel Buffalo Bill,” no “I’m a Bad, Bad Man.” Most unhappily of all, Merman does not sing the anthem “There’s No Business Like Show Business” with other members of the original cast, as she did on stage; rather, the song is given a bland choral rendition. On the plus side, Ray Middleton has a glorious voice that’s perfectly suited to the role of Frank Butler. His performance comes through a bit more theatrically than Merman’s, and he sounds very appealing and even sexy. As wonderful as it is to hear the two original stars singing this score, this album is largely unsatisfying, but it served its purpose until better recordings came along. (See below.) — Gerard Alessandrini

Original London Cast, 1947 (World Records/various CD labels) (1 / 5) This production made a star of Dolores Gray. As recorded here, her unique voice marks her as someone destined for greatness. Gray’s interpretation of Annie Oakley is very different from Ethel Merman’s, but it’s wonderful to hear her sing Berlin’s tuneful songs so smoothly–especially “I Got Lost in His Arms” and other ballads. As Frank Butler, Bill Johnson sounds equally terrific. Issued in four large 78-rpm platters, these recordings are very quaint-sounding, much more so than American cast albums of the same period. Although it’s fun to hear Gray and Johnson, the selections are so brief and the sound quality so fuzzy that this set will only be of interest to historians. — G.A.

Film Soundtrack, 1950 (MGM/Rhino-Turner) (4 / 5) When MGM prepared to film Annie Get Your Gun, the studio pulled out all the stops. The soundtrack recording exemplifies the high standards set for the movie, which raised the bar for screen versions of stage musicals. Great care was taken in expanding the show’s orchestrations and choral parts. Howard Keel was cast as Frank Butler; he had just come to Hollywood via the Broadway and London stages and was still fresh, theatrical, and gorgeous-with a big, bright, melodic baritone to boot. The really questionable aspect of this recording is the performance of Betty Hutton as Annie Oakley. Although she was a huge star in her day, beloved for her rowdy comic style, Hutton never had the vocal range of an Ethel Merman. As a result, Annie’s songs are shortchanged here. But wait! Included as bonus tracks are those songs as sung by the great Judy Garland, who was to have starred in the film. (The reasons for her dismissal are detailed by George Feltenstein, producer of the CD, in his notes on the release.) Garland’s renditions of “They Say It’s Wonderful” (with Keel) and the reprise of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” are spine-tingling. Her comic timing and wit come through sharp and clear in “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “I Got the Sun in the Morning,” putting Hutton’s over-the-top performances to shame. It’s a safe guess that this generally excellent stage-to-screen transfer would have been one of the best movie musicals of all time if Garland had completed the film. Note that the disc includes both Hutton’s and Garland’s renditions of “Let’s Go West Again,” a song that was apparently written by Irving Berlin for Annie in 1946 but was cut before the show opened. The number was to be reinstated for the film, but never made it, so it’s nice to find it here in two different performances. — G.A.

Studio Cast, 1957 (Capitol/Broadway Angel) (2 / 5) Mary Martin and John Raitt were acclaimed for their stage performances in Annie Get Your Gun, but this recording fails to capture the excitement, personality, or vocal artistry of their interpretations. It’s less a cast album than a recording of songs from the show with 1950s pop orchestrations that bear little or no resemblance to the originals and are quite untheatrical — a very strange artistic choice, considering that this score contains the anthem “There’s No Business Like Show Buisness.” Martin and Raitt starred in a fine television production of the musical around the time of this recording, and it’s a shame that Capitol Records didn’t produce a true TV cast album. In the surviving kinescope of the broadcast, the stars are as vibrant and thrilling as any other Annie Oakley or Frank Butler, but the Capitol recording is flat, dry, and altogether forgettable. — G.A.

Studio Cast, 1963 (Columbia/no CD) 0 stars; not recommended. This is one of the most disappointing studio cast recordings of any Broadway score. It’s conducted by the great Franz Allers and was produced by Columbia Records, the company responsible for many  of the classiest cast albums ever issued. But almost every choice made here was misguided and the result is embarrassing. Doris Day should have been terrific in this role (as she was in the film Calamity Jane), but her performances of Annie Oakley’s songs are sleepy and tepid. As Frank Butler, Robert Goulet probably seemed perfect in theory, but what might have been dream casting is sabotaged by his Vegas-like renditions of songs that require a robust, legit sound. To compound this misuse of talent, there are pallid new orchestrations by the usually reliable Phil Lang. It’s a shame that Day, Goulet, and Allers didn’t offer a more straightforward reading of Irving Berlin’s greatest score. — G.A.

Music Theater of Lincoln Center Cast, 1966 (RCA) (5 / 5) Here’s the gem, the most enjoyable recording of Annie Get Your Gun. Even though it was made years after the original Decca album, it’s a more accurate representation of the score as a theatrical experience — and Ethel Merman, two decades after creating the role on Broadway, never sounded fresher. Her vibrato is tight, her pitch perfect, her acting and comic timing impeccable. By 1966, stereophonic recording was at its peak, and the spacious, crisp sound of the recording makes you feel as if you’ve got a front-row seat for the performance. Supporting Merman is Bruce Yarnell, who possessed one of the most thrilling musical theater voices ever. His big baritone is melodic and hearty, and he delivers every wonderful Berlin lyric with absolutely clarity. Also in the cast is Jerry Orbach in the character role of Charlie Davenport; his performance leaps out of the speakers in the opening number, “Colonel Buffalo Bill,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” This Music Theater of Lincoln Center production was also notable for introducing “An Old-Fashioned Wedding,” the last new Irving Berlin song to be performed on Broadway, it’s a terrific contrapuntal duet between Annie and Frank. And this recording was the first to include all of the verses to “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun.” Masterfully performed by Merman, the number is a laugh-out-loud exercise in lyrical perfection; it’s Berlin at his most witty and playful, and it doesn’t get any better than this. The score is conducted to perfection by the great Franz Allers. — G.A.

Studio Cast, 1973 (London) (4 / 5) In the 1960s and ’70s London Records embarked on a high-end series of albums labeled “London Phase 4 Stereo.” The studio performances were recorded on multiple tracks and then mixed down for a ping-pong stereophonic experience. In 1973, Stanley Black conducted Ethel Merman in a new Phase 4 recording of Annie Get Your Gun, and the results were quite phenomenal — the first phenomenon being that Merman was well into her sixties by this time, yet she still sounds fresh and vibrant. Her voice plows right through the waves of super stereo, and in particular, her rendition of “I Got The Sun In The Morning” is the best version she ever recorded. As for the rest of the cast: Nelson Taylor as Frank Butler is as leading-man-baritone-legit as Howard Keel ever was;  Neil Howlett,  also quite legit sounding, is fine as Charlie Davenport; and Merman’s real life best friend, the wonderful Benay Venuta recreates her original Broadway and film role of Dolly Tate. The orchestrations are expanded and souped up as they might have been for a multi-million-dollar 1960s movie musical, and are quite fun to hear.  Even though Stanley Black was primarily a concert and classical conductor, he certainly knows how to deliver a razz-ma-tazz Broadway sound, and here he pulls out the stops. The only real drawback of the album is that the meticulous, hyper-mixed sound keeps it from having a live theatrical presence, but both Merman and composer-lyricist Irving Berlin must have been very happy with this brassy yet classy recording. — G.A.

Studio Cast, 1990 (EMI) (2 / 5) John McGlinn, the masterful conductor who created complete digital recordings of such classic shows as Show Boat and Brigadoon, does the same here for Annie Get Your Gun, but much less successfully. The album suffers from less-than-perfect casting and from the decision to use the original score and orchestrations with none of the improvements, cuts, and additions that were made since the show premiered in 1946. (“An Old-Fashioned Wedding” is included as an addendum.) As Annie Oakley, Kim Criswell displays a strong belt voice, but there’s something about her personality that doesn’t quite mesh with the role; she’s sassy, but she’s not the equal of Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Judy Garland, Judy Kaye, or even (can you believe it?) Betty Hutton. Although Thomas Hampson has the big baritone bravura required for Frank Butler, he’s too operatically trained to pull off the laid-back, cowboy crooner aspects of the part, and he lacks the comic ability to interact effectively with Criswell in “Anything You Can Do.” Jason Graae and Rebecca Luker are fine as Tommy and Winnie, yet this recording makes it clear why these roles are usually eliminated from the show in revival; their songs are somewhat interesting from a historical standpoint, but otherwise negligible. As Charlie Davenport and Colonel Buffalo Bill, respectively, David Garrison and David Healy are well cast but don’t do much to help this album sound particularly theatrical or exciting. — G.A.

Studio Cast, 1995 (JAY, 2CDs) (5 / 5) This is an excellent, complete recording of the show as revised for the 1966 Lincoln Center production, with its superior orchestrations and the added showstopper “An Old-Fashioned Wedding.” Annie Oakley is played by Judy Kaye at her best. Her voice is melodic and rich, her characterization full of wit and bite. In fact, Kaye is the best Annie on record next to Merman. Barry Bostwick is also well cast as Frank Butler, totally believable as a bragging, hunky cowboy. Robert Russell Bennett’s fine orchestrations are remarkably well conducted by John Owen Edwards; his tempo choices are interesting and fresh, and it’s all the more enjoyable to hear every note of the score in full, clear, digital stereo. — G.A.

Broadway Cast, 1999 (Broadway Angel) (3 / 5) By 1999, much of the content of Annie Get Your Gun seemed politically incorrect, so the show was edited and reinvented. Therefore, this cast recording is not a true interpretation of the musical as originally written. It presents a crisp, new version showcasing Bernadette Peters — a star who, in her own way, is as vibrant and beloved as Merman. Some contemporary listeners may find this revision of the classic score more palatable than what’s heard on earlier recordings, but the orchestrations and some of the vocal performances leave a lot to be desired. Still, the great Irving Berlin songs and the dynamic star performances compensate for those shortcomings. Peters has great range; she handles the comedic lyrics (edited here) hilariously, and delivers the ballads with lots of emotion. Tom Wopat is always an appealing leading man, and his attractive baritone gets a chance to shine here in “The Girl That I Marry” and “My Defenses Are Down.” On the whole, this album is perhaps more successful than the 1999 revival itself; without the drab scenery and questionable book revisions to distract us, the brilliant score is allowed to shine. — G.A.