 |
free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people |  |
  |
||
|
free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people | |
|
||
What Is This Site All About?
1. Demos
2. Live Show Recordings
3. Studio Cast Albums
4. Instrumental and Jazz Albums
5. Pop Covers
What's Not To Be Found On This Site?
Some Information About The Organization And Format Of This Site
This site arose out of a passion, some would say obsession, for show music obscura. A definitive, comprehensive discography of show music recordings is probably a physical impossibility and, in any event, is a project that is beyond my limited resources and capabilities. However, within certain semi-arbitrary boundaries, it is the webmaster's intent to collect in one place a growing database of information about show music recordings other than original cast, foreign, or revival cast albums.
This would include demos, studio cast albums, live show recordings (if commercially released to some extent), and certain types of pop covers of individual songs from various musicals. In addition, the database will include non-vocal recordings, such as instrumental covers and jazz treatments of Broadway scores, and little known, unusual, or significant renditions of individual numbers from those scores.
Needless to say, while there is a fairly finite number of LPs and CDs covering the scores to the world’s musicals, cataloging the number of recordings of individual songs from those musicals would be an incredibly daunting task. It might be of interest for someone to have a list of every known recording of "Send In The Clowns" or "Memory", but that is beyond the scope of this site. Instead, the emphasis will be on recordings of individual songs cut from musicals, songs from shows that never had a cast album or that were otherwise omitted from a cast album, and songs seldom or infrequently recorded outside of a cast album context. Recordings of other songs may be listed as well, but the listings for those songs may not be comprehensive. For sake of completeness, original cast recordings released in a single or EP format have been included.
The state of the musical theatre today is such that the mounting of a new musical is a risky and costly endeavor. The fact that a musical is able to run for many months on Broadway is no guarantee that a cast album will be recorded by any record label. Even if it is recorded, unless the musical has a score by the likes of Stephen Sondheim or Andrew Lloyd Webber or it is otherwise a monster hit on the order of Les Miserables, the odds are that such a cast album will likely remain the only recording of the majority of the songs from that musical aside from an occasional tune that might turn up from time to time on a cabaret artist's or Broadway performer's own vocal CD.
The first recordings of a musical's score are usually in the form of one or more demonstration recordings used to drum up investor and producer interest in a show. Prior to the advent of rock and roll or, at least, during the period when show music rather uneasily co-existed with rock music in the popular music scene, demonstration recordings were also used as a means to plug songs in the hopes that a record company might want to record either the official cast album or have one of their stable of artists record one or more of its songs. These recordings were generally performed by relatively anonymous studio singers, although sometimes the performers were identified by name or were performed by the songwriters themselves. They are of particular interest to show music collectors because they represent the show's songs in their earliest and purest forms, frequently with lyrics slightly different from those eventually used in the show. In addition, they often contain the only commercially available renditions of numbers that never made it into rehearsal, or numbers that might have been cut during tryouts.
As show music collectors are aware, there are often unauthorized live (i.e., bootleg) recordings of original or replacement cast performances. For the most part, such recordings are of dubious legality and not generally available through commercial channels. Occasionally, however, such recordings have been transferred to vinyl or compact disc (usually a CDr), sometimes with the authors' permission, and have been available to a limited extent through commercial channels. While it is not the intent of this site to list bootleg recordings, an attempt has been made to list authorized live recordings and commercially available recordings of historical significance.
The original (or revival) cast album is an important, but hardly the sole, means for promoting and preserving a musical's score. In the LP period, even musicals that were only moderately successful were often recorded by studio casts. The reasons for such studio cast albums varied. For example, the record company that produced the original cast album might release a studio cast version on its budget label or sell it at a budget price. Rival record labels that wanted a given score in their show music catalog would also record the score. In some cases, a record company would cast these studio cast albums with one or more name singers it already had under exclusive contract. In other cases, these studio cast albums might feature one or more singers who later replaced original cast members in their roles on Broadway, in the West End, and/or on tour. In still other cases, they were cheaply made with bland or anonymous studio cast singers or chorus members in an attempt to turn a quick buck and capitalize on the recent success of a new Broadway show.
In the modern CD era, studio cast albums continue to be made to capitalize on the existence of long-running musicals or major hit revivals. With a handful of exceptions, however, these recordings tend to be an undistinguished lot, usually containing an abridgement of the show's score on a budget label. Of late, however, certain producers with a love of musical theatre or musical history, have begun to release studio cast albums of shows that never received a cast recording or new versions of classic shows from the Broadway musical canon that often have certain advantages over an original cast album. For example, a new digital recording of a show from the pre-stereo era is likely to have improved sound and room for additional numbers or longer renditions of numbers that might have been omitted from the cast album due to limitations of space.
4. Instrumental and Jazz Albums
While musicals are designed as a way for characters to tell a story or to express emotions though an effective pairing of words with music, it is sometimes quite difficult to perform certain songs outside of the context of the show for which they were written. The abstract nature of music, however, permits the music to performed and enjoyed by itself in a variety of other contexts. Even if a song is detachable from the show's story, the listener may nonetheless want or prefer to listen to a non-vocal rendition of the show's score, for example, as background music.
To this writer's mind, many of the instrumental cast album covers tend to be on the order of bland, uninspired, "elevator-style" music. However, some instrumental albums stand apart from the others, particularly those which are conducted, arranged, and/or performed by the composer, or those given effective symphonic treatments. Instrumental albums sometimes are devoted not to a specific show but to a collection of songs from an entire season of new musicals or to songs by a given composer. In many cases, these albums often contained one of the few recordings of certain songs, even if only instrumental form.
Of more artistic interest are jazz covers of Broadway scores or songs contained therein. Jazz musicians have long raided the musical theatre for basic source material and the number of jazz recordings of classic show songs by the likes of Gershwin, Porter, Kern, and Rodgers are far too numerous to be listed on this site. But a number of prominent jazz artists have, over the years, devoted an entire album to an instrumental jazz interpretetation of a single show's score, usually with great (artistic) success.
In the past, the public's first exposure to a musical's score often was not via a cast album but through one or more pop singles recorded prior to the show's opening. Radio airplay of these singles might be used to promote the show during out-of-town tryouts and generate business for a show prior to its opening. Whether or not a show was commercially successful, it was hoped that certain songs from a musical might become extractable hits that could be sung by various popular singers of the day. If, however, the songs selected were subsequently cut from a show or the show itself was not recorded, they might well become the only commercial recordings of those songs. In other cases, they might be the only recording or one of a handful of recordings of songs outside of the cast album itself. The orchestrations and performance styles for these pop singles, however, were usually very different from those encountered on cast albums.
Pop music is, of course, notorious for having a short shelf-life. If a song didn't catch on with the record-buying public, it generally faded into obscurity. Certain adventurous singers, however, looking for fresh material to record may, from time to time, unearth and record songs on an album that for some reason were never recorded or, if recorded, failed to catch on with the general public and deserved a second chance. This is often the case when the singer's album album is devoted to the songs of a given lyricist or composer where, in addition to spotlighting the songwriter's greatest hits, a certain novelty or freshness to the proceedings is insured by including some lesser known or change of pace material.
What's Not To Be Found On This Site?
1. Detailed information about cast albums. Numerous books already have been written on the subject of show music with detailed discographical information or commentary relating to original, revival, and foreign cast albums. Some of the more comprehensive books on the subject are listed in the Acknowledgements Section of this site. In addition, I also recommend the Musical Cast Album Database as an on-line information source on this topic. The distinction between a cast album, a concert cast album, and a studio cast album with performers recreating stage roles is sometimes a distinction without a difference. Nonetheless, I have decided to include the latter category within the scope of this project.
2. Bootleg recordings, backer's auditions, and workshop performances. David Hummel's book listed in my Acknowledgements Section is an excellent reference for extant audio tape recordings of complete musical scores. Although of immense historical value and interest, many of these items, however, are not authorized recordings and most have never been available for sale or otherwise commercially distributed. I have chosen on this site to instead concentrate primarily on commercially released demos (or demos which were at least given some degree of permanence by being produced in some number in acetate or vinyl form) which, although not necessarily intended for distribution to the general public, were authorized or official in nature. As noted above, I have also included vinyl, cassettes, and CDs which, authorized or not, were routinely sold by cast album dealers and continue to turn up for resale in the secondary music markets.
3. Greatest hits collections, whether vocal or instrumental in nature. In general, I have not bothered to catalog these types of generic anthologies unless the artists involved or one or more of songs found in such recordings warranted special treatment.
4. Foreign language musicals. I have decided for the time being to concentrate on English language musicals, primarily those that played (or were intended to play) on Broadway, off-Broadway, or in the West End, but also certain regional U.S., U.K., Canadian, and Australian musicals as well.
5. Film and television soundtracks. Soundtracks, like cast albums, are also well covered in the literature. However, studio cast albums or covers of songs from film and television musicals have been included. In a handful of cases, songs written for films that are not musicals have been included if the composers have a musical theatre connection.
6. Show music on 78's, unless reissued in another format. (I might rethink this decision once I have finished with the LP era musicals.)
7. Karoake recordings.
8. Non-show record albums, industrial show albums, etc. Consequently, something like The Secret Garden with Barbara Cook will not be listed. However, such items will be listed to the extent that vocal or instrumental covers of songs from such albums can be located.
9. Pop or jazz covers of songs from the Great American Songbook. A studio cast recording of Babes In Arms will be catalogued, but not every individual rendition of, say, "The Lady Is A Tramp" will be. The emphasis will always be on unusual, unknown, and underrecorded songs, so that even modern day hits like "The Impossible Dream" or "This Is The Moment" will not get much attention in this database, although other non-cast album recordings from the scores of "Man Of La Mancha" and "Jekyll & Hyde" might well qualify. I'll be the first to admit that the inclusion or exclusion of such covers is entirely subjective on my part. However, it's my site. :)
10. Whatever I don't know about or haven't had time to add to the site. This site is a continual work-in-progress. If you have information or recordings to contribute within the spirit and purpose of this site, please let me know.
Some Information About The Organization And Format Of This Site
1. There are two basic ways to navigate through this site. The first is to review listings show by show. Clicking on the "Musical Index" link on the index page will take you to a simple set of frames where the show titles are sorted alphabetically under a link for a given starting letter in the left frame. Song title and recording information will appear in the right frame. If returning over and over again to the alphabetical index is slow, I suggest using your "Back" button on your browser instead to achieve the same effect.
The second way to navigate throught this site is to use the search engine. Clicking on the "Search This Site" link on the index page will open an entirely new window for conducting a search. You can search not only for a show title but for any text on this site, such as the name of a singer or a given song title. The search results page will contain links for whatever results are obtained, but it will do so without the use of frames.
2. For each show, the following information is attempted to be listed, if known:
Show Title
Names Of Composer(s) And Lyricist(s)
List Of Songs, Dances, Sketches, Etc. From The
Score Notes On The Songs (e.g., indicating what songs were cut, added for
revivals, etc.)
List Of Demo Recordings (D)
List Of Live Cast Recordings (L) (where appropriate)
List Of Studio Cast Recordings (S)
List Of Instrumental Show Albums And Song Covers (I)
List Of Jazz Show Albums And Song Covers (J)
List Of Pop Or Other Song Covers (P)
3. In general, those songs appearing on the original [usually Broadway] cast album are highlight in purple, so as to help differentiate those songs which were omitted from the OBC because they were dropped prior to the show opening, because they were added to subsequent production, because of a lack of space, etc. In a few cases, such as the entry for Little Mary Sunshine, where a significant number of songs appeared in the Broadway production were omitted from the OBC but appeared on the London cast album, those additional songs are highlighted in a second color, e.g., red.
In some cases, there were additional composers or lyricists for a show. For example, lyricist Johnny Mercer also wrote the music for two songs in Saratoga when his partner, Harold Arlen, took ill. In such a case, I have highlighted the person's name and the songs in question in the same color to indicate that fact. It is hoped that such color coding will be of assistance to the reader, but they are not really the focus of the site.
4. To the extent recordings are known to exist for a given song title, they are listed by code after the song title. Thus, a code S3 would refer to the third recording listed in the studio cast album section, a code P5 would refer to the fifth recording listed in the pop cover section, etc. In a few cases, such as with 45 EP recordings with different singers for different numbers or compilation CDs, the code might be followed with a letter to assist the reader in determining the identity of the singer. Thus, for example, a code P2A might refer to a track on a CD sung by Frank Sinatra and a code P2D would refer to another track on the same CD sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.
A designation such as D1/D3 is intended to indicate that the same recording of a given song is found on both albums. In general, only one entry has been provided for a given recording and, if at all possible, I have tried to identify a recording that is (or once was) available on CD. However, in some cases, the duplication was noted in the interest of completeness or where the duplicate source might be of particular interest.
The line between a jazz singer, a pop singer, and a cabaret singer is often hard to determine. For sake of convenience, covers of songs by all three types of vocalists have been grouped together under the category "pop covers." Only if substantially an entire vocal album is devoted to one show will it be listed under the category of studio cast album. The line between an instrumental cast album or song cover and a jazz cast album or song cover is sometimes also difficult to determine, but I have done my best and take full responsibility for the misfiling of any such entries.
5. In general, the default recording format listed is than of an LP. Recordings preceded with a "CD/", "Cassette/", "45/" or ""10/" prefix are, respectively, CDs, cassettes, 45 r.p.m.s, or 10 inch albums. An exhaustive list of recording formats or reissues for a given recording is not attempted. Preference is given to the CD format if the song was issued or known to have been reissued in that format. In the case of multiple reissues, preference is most likely the album in my own possession without intending to suggest that it was the earliest, latest, or even necessarily the best version available.
6. The singer of a pop cover is generally indicated in parentheses after the recording information unless the full name of the singer is already contained in the title of the album along with, when reasonably available or of particular interest, the name of the accompanying pianist, the conductor, the orchestra, etc. The singers on a studio cast album will always be listed if known, but the particular singers for a particular track will not be listed unless reasonably available. On the jazz albums, the name of the jazz group and the front man will be listed, but names of the individual players in the group (or guest musicians on given tracks) generally will not be listed unless the composition of the group will be of particular interest to jazz afficianados.
7. Again, for this site to be useful and as comprehensive as possible, I encourage visitors to suggest contribute information about recordings not found on this site. This is particularly true in the case for demo recordings and recordings of cut songs and obscure 45 rpm covers that have escaped my attention.
Readers will notice that some musicals do not appear in the musical index for the years covered so far. This is not an intentional slight on my part but entirely due to the absence of any known demos or song covers for these shows. For example, there is no listing for the 1959 Broadway flop HAPPY TOWN by Gordon Duffy, Harry M. Haldane, and Paul Nassau for precisely that reason. The only way that it and other similar omissions will be rectified is if you, the reader, bring them to my attention.