AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

As many of you know, the past month has been a pretty rough one for me personally. Getting back into the swing of theatergoing and keeping the site updated has been one way that I've sort of pulled my world together, and please know that each note of support that I received from readers helped enormously.

I've also been spending a lot of time listening ot music as I work – sorting emails, clipping news, and contemplating next steps – and I want to highlight some of the things that I've been returning to over and over: discs that because of their upbeat and just generally jovial nature have been godsends.

The first comes from DRG Records and is a reissue of the original cast recording of Happy Hunting, a 1956 vehicle for Ethel Merman that features an incredibly spritely score from Harold Karr (music) and Matt Dubey (lyrics). Now, in its day, "Hunting" didn't set the world afire, but today, there's a lot in it that is considered gem-like. Consider for instance, "Mutual Admiration Society," which ultimately became the basis for an early parody in Forbidden Broadway, and "Gee, But It's Good To Be Here," which became a standard for Merman herself.

But what's really fun in here are some of the tunes and lyrics that aren't necessarily generally known. Take for instance this lyric from the show's opening: "on this day of days in this happy little land a fairy tale princess weds a prince at the wedding of the century in this pint size, pinpoint, pre-shrunk, postage-stamp principality." I mean, how can you not smile? Similarly, the sort of dopey insistence of Dubey's lyrics and Karr's music for "A New-Fangled Tango" amuses to no end.

The DRG reissue uses Ken Mandelbaum's thorough notes on the show, and these are accompanied by a healthy number of black and white photos. For those who don't know "Hunting," I highly recommend grabbing this one, and if you do know it, but haven't added it to your CD shelf, all I can ask is "What are you waiting for?"

A couple of other recent releases from DRG that I've been playing include Sammy Davis, Jr. – The Capitol Years," and "The Best of Broadway, Vol. 1" – a compilation of two studio cast recordings of South Pacific and Kiss Me, Kate. The Davis disc includes a gloriously upbeat "I Ain't Got Nobody" (appropriate, huh?) and a more downbeat "Here Lies Love." But regardless of the tone of the 14 tracks on this disc, Davis' smooth vocals are really a grand aural tonic no matter your mood.

On the "Broadway" disc, I've been gravitating toward Peggy Lee's jazzy "I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" for obvious reasons and finding that there's some grand comfort in Gordon MacRae's silky "Some Enchanted Evening." The answer is though that the eight "Pacific" tracks are all pretty grand. So are the eight "Kate" ones – featuring Jo Stafford with MacRae. Here, highlights are Stafford's smokey-voiced "Always True To You in My Fashion" and the pair's lush take on "Wunderbar." You may think you really have all the recordings you need of these tunes, but these are really some special takes on classics from Rodgers & Hammerstein and Porter.

One other disc that's been getting a lot of play has been a recent release from PS Classics – Kerry Butler's "Faith, Trust & Pixie Dust," a Disney-themed disc that simply seems to glisten in the ear. I probably shouldn't be responding to the lyric "love never enters right on cue" which is heard in the disc's opening track "This Only Happens in the Movies," a tune by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater for the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but hey, Butler's silky plaintiveness in with the haunting melody captures no matter what the listener's backstory might be.

I'll admit that for child-like reasons, I've been gravitating toward a couple of the standard Disney tunes that come later in the disc – a grandly twangy "Bare Necessities" (from Jungle Book, natch) and even twangier take on "Minnie's Yoo Hoo." Of course, there's no beating the beauty of a medley of the chestnut "It's A Small World" and "God Help the Outcasts" (a song from The Hunchback of Notre Dame). The arrangements here, and through most of the album, come from musical director Michael Kosario, and the delicate orchestrations for the track come from Michael Starobin. Combined they support Butler's simultaneously emotional and carefully phrased vocals, which are abundantly pleasing on all 12 tracks.

Both DRG and PS Classics have a host of new recordings scheduled for mid-next month, and I still have a backlog from these two labels as well as Original Cast Records. My goal, as move back to the world of normalcy, is to do at least one set of reviews a week here on AmericanTheaterWeb.