Annie Get Your Gun: An Original Cast Album (1966 Lincoln Center Cast) [Cast Recording]

Bruce Yarnell, Jerry Orbach, Irving Berlin, Ethel Merman, Annie Get Your Gun (Related Recordings) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Cast Recording
• Label: RCA Victor Broadway
• ASIN: B000002W1O
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,969 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST of many recordings of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, February 6, 2003

By 

Mark Andrew Lawrence "Theatre Reviewer" (Toronto) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Annie Get Your Gun: An Original Cast Album (1966 Lincoln Center Cast) (Audio CD)

This album of the 20th anniversary revival from 1966 is, in fact, much better than the original Decca cast album. For starters it has better sound (and in stereo too!) and is more complete. It is also laid out in theatrical order so the listener can follow the show from Overture to Finale. Merman's voice comes across bright and brassy as ever..she we 58 at the time but certainly doesn't sound it.

To answer queries by two other reviewers:

1. The famous Merman version of "There's No Busines Like Show Business" was never heard in the show. As originally written the song was to be sung by the other characters to Annie to convince her to join the Wild West Show. After hearing the song in rehearsals, Merman wanted to sing it to, so an extra verse was added ("There's No Business Like Show Business if You tell me it's so...") and she was also given a short reprise later in the show. She did, however, do solo versions on radio and Tv and in 1954 starred in a movie called THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS and it is the soundtrack recording of that movie that yielded her famous recording of the song.

2. The song "Old Fashioned Wedding" was not in the original show nor the movie. Irving Berlin wrote it for this 1966 revival and it became another showstopper in a score filled with hits. Because of this new song added to the revival the minor characters of Tommy and Winnie (two young lovers in the wild west show) were downplayed and their two duets "I'll Share It All With You" and "Who Do You love I Hope" were both cut from the revival. Since this is the usual version sent out for community groups, those two songs are seldom heard anymore and "Old Fashioned Wedding is almost always included.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a great recording; Merman is in top form, December 12, 2002

By 

Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Annie Get Your Gun: An Original Cast Album (1966 Lincoln Center Cast) (Audio CD)

In 1966, Richard Rodgers, then the president and producing-director for Music Theater of Lincoln Center, decided to produce a revival of 1946's smash-hit Irving Berlin musical ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, which had established its star Ethel Merman as one of the greatest Broadway divas.

Rodgers persuaded Ethel Merman to reprise her role in the revival. Merman had not been on the Broadway stage since 1959's GYPSY and subsequent tour, and was eager to return to the role that she had immortalized. The revival also featured Bruce Yarnell as Frank Butler, Jerry Orbach as Charlie Davenport and Benay Venuta as Dolly Tate (the role she had played in the 1951 film version).

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN opened at the New York State Theatre on May 31, 1966 and played a stricly-limited run of 47 performances before heading out for a touring season. It later returned to the bigger Broadway Theatre for an additional 77 performances.

As always, Merman is a delight. She peels away the years as she sings showstopers like "I Got the Sun in the Morning", "I Got Lost in His Arms", and "Moonshine Lullaby". Bruce Yarnell sings a gorgeous "I'm a Bad, Bad Man" as well as a jaunty "My Defences are Down".

Of course, nothing will displace the original 1946 recording, but completists and Broadway fans will find a lot to love about this second cast album featuring Ethel Merman.

Highly-recommended.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb recording of the show with Merman at her peak, October 4, 2000

By 

A. Andersen (Bellows Falls, VT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Annie Get Your Gun: An Original Cast Album (1966 Lincoln Center Cast) (Audio CD)

Hearing this back to back with Merman's original 1946 cast recording is an education. Although a wobble is developing, here she is no less in control, no less full of power, character and sheer exuberance. The stereo sound is excellent and the rest of the cast and the orchestra do not let Ms. Merman down. Yarnell is in wonderful voice as Frank. It is an exceptional recording of an exceptional score - the only songs missing are the two for the soubrettes (they were dropped entirely from the show's book after the original run closed) and a new one from Berlin's pen, AN OLD FASHIONED WEDDING, is as fine as anything he ever wrote and completely in character within the show. Of all the Annie albums this is the best.

Note: Of the nine recordings made of the show, eight have been released on CD (the soundtrack is being re-released next month). Sadly, the great studio cast recording with Criswell and Hampson has quickly gone out of print - undeservedly. The one recording remaining for CD imprint is the Columbia studio cast recording with Doris Day and Robert Goulet - another excellent job.