Customer Reviews

Put on a Happy Face: Broadway, 1955-1967

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This compilation from Decca Broadway draws tracks from their catalogue of cast album titles (a few of them now rare and out-of-print on CD). Collectors would probably have most or all of these in their collections already, but this is still a cute disc to while away a few minutes.

1959-67 was an exciting time for the Broadway musicals, one of great joy and optimism, but also one of transition and change. The "sound" of Broadway was evolving. Rodgers and Hammerstein's final show opened in 1959, Irving Berlin tried to prove to critics that he could write "young" in the troubled "Mr. President"; and then "Hair" (woven into the tapestry of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement) shook things up with it's rock beat and rough edges, and right or wrong, became the yardstick with which all subsequent new musicals were measured against.

On this CD, you can revel in the excitement of several of the big Broadway shows of the period (and a few adorable flops). Highlights include Carol Burnett's ungainly Princess Winnifred explaining her main failing - being "Shy" - in ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, Anna Maria Alberghetti's anthemic CARNIVAL! showstopper "Love Makes the World Go 'Round"; and Jerry Orbach's definitive "Try to Remember" from THE FANTASTICKS.

The "flops" represented include "I Say Hello" (Dolores Gray as Frenchy the saloon girl in Harold Rome's musical version of DESTRY RIDES AGAIN), and Alice Playten's "Poor Little Person" (HENRY, SWEET HENRY), however this is Playten's separate "pop" cover of the song, and not the version which appears on the cast album--this track is very rare to find on CD. Daniel Massey sings the Title Song from SHE LOVES ME (a fine number but an even better choice would have been Barbara Cook's "Vanilla Icecream" or Barbara Baxley's "A Trip to the Library").

Two tracks from London cast albums substitute for the Broadway counterparts (because of rights issues), so instead of Dick Van Dyke, we have Peter Marshall singing "Put on a Happy Face" from BYE BYE BIRDIE, and the original West End ragamuffins from OLIVER!.

As I mentioned earlier, most collectors will already have this material, but gathered together it creates a colourful souvenir of the Broadway musical at it's absolute giddy height.