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Merrily We Roll Along 1981 Original Broadway Cast

Cast Recording

4.6 out of 5 stars 79

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Audio CD, Cast Recording, July 14, 1986
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Track Listings

1 Overture - Paul Gemignani
2 The Hills of Tomorrow / Merrily We Roll Along (1980) / Rich and Happy
3 Merrily We Roll Along (1979-1975) / Old Friends / Like It Was
4 Merrily We Roll Along (1974-1973) / Franklin Shepard, Inc.
5 Old Friends - Lonny Price
6 Not a Day Goes By - Jim Walton
7 Now You Know
8 It's a Hit! - Lonny Price
9 Merrily We Roll Along (1964-1962) / Good Thing Going
10 Merrily We Roll Along (1961-1960) / Bobby and Jackie and Jack - Sally Klein
11 Not a Day Goes By - Jim Walton
12 Opening Doors - Sally Klein
13 Our Time
14 The Hills of Tomorrow

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

It's a shame that Merrily We Roll Along was such a flop on Broadway, for it contains some of Stephen Sondheim's best, brightest, and brassiest music. The reasons have been well documented: a youthful, inexperienced cast; cheesy sets and costumes; and, most of all, a confusing plot structure that starts in 1980 with bitter, cynical characters and winds its way backward to 1955, when a high school graduating class is dreaming of making its mark on the world. The main focus is on three friends (Jim Walton, Ann Morrison, and Lonny Price) who share musical ambitions but are gradually driven apart by the turbulence and fragmentation of their lives and the America around them. (You'll also hear a pre-Seinfeld Jason Alexander, and even a young chorus girl named Liz Callaway.) Sondheim almost imperceptibly reworks his themes as his characters develop, and the score includes the infectious "Old Friends," the driving title tune, the ballad "Not a Day Goes By," and "Our Time," an uplifting anthem of hope when performed out of the show's context, but emotionally devastating within it. And if the backward structure--inherited from George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's 1934 version of the show--really bothers you, you can run it almost completely chronologically by reprogramming the CD. --David Horiuchi

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.62 x 4.92 x 0.33 inches; 3.84 ounces
  • Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Masterworks Broadway
  • Original Release Date ‏ : ‎ 1986
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 6 minutes
  • Date First Available ‏ : ‎ February 10, 2007
  • Label ‏ : ‎ Masterworks Broadway
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000002W91
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 79

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
79 global ratings
neglected Sondheim still as magical as ever
4 Stars
neglected Sondheim still as magical as ever
Running only 16 performances when it originally premiered on Broadway in 1981, Stephen Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG has now been embraced as one of the composer's most bold, emotionally-raw and imaginative musical offerings. The cast album--starring Lonny Price, Ann Morrison and Jim Walton in their very first Broadway leading roles--sounds as fresh as paint on this latest CD reissue on the Sony Masterworks Broadway label.Although Sondheim later revised the show (and upset purists by cutting out the sublime "Hills of Tomorrow" sequence), nothing can ever top the sheer humanity and passion that's heard on this album, recorded the day after the show closed. A wondrous performance.Bonus tracks include Bernadette Peters' chill-inducing concert recording of "Not a Day Goes By"; and Sondheim's own private demo for "It's a Hit!". [MASTERWORKS BROADWAY 82876-68637-2]
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2010
"Merrily We Roll Along" is one of Sondheim's very best scores and its failure in 1981 is a little hard to understand. Some of his best melodies and wittiest, cleverest ideas can be found here.

Why did it fail? Perhaps it was the young cast of unknowns, perhaps because of its self-reflective (possibly indulgent) exploration of a successful musical composer, after a decade of success was it payback time for Sondheim and director Hal Prince, or could it be the air of cynicism and melancholy that pervades the score? Who knows?

Another fascination of this score is that it was recorded they day after the show closed after it's short run. This seems to only add to the sense of melancholy and the self-reflexiveness begins to pile up even more.
5 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2018
One of the best Broadway cast recordings ever. That it was for a show that flopped is amazing. People always complained that Sondheim's songs are not hummable. Listen to this enough and you will have "Not a Day Goes By," "A Good Thing Going," "Franklin Shepard Inc." "Opening Doors" and "Old Friends" in your head (which is a great place for them to be) for days. Apart from it's relation to the show, it is a work of art.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2009
We are lucky to have this original cast album, the show did not last long on the Great White (but cruel) Way! An interesting piece of work..."As the Day Goes By" is gorgeous and has stood the test of time...Even the worst of Sondheim (which this is NOT) is better than anything else out there...He is the Pantheon! A" must have" for you musical theater library. I believe this show was his last with Hal Prince.
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2014
This musical for me is one of Sondheim's absolute best, but that may be in part because I lived through the era in which it largely takes place. The idea of reversing the time sequence, that is going from the present to the past scene by scene, works extremely well; but more than that it is the melodic poignancy, rhythmic drive, and wit, both musically and verbally, that make this musical an absolute delight. Moreover, regarding this particular CD, I think the original cast and recording engineers got it right the first time around.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2013
I will be honest, this was a gift for WhatsHisName A.K.A. my husband who loves Stephen Sondheim. I should clarify he loves his music, I don't know what his personal feelings are toward Steven his personal self Anyway, my husband smiles and hums the tunes when he listens to this cd so I would give it a big A+
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2013
Now that Sondheim's career has reached its end, it's clear that he was a major artist, and all his shows are so valuable that they need the best possible productions. As all Broadway lovers know, Merrily We roll along was a famous flop, closing after sixteen performances, and the show's subsequent history hasn't been fruitful. "Anyone Can Whistle" rose form the grave after a famous live one-off performance that got recorded. But Merrily has big problems that are hard to solve, largely because they are so many.

Finding the right voices was the first and fatal misstep of this original cast album. the cast sounds juvenile, making the reverse plot wobbly since the leads sound young at every stage. There's no reason, vocally, to believe that cynicism and bitterness are moving backward toward innocence. Harold Prince's notion of casting the show with teenagers was horribly off the mark. Also, Merrily has never found a charismatic Frank. There are special "Sondheim voices" - Elaine Stritch,Mandy patinkin, Bernadette Peters - that are distinctive and off-kilter. They inhabit a world of bittersweet cynicism that's true to Sondheim's mixture of champagne and ground glass. Merrily needs such voices. Only in the encores recording, which was meant to rehabilitate the show form the doldrums, did Mary get cast with the right chemistry, but the male side remains weak. The original Broadway cast didn't come within a country mile of sounding at home with the score.

the major problem after casting is Sondheim's artistic quandary. Merrily has a vein of sentimentality about "old friends" that is jejune, and its theme about selling out art for success isn't vicious or poignant enough. Only after he arrived at Sunday in the Park did Sondheim find the maturity to tell the story form the perspective of a conflicted artist (from that show, the song "Putting It Together" says more than the entire script and lyrics of Merrily). Musically, Merrily's score resembles Into the Woods in its cheeriness, but Sondheim hadn't found a way to cut through Broadway sunniness with dark shadows.

So Merrily has languished in limbo. The encores album made the protagonists into adults, which was a good step, and it reduced the oversized orchestration, a necessary step since the songs are mostly too breezy to need a big band a la follies. But Frank lacks charisma, and Charlie, who is meant to be the show's moral compass - he stands for "pure" art - comes across as a whiny pest. At best we are halfway to getting what the score deserves - George Furth's book will always be a liability, but that's true for company, and it has succeeded despite its weak book.

Better things may be in sight. The current West End revival in London is sharper, more bitter, and more energized than any cast album so far. Like the trimmed-down versions of Sondheim shows directed by John Doyle over the past decade, this production began at the Menier chocolate Factory, and astute decision-making turned Merrily into a show with packed houses. If it comes to New York and if a cast album gets made, Merrily may flourish the way Anyone Can Whistle has. for now, it's still a problem show.
13 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2016
Just saw amazing documentary on the making of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll along (directed by original cast member Lonny Price) and felt like I had to get album. Check out "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened" to relive this short- lived show!
9 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2017
One of the best Sondheim scores you may have never heard. When you listen, you wonder why the show had such a short run. Witty and clever lyrics and a wonderful storyline conceit.

Top reviews from other countries

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Peter St James
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2018
This is the best recording/version of the musical
L. Frederic
5.0 out of 5 stars MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Original Broadway Cast
Reviewed in France on May 8, 2014
Les mélodies de Sondheim, les voix et les interprétations de Jim Walton, Ann Morrisson et Lonny Price, et pour moi, le plus bel air (GOOD THING GOING) du compositeur. Vrai plus: le livret des paroles pour reprendre, et pallier les insuffisances en anglais.
L'Original London Cast est moins claquant.
べる
5.0 out of 5 stars 良かったです。
Reviewed in Japan on March 23, 2014
舞台を見て、商品をさがしました。聞くたびに感動が思い出されます。
Ingbert Edenhofer
3.0 out of 5 stars I hope this is not the best version
Reviewed in Germany on February 15, 2009
I am sure there is a great musical here but somehow it seems to be afraid to come out. "Not a Day Goes by" is one of the most beautiful songs Sondheim has written but it does not fulfill its potential here in either version (thankfully, Bernadette Peters' version is a bonus track on this CD). And then there is Good Thing Going, which apparently here is used as a throw-away-song. I do not know the other versions of the show so I have no idea whether this is its function in every version, but it seems a waste here. The cast does not shine either. Strangest of all is probably Lonny Price. It took me some time to figure out whether "Franklin Shepard, Inc." is sung by Charley (Price) or Mary (Ann Morrison) because Price's voice has a very potentially female sound to it. I do like huge parts of the score, I just hope that other recordings of it bring out its strength better.
CASINI
5.0 out of 5 stars Une comédie musicale indispensable
Reviewed in France on June 5, 2013
La version la plus émouvante de cette magnifique comédie musicale de Sondheim ! A noter : la présence dans les seconds rôles de LIZ CALLAWAY....son premier rôle !