Information about Cast Recording

A cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast. A cast recording featuring the first cast to perform a musical in a particular venue is known, for example, as an "original Broadway cast recording" or an "original London cast recording".

Cast recordings are (almost always) studio recordings rather than live recordings. The recorded song lyrics and orchestrations are identical (or very similar to) those of the songs as performed in the theatre. Like any studio performance, the recording is of course an idealized rendering, more glossily perfect than any live performance could be, and without audible audience reaction. Nevertheless, the listener who has attended the live show expects it to be an accurate souvenir of the experience.

History

The British were the first to make cast recordings, and they were also the first to make original London cast recordings of shows that had already opened on Broadway, but had not been recorded with their original Broadway cast. This led to the odd situation of having, for example, a 1928 recording of the London cast of Show Boat, but no recording with the actual 1927 Broadway cast, and a recording of the London cast of Sigmund Romberg's The Desert Song, but not of the 1926 Broadway cast - even though both of these shows are Broadway musicals, rather than British ones.

Prior to the development of original cast recordings, there had of course been recordings of songs from musicals, and collections of several such songs, and recordings of songs performed by cast members; but they were recordings of songs, not recordings of a musical. For example, Danny Kaye made a set of recordings of songs from Lady in the Dark. Even though Danny Kaye was a member of the cast, this was certainly not an original cast recording not merely because the arrangements and presentation were different, but because in this recording, Danny Kaye performed Gertrude Lawrence's songs! (Gertrude Lawrence did record her songs for RCA Victor.)

The first American original cast recording as we know it was an early experimental LP of program transcription of selections from The Band Wagon, a 1931 revue starring Fred and Adele Astaire.

The following year, Jack Kapp produced an album of songs from Show Boat timed to the 1932 Ziegfeld revival. This album featured Helen Morgan and Paul Robeson doing their songs from the show but used studio cast singers for the leads.

As the 1930's progressed, Liberty Music Shop in New York City made mini albums of songs from the Ethel Merman musical comedies Red Hot and Blue and Stars in Your Eyes. These were more like personality recordings, since the arrangements were not the ones heard in the theatre.

The first complete original cast albums was Marc Blitzstein's 1938 recordings of songs from The Cradle Will Rock although these were recorded with just piano accompaniment and not the show's orchestra. In 1984, the original recordings from Very Warm for May (1939) were discovered and issued on an LP.

RCA Victor had made an album of the key songs from Porgy and Bess using the theatre orchestra but featuring Met opera singers Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson singing the songs. Decca riposted with another album of the same highlights sung by the actual stars of the original production, although recorded five years after the premiere. When a revival was staged in 1942, Decca issued a second album of some of the secondary songs from the opera by the revival cast and later combined these two albums onto one Lp and called it the "original cast recording". Decca also issued an album of songs from the all-soldier revue This Is the Army by Irving Berlin.

Finally in 1943, came Decca's recording of Oklahoma!. The show was the biggest hit Broadway had experienced up until that time and people who could not get tickets bought the album. It would eventually sell over 1 million copies as a set of 78-rpm records, and millions more on LP and Compact Discs.

Decca soon began recording every hit musical that came along including Carmen Jones, Carousel, and Annie Get Your Gun. Soon, all the other record companies were bidding for the rights to record Broadway shows with their original casts.

Capitol recorded St. Louis Woman in 1946, and RCA Victor recorded Brigadoon in 1947. Although Decca abandoned the cast album field in the mid 1950's, Capitol and Victor actively bid for recording rights. Sometimes problems arose as when RCA Victor signed on to record the 1950 musical Call Me Madam even though the show's star, Ethel Merman was then under exclusive contact to Decca Records. This resulted in two albums of the score being released: Merman with a studio cast on her label, while the rest of the Broadway cast made an album fro RCA Victor with Dinah Shore singing the Merman role!

The label that would dominate the field until the late 1970's, however, was Columbia. They began by issuing an album of the 1946 revival of Show Boat followed by the original Broadway cast of Finian's Rainbow in 1947. A year later the label introduced LP records and used the format for two best sellers: Kiss Me, Kate and South Pacific, both recorded and released in 1949.

Under the leadership of Columbia's Goddard Lieberson, the label's cast recordings came to define the genre. Columbia Masterworks produced the original cast recordings of such shows as The Pajama Game, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, , and Camelot) Lieberson also recorded important shows that had failed at the box office including Candide and Anyone Can Whistle. In 1956, he recorded Frank Loesser's musical The Most Happy Fella complete on three LP's, the first time an entire Broadway show had been fully recorded.

A 1970 documentary by D. A. Pennebaker, Original Cast Album—Company gives a straightforward view of the making of a cast recording. It shows how the recording studio looks, how performers are arranged, and how the director behaves. The cast feels the pressure of delivering a definitive performance, with a degree of perfection beyond that ever required on stage, under a time limit imposed by the high cost of studio time.

Throughout the 1950's and 1960's it was not uncommon for cast albums to become best sellers. My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Funny Girl, and Hello Dolly! all reached the #1 position on the Billboard magazine best-sellers chart. As popular music split away from the traditional Tin Pan Ally song stylings of Broadway and Hollywood, and Rock music became the dominant pop culture form, show albums began selling less well. Also as radio and TV moved away from showcasing Broadway numbers the ability for a show to reach an audience beyond the traditional Broadway fans lessened.

Today few show albums even appear in the Billboard top 200, and the rare breakout hit like Wicked receive no radio airplay.

New boutique labels such as PS Classics and Ghostlight release many of the cast albums of recent Broadway hits. With the recent merger of Sony Music (formerly Columbia Records) and BMG Music (formerly RCA Victor), many older cast recordings are being deleted and the new company is in no great rush to record new shows or reissue titles from the vaults.

Technical limitations

A 10-inch 78-rpm disc could hold about 3 1/2 minutes of music per side. A 12-inch 78-rpm could last 4 1/2 minutes. Early albums had to heavily abridge selections to fit the format. With LP cast recordings, usually released as single discs, it was not rare for compromises to be made to fit the recording within the forty-to-fifty-minute time limit. For example, reprises, or minor songs might not be included.

By the 1980s, the rise of the Compact disc with its 74-minute recording capacity (which was increased to 80 minutes in the 1990s) resulted in improvements in cast recordings, which were now usually capable of including all songs, the full overture and entr’acte, and, when appropriate, lead-in dialogue to the songs.

In recent years, some cast recordings have been recorded live, but maintaining perfect quality. This is due to theaters that contain recording studios within. What is often a vibrant stage performance, however, often does not translate as such to discs and these recordings lack the heightened sparkle that leading album producers can bring to studio made cast albums.

A well-produced cast album should communicate the excitement of a live performance with a vivid theatricality, yet still be a meaningful listening experience for people who have not seen the show. It is a delicate balancing act and only a very few producers are able to deliver a satisfying product. Many composers fancy themselves as record producers but often their dedication to the project results in self-indulgent records that are not pleasing to hear. This is a particular problem with many of the cast albums of recent musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Alternate versions

With rare exceptions, one should always look the other original Broadway cast recording over later revival and studio cast recordings. Though the alternates may offer a more complete reading and often better sound, only the premiere casts who had weeks of rehearsals and try-outs to shape the performances under the watchful eyes of the authors can provide the authentic document.

For some musicals created before cast recordings became the norm, studio cast recordings are all we have. Studio cast recordings that attempt to document the original orchestrations have been made of many early musical comedies by The Gershwins, Vincent Youmans and Rodgers & Hart.

Terms

Original cast: the premiere or original cast of the production. (Original Broadway cast; original London cast; original Toronto cast, etc) and can include revivals as well as first productions.

Studio cast: assembled by a record company. In the early days the studio cast singers were often lesser know performers with good singing voices, usually joined by one fairly well known star. Mary Martin made a number of studio cast recordings if Columbia in the early 1950s including "Babes in Arms", "Girl Crazy" and "Anything Goes" More recent studio albums have tended to be note-complete recreations of the original orchestrations often with opera singers taking the leads such as EMI's recordings of "Brigadoon" and "Show Boat."

Soundtracks: This term came into use in the late 1940s when MGM started releasing albums of songs from their movie musicals that were recorded directly from the soundtracks. Although these albums sold well they were marred by a flat boxy sound, as the listening environment in a huge movie palace is far different from the acoustics of a standard living room. Many so-called soundtrack albums are actually studio re-creations by the film performers as in Capitol's splendid albums of the movie versions of "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel." Today few if any soundtrack albums are actually recorded from the film soundtracks, yet the term persists and many people apply it Broadway, though incorrectly, to mean any Record or Cd of music from a movie or a stage show. This is incorrect and causes frustration to cast album collectors. The performers who appear in Broadway shows sing the score live each night and when they make a cast album it is recorded in a studio and produced with the home listener in mind. While it is perfectly correct to call a movie soundtrack a "cast recording" since it does have the performances of the film cast, it is wrong to call a cast recording a "soundtrack."

Major label cast albums

Decca:

This is the label that more or less began the trend in North America. They released 78-Rpm album sets of: "Porgy and Bess", "Oklahoma!", "A Connecticut Yankee", "One Touch of Venus", "Carmen Jones", "Bloomer Girl", "Song of Norway", "Carousel", "Annie Get Your Gun", "Call Me Mister", and "Lost in the Stars". Many of these were transferred to LP in 1949/1950 although sometimes songs were abridged or left out completely. The label added more titles to their cast album library in the early 1950s: "Guys and Dolls", "The King and I", "Wonderful Town", "Seventh Heaven", "On Your Toes" and "Ankles Aweigh".

In 1955 Decca re-released the best selling of these albums on Lp and soon began offer electronically enhanced for stereo editions, which sounded thin and hollow.

The label was out of the business of recording new cast albums by the end of the 1950s. Decca was bought by MCA and in the early 1970’s many of these titles were re-released on the MCA label, all using the fake stereo masters.

MCA released many of their classic shows on CD in the 1990s, going back to original master discs and tapes to generate excellent sounding (and complete) remasters of the originals. When MCA and Polygram were merged into the new Universal Music Group, a new label Decca Broadway was born. Decca Broadway re-mastered and reissued virtually every cast album in the old Decca catalogue including many rare titles that had not been available in almost 50 years. Decca Broadway has also recorded recent hits including: "Wicked", "Monty Python's Spamalot", and "Spring Awakening." WICKED in particular has been a big seller for the label and continues to sell amazingly well. Although they are being selective about what they record, Decca Broadway plans to continue making cast albums, including the new Mel Brooks musical "Young Frankenstein". As of October 2007 some of the slower-selling catalogue titles have been deleted, and it seems likely that as time goes on the more obscure shows will vanish from the catalogue. Collectors are advised to pick up older, more obscure titles now while they can still be found.

Capitol:

Capitol recorded "St. Louis Woman" in 1946, mainly because lyricist Johnny Mercer was one of the label's founders. It wasn't until the 1950's, however, that the label began bidding for cast album rights. Their first few choices were generally not big hits: "Flahooley", "Top Banana", "Three Wishes For Jamie", and the revival of "Of Thee I Sing". They finally got a hit show in 1953 with Cole Porter's "Can-Can”, which remained in print until the end of the LP era. An even bigger hit came along in 1957 with "The Music Man", which reached the #1 spot on the Billboard charts and stayed there for 12 weeks. It was also the label's first stereo cast album. They scored another bestseller in 1964 when Barbra Streisand's label Columbia Records passed on recording "Funny Girl". Capitol recorded it, and became a million seller. Without a TV/Radio network affiliation (such as Columbia had with CBS and RCA with NBC) Capitol sometimes had to content themselves with also ran shows. The 1960s found them with recording rights to a number of minor hits: "No Strings", "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", and "Golden Boy" but mostly they got flop shows: "Sail Away", "Kwamina","The Gay Life", "Skyscraper", "Walking Happy", "Zorba". They did record Stephen Sondheim's Broadway debut as a composer with "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", but in 1971 they came under fire for refusing to record the complete score of Sondheim's "Follies" as a 2-Lp set. The label executives complained that "cast albums don't sell" ignoring the ongoing success of FUNNY GIRL and MUSIC MAN and the fact that many of their shows had been outright flops. FOLLIES was truncated to a single Lp missing four songs and abridging many of the others. It would be Capitol's last original cast album.

EMI's classical division took over the Capitol Broadway cast catalogue in 1992 and reissued all 40 of the cast albums on the Broadway Angel label. The Cd's were well packaged with booklets containing detailed notes and production photos. Although only a half dozen of these releases are still in print as of October 2007, most of the deleted titles have been reissued by DRG keeping the scores available for collectors.

Broadway Angel has recorded some recent shows such as: “Crazy for You”. “Passion”, “The Color Purple” and “Curtains” as well as the Bernadette Peters revivals of “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Gypsy”.

RCA Victor:

RCA Victor entered the cast album field in 1947 with two hits and a miss: "Brigadoon", "High Button Shoes", and Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Allegro". BRIGADOON was a big seller and remains in print on CD today. HIGH BUTTON SHOES was a hit show but the album did not do well. RCA's budget label, Camden, reissued it on Lp in 1958 and Victor re-released it in 1965. At that time they also did the first Lp transfer of ALLEGRO.

As the Lp era dawned Victor competed with Columbia for cast album rights. Their first LP release was Irving Berlin's "Call Me Madam" but because the star Ethel Merman was under contract to Decca, she was replaced on Victor's album by Dinah Shore. The album was a failure and was out of print until Red Seal reissued it in 1977. Victor did better with "Paint Your Wagon", and "Damn Yankees!", but had their share of flops: "Seventeen", "Make a Wish", "Hazel Flagg", and "Pipe Dream", along with minor hits "Me and Juliet", "Happy Hunting", "New Girl in Town", "Jamaica", "Redhead", "Take Me Along", "Do Re Mi", "Wildcat", and "Milk and Honey".

In the 1960s Victor did better with the Tony award winners "How to Succeed in business without Really Trying", "Hello Dolly", and "Fiddler on the Roof". They hit the top of the charts with "Hair" in 1968.

In 1976 Thomas Sheppard left Columbia Records for RCA's Classical division and under his guidance RCA Red Seal eclipsed Columbia as the dominant label for cast albums. Sheppard record Sondheim's scores for "Pacific Overtures", "Sweeney Todd", "Sunday in the Park With George", and "Merrily We Roll Along", as well as the hits "Ain’t Misbehaving'", "42nd Street", and "La Cage Aux Follies".

In 1985 Sheppard staged an all-star concert to make a complete recording of Sondheim's "Follies". When pre-production costs escalated, label president Jose Menendez wanted to cancel the recording. Sheppard held his ground and won the battle. The 2 LP set was a bestseller and made profit within a month of release. Early in 1986 Sheppard resigned and went to MCA.

With the rise of Compact Discs in the late 1980s, RCA was bought out by BMG. At this time Bill Rosenfield headed up a new label called RCA Victor to re-release the label's vast catalogue of show albums on CD and to record new shows including: the 1987 revival of "Anything Goes", "Into The Woods", "Jerome Robbins Broadway", "", "", "Titanic", "Steel Pier", "Ragtime", "Fosse", "Thoroughly Modern Millie", "Urine town", and "Avenue Q"

Many of the older more obscure titles were deleted in 1999/2000 but the catalogue remains active. The merger between Sony and BMG in 2004 has resulted in a new label called Masterworks Broadway although at this point it is unclear as to what will happen with the extensive cast album catalogue owned by the new company.

Columbia

Columbia’s first original Broadway cast album was the 1946 revival of “Show Boat” soon followed by an album of “Finain’s Rainbow”. In 1948 Columbia introduced the Lp to the record market and soon offered LP editions of their 78-rpm sets. The first cast album recorded as an Lp was Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate”, which was a big hit on records and was followed by the blockbuster Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific”. The producer of these albums was Goddard Lieberson who brought unquestionable taste and skill to translating a Broadway show to records. He didn’t just record the songs. It was his goal to make the album an enjoyable listening experience for home listeners who, quite often, had not even seen the shows. Recorded in an old concerted church on 30th street in New York City, Columbia’s albums had a lush, open, spacious sound. When stereo came along in the late 1950s, Lieberson used stereo placement to enhance the performances but avoided any gimmicks. As a result Columbia’s albums of “Kismet”, “The Pajama Game”, “Bells are Ringing”, and “Flower Drum Song” remain classics in the field.

In 1956 Lieberson persuaded CBS to put up the entire capitalization for Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady”. This ensured that Columbia got the cast album rights and that CBS held all film and TV rights to the property. The show was the biggest hit of the decade, selling out for nearly 6 years on Broadway. The original cast album reached #1 on the Billboard charts, and stayed on the charts for nine years. Because the Broadway cast had been recorded only in monaural, when the cast opened it in London Columbia re-recorded it in stereo. The label later offered the film soundtrack and a 1976 20th anniversary revival cast albums as well as recordings in French, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew.

The profits from the My Fair Lady album financed many of Columbia’s subsequent original cast and classical recordings.

The label recorded Frank Loesser’s near sung-through musical “The Most Happy Fella”, virtually complete and issued it as a 3-record set as well as a single Lp of highlights. Lieberson made sure that important scores were recorded even if the shows were not box office successes. Thanks to his foresight the original casts of “Candide”, “Anyone Can Whistle”, and “Goldilocks” are preserved.

Columbia recorded as many hits “Gypsy”, “The Sound of Music”, “Bye Bye Birdie”, “Camelot”, “Sweet Charity”, “Mame”, “1776”, “Cabaret”, “Company”, “A Little Night Music”, and “Annie”.

In the 1980-s the label began to withdraw from the cast album field as RCA began to dominate it. Sony bought CBS records in the late 1980s and began reissuing many older cast albums on the Sony Broadway label in 1991-94 and later the Sony Columbia Broadway Masterworks labels. The few, mainly obscure flops, that Sony chose not to reissue were farmed out to DRG and other specialty labels. As of October 2007 almost all of the Sony titles are still in point although as supplies run out the label is quietly removing slow-selling titles from the catalogue. Gone are Irving Berlin’s “Mr. President”, Noel Cowards “The Girl who came to Supper”, and the Sondheim & Rodgers musical “Do I Hear a Waltz?”.

The merger between Sony and BMG in 2004 has resulted in a new label called Masterworks Broadway although at this point it is unclear as to what will happen with the extensive cast album catalogue owned by the new company.

Other Labels:

ABC – This label was active in the cast album field in the 1960s. It was bought by MCA and is now owned by Universal Music Group.

DRG – Hugh Fordin’s Discovery Record Group records Broadway cast albums and Cabaret performances. The label also reissues material from Capitol and Columbia.

Fynsworth Alley – Although now defunct, the label reissued some Columbia albums and recorded some solo artists.

Kapp – an MCA label now owned by Universal

Polydor – Part of the Polygram group that includes London (U.S. label for British Decca), DGG, Philips. Polydor released a few show CD’s under license from John Yap’s TER label in U.K. but these were quickly deleted. Polygram merged with MCA to form Universal Music Group.

PS Classics – Ina few short years PS Classics has build an impressive catalogue of cast albums including “Grey Gardens”, “A Year with Frog and Toad” and the revivals of “110 In the Shade”,“Fiddler on the Roof”, “Company”,“Assassins”, and “Nine”.

Sh-k-Boom & Ghostlight – Both are owned by Kurt Deutsch with Ghostlight having recently become a dominant player in the cast album field. They have released albums of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and “The Drowsy Chaperone”.

Varese-Sarabande – Established as a label for movie scores, they did branch out into cast albums in the 1990s recording a number of Broadway and off-Broadway shows. The label has re-organized and is now focused on film scores only. Many of the Broadway shows have been deleted.

See also

• Broadway theatre
• Goddard Lieberson
• List of musicals
• Musical theatre