Theatrical Chronology
O SAY CAN YOU SEE XTV87195/6 1962
The first show recording I ever made, and at the behest of the publisher who asked Columbia for a favor. It did not initially have any commercial release, and then years later it came out on an obscure label. I doubt if it is available anymore.
SHOW BOAT OS2220 1962
We assembled a great cast: Barbara Cook, John Raitt and William Warfiield. This was my first experience producing a major studio cast recording. To tell the whole truth, James Fogelsong was the senior producer who was kind enough to let me participate.
THE MERRY WIDOW OS2280 1962
This recording, also in conjunction with Jim Fogelsong, featured the great Swiss opera soprano, Lisa Della Casa. Her English was quite halting, so I was asked to coach her in pronouncing English lyrics. I didn’t do a very good job of it!
ANNIE GET YOUR GUN OS2360 1962
Doris Day insisted on recording her songs in Los Angeles with a piano accompaniment.
Then in New York we synchronized a live orchestra to her vocal tracks. All of Robert Goulet’s material was done “live” in New York. As with Show Boat and The Merry Widow, the orchestra was conducted by the great Broadway maestro, Franz Allers.
THE STUDENT PRINCE OS2380 1963
This was a heavy operatic cast: Jan Peerce as the student Prince Karl Franz, Roberta Peters as Kathy, and Giorgio Tozzi as Dr. Engel. All new orchestrations were written by Hershy Kay, and once again, Allers was the conductor.
LADY IN THE DARK 1963
This legendary show by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin never had an original cast recording, so we asked Rise Stevens, John Reardon and Adolph Green to headline this studio cast recreation. I made heavy use of various echo effects fading in and out as an aural means of recreation the many dream sequences in this show.
OKLAHOMA! OS2610 1964
By this time, Jim Fogelsong had left Columbia records, so I was truly on my own. When I was asked to make a studio cast recording of Oklahoma!, I chose the two leads, Florence Henderson and John Raitt, because they had performed their roles in various revivals of the show. But for the rest of thecast I was a bit more imaginative: I asked Phyllis Newman to learn the part of Ado Annie, and I hired a folk-singer, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, to be her beau, Will Parker. For Judd Frey, the villain, I asked Metropolitan opera baritone, Ara Berberian, to join our cast. This studio cast recreation sounds as though we had recorded an actual Broadway show.
THE KING AND I OS2640 1964
I knew that Barbara Cook had previously played Anna, but she hadn’t ever recorded it. I asked her to head the cast with Theodore Bikel as The King. I needed a lot of kids for “Getting to Know You” so I asked the United Nations Children’s School to provide them.
HAROLD ROME’S GALLERY KS6691 1964
Harold Rome, who wrote FANNY and WISH YOU WERE HERE, was not only a brilliant lyricist-composer, but also a highly accomplished painter. We chose a dozen of his painting to which he wrote songs and we released them in a beautiful album that lavishly illustrated his work.
TO BROADWAY WITH LOVE OS2630 1964
Officially this is my first recording of an actual musical that was running at the time. In this case, the musical was running at the NY World’s Fair in 1964. The material is mostly historical Broadway songs, but there are four new songs by the (as yet) unknown team of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick who went on to write FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, FIORELLO, THE ROTHSCHILDS, SHE LOVES ME, and other Broadway classics.
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY OS2720 1964
Playing off-Broadway, this highly successful show turned into a beautiful cast album. This recording was among the first in which I used the full left-right panorama of stereo to highlight the drama.
BAJOUR KOS2700 1964
This is my first actual Broadway show recording. It’s a wonderful score, and it starred Chita Rivera, Nancy Dussault and Hershel Bernardi. I look upon BAJOUR as the true beginning of my career as a producer (recording director) of original cast recordings.
THE DECLINE AND FALL:COLE PORTER 0S2810 1965
This was a revue created by Ben Bagley and starring Kaye Ballard, Carmen de Lavillade and other Broadway stars. Ben and I did not hit it off too well: we each wanted to run the recording session.
HAROLD SINGS ARLEN OS2920 1966
Arlen was a musical giant, having composed BLUES IN THE NIGHT, ONE FOR MY BABY, as well as all of the songs in THE WIZARD OF OZ. On his 65th birthday, he recorded many of his best tunes, and then partnered with the young Barbra Streisand in DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD.
SESAME STREET 1968
My wife, Irene Clark, was in THE MAD SHOW, an off-broadway hit. The musical director, Joe Raposo, was also the chief composer/arranger for SESAME STREET. We became friends and he asked me to produce this, the first recording of SESAME STREET. I earned a Gold Record when its sales exceeded
500,000. By now, the sales are probably in the millions. If only I had gotten royalties in those days!
DAMES AT SEA OS3330 1968
An off-Broad smash hit starring the unknown and as yet unglamorous Bernadette Peters.
The original orchestrations were for only a few instruments, so I asked the not yet famous orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick, to create all new “bib band” orchestrations. It wasn’t long before Bernadette and Jonathan became superstars in their fields.
GEORGE M! KOS3200 1968
First I went to Detroit to see this before it opened in New York. It was a wonderful show that idealized the life of George M. Cohan, starring Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters. This was the second of many recordings that I made with Bernadette as the years went by.
DEAR WORLD BOS3260 1969
Although the show was not a success, it began my working life with the great Broadway \composer, Jerry Herman, as well as the mega-star, Angela Lansbury. We remain friends to this day.
1776 BOS3310 1969
I would have to call this the first smash hit that I produced for records. I started experimenting more with stereo movement, perspectives and careful use of various reverberation effects. With a wonderful score by Sherman Edwards, I am particularly proud of this recording.
SCROOGE S-30258 1970
This was a film made in England, written by Leslie Bricusse and starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness. I was asked to go to London to supervise the recording of the soundtrack so that it would be tailored to meet the needs of a long playing record.
COMPANY OS3550 1970
My turning-point recording. This was big Broadway hit written by Stephen Sondheim.
It was customary for these huge Broadway hits to be produced for records by the legenday Goddard Lieberson, the president of Columbia Records and a brilliant recording director.
For some reason, Lieberson bowed out and asked me to step in. I took advantage of this opportunity to further exploit action and sound effects as well as just the songs themselves. The recording session took eighteen and one half hours, documented on film by D.A. Pennybaker, starring Elaine Stritch who completely fell apart at the end of the day. The DVD of this is still available.
This recording was the first of a great many that I made of the works of Stephen Sondheim over the next fifteen years.
THE ROTHSCHILDS S-30337 1970
A lovely show with a highly energetic score, written by the composer and lyricist of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. This show “translated” beautifully to recording, and it began my lifelong friendship with Sheldon Harnick with whom I have worked every since.
BOB AND RAY 534042 1970
How to record a Broadway comedy act, no music, just an abundance of comic material.
I had the Broadway stage set recreated in Columbia’s largest recording studio, invited about 50 people to be in the audience, plied them with food and dring on a Sunday morning, and then had Bob and Ray go into their act. They were great, and so was the very relaxed and highly responsive audience.
NO NO NANETTE S30563 1971
I must confess, I didn’t think this revival of a 1920’s musical would succeed, but thank God I was out-voted by my Columbia Record colleagues, because the show was a huge success!
The actual album was beautiful, featuring color photographs of the show as well as the designs by Erte who was very old but still very creative. This show brought back Ruby Keeler, a great movie musical star in the nineteen thirties. There was a lot of tap dancing in this show, and I made sure that the entire cast brought their tap shoes to the recording session.
TWO BY TWO S30338 1971
A tremendous assemblage of talent leading off with Richard Rodgers and Danny Kaye.
This was really the beginning of my working with Rodgers over the next seventeen years, and I had greatly admired Danny Kaye ever since I was a kid. The show is about Noah’s Ark, and is based on “The Flowering Peach” by Clifford Odets. It was only a hit for as long as Danny Kaye stayed in it. After he left, the show closed. But it made for a truly exciting recording and gave me the chance to work with Kaye, with lyricist Martin Charnin, book writer Peter Stone and the great orchestator Eddy Sauter. And I had the added fun of re-creating the sounds of animals entering the ark as well as God’s thunderous demands of Noah.
70 GIRLS 70 S30589 1971
The legendary Lillian Roth (Susan Heyward in I’LL CRY TOMORROW) along with Mildred Dunnock and a cast of elderly people, all putatively 70 or older. It was based on the British Terry-Thomas film, MAKE MINE MINK, about bored elderly people who live together in an old folks home, and who decide to rob a bank. The music and lyrics were by John Kander and Fred Ebb, who also wrote CHICAGO, CABARET, ZORBA, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN among other hits. Although the show itself had a limited run, the recording has been successful ever since.
OF THEE I SING S31763 1972
The great arranger, Peter Matz, who was the arranger/conductor of HAROLD SINGS ARLEN, phoned me from Hollywood where he was creating a television special based on the Gershwins’ classic show. The stars were Carroll O’Connor, Cloris Leachman and Jack Gilford. This recording may not be around any more—-too bad because hearing “Archie Bunker” sing this music is a rare treat.
MAN OF LA MANCHA S31237 1972
Jim Nabors was a television star in a weekly sit-com called GOMER PYLEr. What was not well known about Jim was that he was a terrific singer who was under contract to Columbia Records. Jim wanted to record MAN OF LA MANCHA, so I assembled a cast consisting of the great opera singers, Marilyn Horne and Richard Tucker, and then I added Jack Gilford and Madeline Kahn.
It proved to be a very successful mix of Broadway and Opera stars, the kind of mix that I became very fond of whenever I needed to assemble a recording cast.
(DR. SELAVY’S MAGIC THEATRE) LA196G 1972
I don’t know if this strange show, written by my friend, Stanley Silverman, is still in print. I reproduced for him as a personal favor and I had to remain anonymous. What I recall is that it made for a rather surreal recording.
JOEL GREY LIVE KC32252 1973
Recording a “live” act several times over, was not something I ever did before. But Joel was someone I had worked with before, so Columbia Records asked me to handle this project.
If this recording is still available, it is a joyous experience.
STARRING FRED ASTAIRE 1973
My good friend, the late Stanley Green, was a music theater maven. He had access to many Fred Astaire 1930s recordings on the Brunswick label that had never been re-issued on a major label.
Together we chose the material and then took advantage of state-of-the-art equipment to bring the sound of these old recordings more up to date. This re-issue was extremely successful.
ELEPHANT STEPS 1973
A strange show, conducted by Michael Tillson Thomas and written by Stanley Silverman. This was among the last projects I did at Columbia records. When the recording was finally issued, I was not credited as producer!
IRENE KS32266 1973
My one and only project with Debbie Reynolds who was in great voice on the day of our recording session. It was also the day when her son accidentally shot himself in the finger!
Between takes, Debbie was on the phone with him. The show itself was a revival of an oldfavorite from the 1920’s, revised and polished in much the same was as was NO NO NANETTE.
NO NO NANETTE, LONDON CAST CBS70126 1973
When the London cast opened in this show, the show’s producer, Cyma Rubin, asked Columbia if I would come across the Atlantic to make this recording. It’s a curious melange of English talents, young and old (starring Dame Anna Neagle) but it is no match for the American recording with Ruby Keeler and Jack Gilford.
SHELTER (SINGLE) 445812 1973
This 45 RPM single exists, I hope, somewhere. The show did not succeed, but two of the songs (by Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer) were recorded. The were/are wonderful.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC KS32265 1973
After the success of the COMPANY recording, Steve Sondheim and Hal Price asked Goddard Lieberson to let me assist him on this cast album. It’s a great album of a great show.
RAISIN KS32754 1973
My friends Judd Woldin and Bob Brittan wrote the music and lyrics to this beautiful show based on A RAISIN IN THE SUN. It made a striking cast album and it won me another Grammy.
CANDIDE S2X32923 1974
The introduction of Surround Sound was not very popular in 1974, when Columbia Records began to produce quadraphonic (four channel) discs. That same year, Hal Prince produced and directed a new version of Leonard Bernstein’s CANDIDE in which he had the actors utilize all four corners of the theatre. This inspired me to produce a recording that also took advantage of the four corners (one loudspeaker in each) of one’s living room. The recording is still available today, but only in a conventional 2 channel stereo release.
TZS GOES TO RCA
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (LONDON) LRL1-5090 1975
After fourteen years at Columbia Records, I left to become the vice-president of RCA Red Seal. Sondheim then threw his allegiance to RCA who then sent me to London to record the English
Cast of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. Starring Jean Simmons, it is very different from the Glynis Johns Broadway recording, but it has a great deal to recommend it.
GOOD TIME CHARLEY ARL1-1011 1975
Joel Grey as the Dauphin to Ann Reinking’s Joan of Arc. A beautiful score even though an unsuccessful Broadway show.
PORGY AND BESS ARL3-2109 1976
If I had to pick the project I am most proud of in all of my recording history, it would be this complete (three hours of music) recording of Gershwin’s opera PORGY AND BESS. The conductor,
John DeMain and the cast of The Houston Grand Opera headlined by Clamma Dale is as close to perfection as I am ever likely to hear. I produced this recording making full use of sound effects such as the rolling of the dice in a crap game, the murders of two of the characters, the hurricane, the children scampering across the stage…….. every technique available to bring this piece into theatrical life without the benefits of sets, lighting or costumes. It was recorded in three eight-hour exhilarating days.
REX ABL1-1683 1976
I wish this show had succeeded. I had had such good partnering with Richard Rodgers and Sheldon Harnick— but setting Henry VIII to music proved to be a very difficult task: it’s hard to generate a lot of sympathy for a wife-killer. Nevertheless, the songs are beautiful.
PACIFIC OVERTURES ARL1-1367 1976
The next masterpiece from Stephen Sondheim. This was a recording session that was endlessly enjoyable as it was taking place. My colleague, Jay David Saks, did an extraordinary mixing job. It’s a terrific show with an elegant recording, if I may be so immodest.
SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM (LONDON) CBL2-1851 1976
This revue originated in London. Four performers and two pianos traverse much of what Sondheim wrote up to then. There is tremendous energy in these performances.
THE KING AND I ABL1-2610 1977
Rarely have I had the chance to record the same work twice. But in 1977 a hugely successful revival of this show was produced by the Rodgers and Hammerstein office. The stars were Yul Brynner and Constance Towers, with a great supporting cast. The R&H office asked me to produce this recording and I was afforded the opportunity to include a good deal of music from this show that had never been recorded before. And it was very enjoyable getting to know Yul Brynner. This was the last time I ever worked directly with Dick Rodgers who sat by my side during the entire recording session.
He died shortly thereafter.
AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ CBL2-2965 1978
My friends and colleagues, Murray Horwitz, Richard Maltby and Luther Henderson created this thoroughly joyous revue based on the life and music of Fats Waller. This is a high-energy recording. I defy anyone to listen to it without wanting to smile, sing, and dance.
SWEENEY TODD CBL2-3379 1979
Next to PORGY AND BESS, this is my proudest recorded achievement. I kept inching ever closer to turning my cast albums into “radio plays” full of portions of dialog and sound effects such that the entire theatrical experience could unfold just by listening, or seeing with the mind’s eye. And Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury are wonderful. In my opinion, SWEENEY TODD remains Sondheim’s greatest work.
42ND STREET CBL1-3891 1980
Working with the show’s producer, David Merrick, was a personal nightmare for me, but the end result isn’t bad at all. Much high-energy tap dancing as well as hearing Jerry Orbach and Tammy Grimes. The songs by (the uncredited!) Harry Warren, although more than forty years old at the time, are wonderful.
OKLAHOMA! CBL1-3572 1980
Again, the Rodgers and Hammerstein office asked me to produce one of their Broadway revivals.
The recording includes a lot of previously-unrecorded music, beautifully perfomed. Sadly, Richard Rodgers was no longer around.
SOPHISTICATED LADIES CBL2-4053 1981
A cast headed by Gregory Hines made this a hugely successful Duke Ellington revue. The conductor was his son, Mercer. The recording is essentially a collection of songs with no dramatic underpinning.
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG 1982
Some Sondheim shows succeed, others fail. Either way, the music and lyrics are wonderful and deserve the best recording possible. This show was a conspicuous failure yet it is constantly revived, largely because the songs are so wonderful. Among others in the cast are Jason Alexander, later to become George Costanza on SEINFELD. Even at the risk of totally losing what it cost RCA to record a failed show, we did not hesitate to do so.
TURNED-ON BROADWAY 1 1982
(See Turned-On Broadway 2)
TURNED-ON BROADWAY 2 1982
These two albums were created to replicate the style of Switched-On Classics which another record label created. The concept is to pack as many tunes as possible into a Disco format. Again,
the highly gifted Luther Henderson agreed to create all these arrangements.
MARRY ME A LITTLE 1982
A little inside gossip: RCA was going through some executive upheavals that resulted in
a tightening of all budgets. This show, a Sondheim revue, was very modest in scope and therefore rather inexpensive to record. But RCA was tightening its belt and would not release the funds to me to make this recording. What I did was to get all the cast and musicians to agree to take a chance, to make the entire recording for us at no cost, officially designated to RCA as an audition, not a cast album. So we made the recording paying only our studio and engineering (internal) expenses.
After I finished the editing and mixing, the recording was powerful enough to persuade RCA higher management to pay the performers and to commercially release the records.
ZORBA 1983
Anthony Quinn and Lila Kedrova made the film of ZORBA. Now there were both starring in
a revival of the musical. I produced the recording in Los Angeles where the show was running befofre it got to New York. It was a unique experience for me to work with a giant like Anthony Quinn.
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES 1983
A great Jerry Herman show! It was an obvious super-hit before it moved from Boston to
New York. We recorded it during the weeks before its New York opening, and we had the album for sale on the show’s opening night!
SONDHEIM TRIBUTE AT THE WHITNEY 1983
The show’s director, Paul Lazarus, asked me if RCA could make a live recording of this show which featured, among others, Angela Lansbury, with Sondheim singing on it as well. We set up our remote equipment at the Whitney Museum ad then we let the cast do all the rest.
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE 1984
So many of the songs in this show are entirely dependent on their dramatic context. There was no way to reproduce this on a recording without creating a new product that. With dialogue and music, conveyed this show in a continuous stream. The writers, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine prepared this adaptation. Benadette Peters (as always) is wonderful, as is George (Seurat) played by Mandy Patinkin.
A COLLECTOR”S SONDHEIM 1985
By this time, eleven years at RCA, I had amassed so much Sondheim material that I thought there was enough to choose from and assemble into a large (4 disc) collection.
Sondheim agreed to let me (a collector) do my own selecting of material.
FOLLIES IN CONCERT HBC-7218 1985
The original cast recording of FOLLIES (1971) was highly abridged. My friend and colleague,
Ted Chapin was now heading the Rodgers and Hammerstein office. It was Chapin who wrote a book about the original show as it was created day by day in the nineteen seventies. We pondered how to make a fresh recording, and I took this idea to The New York Philharmonic to interest them in staging a live concert of this show. The cast was extraordinary and included Barbara Cook, Lee Remick, Licia Albanese, Phyllis Newman, Elaine Stritch, Liliane Montevecchi, Carol Burnett, George Hearn, Mandy Patinkin, and others similarly famous. The live concerts in New York were a complete sell-out, and the live recording made of these concerts is wonderful and is still very successful commercially.
SONG AND DANCE 1985
A beautiful score by Andrew Lloyd-Webber performed by Bernadette Peters. Enough said!
TZS @ MCA RECORDS
ME AND MY GIRL 1986
This very successful revival starred English actor Robert Lindsay. It was the first show I produced for records when I went to MCA as Vice-president Classical and Theatrical.
CAROUSEL 1987
If I had to choose the greatest musical comedy of the 20th century, I might well choose CAROUSEL. I assembled the best cast I could imagine, including Barbara Cook, Samuel Ramey, Sarah Brightman and Maureen Forrester, with Paul Gemignani as conductor.
A BROADWAY EXTRAVAGANZA 1987
see A DIGITAL TRIP DOWN BROADWAY
A DIGITAL TRIP DOWN BROADWAY 1987
Digital CDs were hot. The public demonstrated an appetite for sonic stereo spectaulars. With great arrangements by Luther Henderson, Paul Gemignani and I went to London to produce these
showcase performances.
SYMPHONIC PICTURES MCA6230 1988
I felt that there was enough wonderful music in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR that it ought to be tailored and orchestrated to be performed by a classical symphony orchestra. Luther Henderson created two twenty-minute suites and then joined Gemignani and me as we recorded these in London.
BARBARA COOK / DISNEY MCA6244 1988
It seemed to me that if Barbara Cook sang some of the more famous songs from Walt Disney films, that she would bring fresh meaning and depth to them. Although she had not sung any of these songs before, she agreed to learn them with her great music director, Wally Harper. A very successful
project.
ROMANCE ROMANCE MCA6252 1988
A modest and charming little musical starring Allison Fraser and Scott Bakula. The show had a modest run, but the songs are special.
ALL LABELS
SARAH BRIGHTMAN THE SONGS THAT GOT AWAY 1988
I spent several days with Sarah and Andrew Lloyd Webber as we sifted through hundreds of wonderful songs that were removed from Broadway shows for any number of reasons.
Sarah wanted to give these songs a fresh life. We found many beautiful songs from REX, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, GUYS AND DOLLS and many other great shows.
MAN OF LA MANCHA SONY 1991
Combining opera singers with Broadway players, I put together a MAN OF LA MANCHA starring
Placido Domingo along with Julia Migines, Samuel Ramey, Mandy Patinkin and Jerry Hadley, I used large chunks of dialog especially because this cast was so good at reading lines.
Mandy agreed to participate when he learned that Buddy Hackett had to bow out!
KISMET SONY 1991
The music is classically-derived and the songs were all created from Alexander Borodin’s various classical masterpieces. This show is high romantic operatic musical theater. Again I cherry-picked from the worlds of opera and Broadway, assembling a cast that featured Samuel Ramey, Julia Mcginness, Ruth Ann Swenson (her debut recording) Mandy Patinkin and Dom Deluise.
DOMINGO/ THE BROADWAY I LOVE ATLANTIC 1991
Placido Domingo entrusted me to pick most of the songs. As one might imagine, what I picked are all lyrical and all suitable to his unique abilities. The London Symphony orchestra plays these great orchestrations created for this album. I asked Carly Simon and Rebecca Luker to join Placido for two songs.
THE SECRET GARDEN SONY 1991
Again, I am in my “radio play” mode using dialog, sonic texture, sound effects and music to create an entire dramatic experience for the ears only. Lucy Simon composed a very successful Broadway show. It was my goal to produce a recording that told this wonderful story to every child who listened.
JELLY’S LAST JAM MERCURY 1992
Gregory Hines starred in this Broadway musical biography of Jelly Roll Morton. Working again with orchestrator Luther Henderson, I believe we created a dramatic and moving original cast album.
CRAZY FOR YOU ANGEL 1992
A great Gershwin score with an updated script. This show had extraordinary singing and dancing, most of which I tried to preserve on this cast album
CATCH ME IF I FALL PAINTED SMILES PSCD-133 1992
The very talented lyricist-composer, Barbara Schottenfeld, wrote this score which she asked me to produce for records. It was a pleasure.
CURTAIN UP! MUSICMASTERS 1993
This is an instrumental album, no singing. Paul Gemignani conducts the New York City Opera Orchestra in a generous collection of Broadway music from classic shows.
ANNIE WARBUCKS ANGEL 1993
Once again, if mostly children were going to listen to this, it had better tell the whole story in dialog, sound effects and songs. Music and lyrics by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, who also wrote this show’s predecessor, ANNIE.
DAMN YANKEES POLYGRAM 1994
This revival was imaginatively directed by Jack O’Brien. I kept as much dramatic material as was possible, not to mention the sounds of a ballgame, a radio commercial, a descent into Hell, the transformation of old Joe into young Joe Hardy. With Bebe Neuwirth as Lola and Victor Garber as The Devil, it was a long day of recording that made everybody happy. Incidentally, the composer, Richard Adler, was there for most of the time, but he seemed content to let us to our thing.
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN POLYGRAM 1995
This is a very special recording of a unique show. The performances by Vanessa Williams, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Howard McGillin are gut-wrenching.
VICTOR VICTORIA POLYGRAM 1995
Yet another “radio play” with some terrific acting as well as singing from Julie Andrews and Tony Roberts. My one and only time working with Julie who is a wonderful colleague. Like Placido Domingo, she is always aware of how to best do what she can do. She has a natural affinity for the recording process and is extremely easy to work with.
WINGS RCA 1996
The Rodgers and Hammerstein office asked me to produce this recording for RCA. It’s a grim story of a woman (Linda Stephens) in the throes of a stroke. And yet, the show is strangely beautiful.
SWINGING ON A STAR (label to be added) 1996
A revue of songs that had lyrics written by the late Johnny Burke. His widow, Mary, was present at the recording sessions and was wonderfully supportive. This is an album of nostalgia.
THOMAS HAMPSON ON BROADWAY ANGEL 1996
Tom Hampson, Paul Gemignani and I, carefully chose a collection of songs that were ideally suited to his vocal character. We all enjoyed working together.
BETTY BUCKLEY AT CARNEGIE HALL 1996
Again my friend Paul Gemignani leading the orchestra. Betty has a uniquely beautiful way of dramatizing whatever songs she sings.
NEW YORK POPS BROADWAY READERS DIGEST 1998
Skitch Henderson conducting his New York Pops Orchestra. A great collection of Broadway songs featuring Maureen McGovern in many of them. So much of this album concentrates on Rodgers and Hart as well as Rodgers and Hammerstein. It’s simply a beautiful experience to sit back and let the music reach out.
CHICAGO (LONDON) RCA 1998
Not only is this a great English cast, but their mastery of Americanized English amazed me. I tried to convey as much drama as I could fit onto an 74 minute CD. The British orchestra is outstanding….in my opinion even better than the one on the American cast album.
