Great Duets From The Musicals
Louise Gold
starred on Track 4 as Reno Sweeney from Anything Goes, Showtime recording
Catalogue
number CD: SHOW CD047
Cast
Thomas Allen (as Frank Butler from Annie Get Your Gun and others)
Graham Bickley
Gregg Edelman (as Sky Masterson from Guys And Dolls and Billy Crocker from Anything Goes)
Ethan Freeman
(as Tommy from Brigadoon)
Louise Gold (as
Alex Hanson
(as Matt from The Fantasticks)
Janis Kelly
(as Fiona from Brigadoon)
Emily Losser - (as Sarah Brown from Guy’s And Dolls)
Valerie Masterson (as Annie Oakley from Annie Get Your Gun, Marsinah from Kismet, The Marshioness Of Shayne (Sarah Millick.Sari Linden) from Bitter Sweet and others)
Ron Moody (as
Honore Lachailles from Gigi)
Katrina Murphy
Andrew Newey
Tinuke Olafimihan (as Maria from
Catherine Porter (as Luisa from The Fantasticks)
David Rendall
(as The Caliph from Kismet)
Martin Smith
(as Carl Linden from Bitter Sweet)
Production Team
Conductors - John Owen-Edwards,
Produced by - John Yap
Sleeve notes by - Rexton S Bunnet
Track Listing
1. A Woman In Love (from Guys And Dolls) - Emily Losser and Gregg
Edelman with the NSO conducted by John Owen-Edwards
2. Too Much In Love To Care (from Sunset Boulevard) - Andrew Newey and
Katrina Murphy with the NSO conducted by Martin Yates
3. They Say It’s Wonderful (from Annie Get Your Gun) - Thomas Allen
and Valerie Masterson with the NSO conducted by John
Owen-Edwards
4. You’re The Top (from Anything Goes) - Louise Gold and Gregg
Edelman with the NSO conducted by John Owen-Edwards
5. Till There Was You (from The Music Man) - Valerie Masterson
and Thomas Allen with the NSO conducted by John Owen-Edwards
6. Sun And Moon (from Miss Saigon) - Katrina Murphy and Graham
Bickley with the NSO conducted by Martin Yates
7. They Were You (from The Fantasticks) - Alex Hanson and Catherine
Porter with the NSO conducted by Martin Yates
8. I’ll See You Again (from Bitter Sweet) - Valerie Masterson
and Martin Smith with the New Sadler’s Wells Opera Orchestra
conducted by
9. Stranger In
10. Almost Like Being In Love (from Brigadoon) - Ethan Freeman and Janis
Kelly with the NSO conducted by Martin Yates
11. I Remember It Well (from Gigi) - Ron Moody and Sian
Phillips with the NSO conducted by Martin Yates
12. Somewhere (from West Side Story) -
It is worth
noting that the track listing has a least one error - it has Matt Zimmerman
down as dueting You’re The Top with Louise Gold on Track
4, when in fact Ms Gold’s fellow duetist for that recording is Gregg Edelman.
Louise Gold and Gregg Edelman’s recording of You’re
The Top with the NSO conducted by John Owen-Edwards is
from The JAY/|TER studio cast
album Anything Goes (recording)
- Website
Recommended Album.
Katrina
Murphy and
Gregg
Edelman also features on JAY/TER’s
recording of Cabaret with the NSO ensemble
conducted by John Owen-Edwards, for which Rexton S Bunnet also
did the sleeve notes.
Gregg
Edelman, Ethan Freeman, Valerie
Masterson, Katrina Murphy, and, Tinuke Olafirmihan also
feature on JAY/TER’s recording of On The Town
with the NSO ensemble conducted by John Owen-Edwards, for which Rexton
S Bunnet also did the sleeve notes.
Thomas
Allen, Graham Bickley, Ethan
Freeman, Valerie Masterson also feature on The Best Of Broadway Musicals.
Which also features the NSO ensemble conducted by John Owen-Edwards
and Martin Yates and has sleeve notes by Rexton S Bunnet.
Thomas
Allen, Graham Bickley, Ethan
Freeman, Valerie Masterson, Katrina Murphy, Tinuke
Olafirmihan, Sian Phillips, and, David Rendall, also feature
on Encore! The Very Best
From The Musicals Which also features the NSO ensemble conducted by
John Owen Edwards and Martin Yates, and has sleeve notes by Rexton
S Bunnet. Indeed Valerie Masterson and Thomas Allen’s
recording of They Say It’s Wonderful can also be found on this
album.
Thomas
Allen, Graham Bickley, Gregg
Edelman, Louise Gold, and, Katrina Murphy, along with the NSO
conducted by John Owen Edwards and Martin Yates can also be found
on Cole Porter - Night And Day
which also features this album’s recording of You’re The Top from
Anything Goes.
Graham
Bickley, Gregg Edelman, Emily
Losser,
Katrina
Murphy also features on Stop The World I Want To Get Off,
with the NSO ensemble conducted by Martin Yates, for which Rexton
S Bunnet also did the sleeve notes.
Graham
Bickley has appeared in The Pirates of Penzance (stage
production) and with the cast of that show in The Pirates Of
Penzance (Gala Performance), The Pirates Of Penzance
(Gala Preview), The
Pirates Of Penzance (Benefit Preview), and the 1982 Royal Variety Performance.
Ethan Freeman has appeared in One Touch Of Venus (2000 production)
Martin
Smith appeared in The Metropolitan Mikado, Ratepayers' Iolanthe
& Metropolitan Mikado , Kids At Heart, Broadway To Brighton, and, A Time To Start Living. He may have
appeared in Comedy Tonight
Martin
Yates’s musical credits include
writing the music for a musical called The Soap
Opera
John Owen
Edwards’s previous musical
direction credits include Metropolitan Mikado
and a concert of highlights from Ratepayers' Iolanthe
& Metropolitan Mikado , both of which featured Louise Gold.
Sleeve note
writer Rexton S Bunnet was also the researcher for Ned Sherrin’s Review Of Revue
Thomas
Allen, Ethan Freeman, Janis
Kelly,
Ethan
Freeman, Ron Moody, and, Tinuke
Olafimihan, along with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by John
Owen Edwards and Martin Yates can be heard on The Greatest Musicals of
the 20th Century.
Thomas Allen was a guest on the TV programme The Ghost Of Faffner Hall.
Graham Bickley, Ethan Freeman, Valerie Masterson, Ron Moody, Tinuke Olafimihan,
and, Martin Smith, along with the National Symphony Orchestra, the New Sadlers Wells Orchestra, and, the Philharmonia Orchestra, can also by
heard on The Great Musicals - Wonderful Tales,
for which John Owen Edwards, and, Martin Yates also conducted.
Thomas Allen, Graham Bickley, Valerie Masterson, Katrina Murphy, Sian
Phillips, and, Martin Smith’s
recording credits include The Great Musicals
– Glamour And Majesty; This also involves the National Symphony Orchestra, the New Sadlers Wells Opera Orchestra, and, the Philharmonia Orchestra; with maestros John Owen Edwards, and, Martin
Yates. This album includes the same recording of I’ll See You Again.
Valerie Masterson, and, Tinuke
Olafimihan’s recording credits include Centre
Stage Showtime!; Which also features The
National Symphony Orchestra; along with maestros John Owen Edwards, and, Martin
Yates.
Thomas Allen, Graham Bickley, Ethan Freeman, Alexander Hanson, Janis
Kelly, Emily Losser, Katrina Murphy, and, Catherine Porter’s recording credits
include The Great Musicals –
Dashing Heroes, Blushing Maidens; This also involved The National Symphony Orchestra, with maestros John Owen Edwards, and, Martin
Yates. This seems to have included another version of Too Much In Love To Care,
also involving Martin Yates and the NSO, but with a different pair of
singers.
Gregg Edelman, Louise Gold, Alexander Hanson, Emily Losser, Valerie
Masterson, and, Catherine Porter’s
recording credits include The Great Musicals –
Laughter And Tears; This also involved The
National Symphony Orchestra, and, The
New Sadler’s Wells Orchestra; with maestros John Owen Edwards,
Thomas Allen, Graham Bickley, Valerie Masterson, Ron Moody, Katrina Murphy,
Sian Phillips, and, David Rendell’s recording credits
include Magic Of The Musicals. This
also involved the National Symphony
Orchestra, and, the Philharmonia
Orchestra; with maestros John Owen
Edwards, and, Martin Yates. This
album also includes the same recording of Stranger In Paradise.
Katrina Murphy’s recording credits include The
Best Of The Musicals; This also involved the National Symphony Orchestra / NSO
Ensemble, with maestros John Owen
Edwards, and, Martin Yates.
Alexander Hanson may have taken part in Thing A Thon.
Alexander
Hanson, and, Sian Phillips went
on to take part in Shopping With The Stars 2009.
Gregg Edelman, Ethan Freeman,
Review
by
This is one of those great fun interesting budget compilations of JAY/TER’s, well worth having to get a flavour of the kind of work they have done so well.
All the songs are well performed, and very listenable too, although there some where I personally prefer a different version, for example pleasant though Valerie Masterson and Thomas Allen’s rendition of Irving Berlin’s delightful They Say It’s Wonderful is, I personally prefer the EMI Classics version of Annie Get Your Gun.
One of the high-spots is almost certainly A Woman In Love from Guys And Dolls given all the authority that only Emily Losser can give it, dueting with the ever reliable Gregg Edelman.
However, the one track that alone is worth the price of this CD, is You’re The Top, dueted by Gregg Edelman (not Matt Zimmerman as it says on the sleeve notes) and Louise Gold. The song was originally written for and sung by Ethel Merman and William Gaxton (although they never actually recorded it together). This recording almost certainly gives us a flavour of what that might have been like, but is to my mind (although we shall never know for sure) quite possibly an improvement. Gregg Edelaman is sure a much better singer than William Gaxton (whose singing ability was a bit limited), however, though he does his best with the song, he cannot help but get a bit overshadowed by Louise Gold. She is undoubtedly the closest thing to Ethel Merman, but with this song, aided and abetted by that wonderful conductor John Owen-Edwards, she goes one better than Merman, (and indeed one better than Kim Criswell did under the somewhat staider direction of John McGlinn) by livening the song up with her gift for vocal parody and rapid switching of styles and accents. I particularly like her possibly add-libbed groan after “You’re Ovaltime”. This recording is proof, if ever any was needed, that a lively interpretation can sometimes be a very good thing for a Cole Porter ‘list’ song like this., at least when done as skilfully as Louise Gold and John Owen-Edwards do it. Yet, they are not completely wild, when Gold gets to the one line that few singers can resist livening up with an impression “You’re the nose on the great Durante” she underplays it with amazing subtly for one so irrepressible.
In general this CD is well worth having, as an
enjoyable compilation. However, it is especially worth having for Louise
Gold and Gregg Edelman’s You’re The Top, not least
because the actual recording it is from seems to be hard to get.
Webmaster’s
footnote: The above review was written a few years before the release of the
Music Theatre Hour version of the Anything Goes album (CDTEH6011)
