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
Louise
Gold (as
Alex
Hanson
Janis
Kelly
Emily
Losser - (as Sergeant Sarah Brown from Guy’s And
Dolls)
Paul
Manuel
Valerie
Masterson (as Annie
Oakley from Annie Get Your Gun and others)
Ron Moody
Katrina
Murphy
Andrew Newey
Tinuke
Olafimihan
Catherine
Porter
David
Rendall
Martin
Smith
Production Team
Conductors -
John Owen-Edwards, Michael Reed, Martin Yates
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 Katherine
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 Michael
Reed
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) - Paul Manuel and Tinuke Olafimihan with the NSO
conducted by John Owen-Edwards
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 Musicals Collection Anything Goes (recording) - Website
Recommended Album.
Katrina Murphy and Paul Manuel
also feature on The Musicals Collection recording of Anything Goes - Website Recommended Album.
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, Paul Manuel, Katrina Murphy, Catherine Porter
and, Tinuke Olafirmihan can also be heard on Simply Musicals, which also features the NSO
conducted by John Owen Edwards, and, Martin Yates. That album
also contains the same recordings of Sun And Moon, and, A
Woman In Love.
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 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.
Michael Reed had previously devised
the score of Ziegfeld (stage show) and it’s
album Ziegfeld (recording),he conducted Sondheim At The Barbican, and played
the piano for A Love Letter To Dan.
Sleeve note writer Rexton S Bunnet was also the
researcher for Ned Sherrin’s Review Of Revue
Thomas Allen, Ethan Freeman, Janis
Kelly, Paul Manuel, Valerie Masterson, Ron Moody, Tinuke
Olafimihan, Sian Phillips, Catherine Porter, David Rendall,
and The National Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Owen Edwards
and Martin Yates are also featured on The History Of The Musical , which
includes excerpts from Ron Moody & Sian Phillips’s recording
of I Remember It Well.
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, Michael
Reed, and, Martin Yates. This
album also includes the same recordings of You’re The Top, and, I’ll
See You Again.
Review
by Emma Shane
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)
