CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY COMES TO BROADWAY By Peter Filichia
As events would have it, I heard Sammy Davis, Jr.’s recording of “The Candy Man” long before I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Listen here. I enjoyed the Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse song along with much of America. Despite the music industry’s rock orientation, the easy-listenin’ ditty became a number-one hit. It also got Davis […]
Billy Porter Finds the Soul of Richard Rodgers By Peter Filichia
Billy Porter apparently agrees with Stephen Sondheim. While Sondheim was working (and struggling) with Richard Rodgers on the 1965 musical Do I Hear a Waltz? he came to the conclusion that the esteemed composer was “a man of infinite talent and limited soul.” Porter obviously appreciates that “infinite talent,” for in the last few years […]
Now Dreamgirls Will Never Leave You
By Peter Filichia London hasn’t made the mistake that Broadway did. For when the original Broadway cast album of Dreamgirls was recorded in 1982, ten of the twenty-eight Henry Krieger–Tom Eyen songs were missing from the LP and single CD. To be sure, when we discuss truncated musical theater recordings, we mourn Follies as the […]
See Hilary Morning, Noon and Knight By Peter Filichia
Needless to say, we all savor certain scores, songs and performances on original, revival and studio cast albums. In Half a Sixpence, we love hearing Tommy Steele play that banjo in “Money to Burn.” Through Hallelujah, Baby! we see how song styles gradually changed in the first six decades of the twentieth century thanks to Jule […]
Like Phil Connors, Make Every Day Groundhog Day By Peter Filichia
Never mind the lyric “Day after day after day after day after day after day” that Stephen Sondheim used twice in Merrily We Roll Along. If you really want to hear about someone’s “day after day after day after day after day after day,” here’s the original cast album of Groundhog Day – the new […]
