As a new revival of Bells Are Ringing continues in Broadway previews, the original cast album with Judy Holliday gets re-released March 20 with additional minutes of music and bonus tracks of demos featuring Jule Styne's vocals and piano.
On March 20, Sony is releasing both the 1956 cast album of Bells and the 1971 cast album of the 1967 London staging of Fiddler on the Roof, starring Topol. The Fiddler disc also has bonus tracks of composer Jerry Bock singing early versions of the show's songs.
The bonus tracks on the Bells disc have Styne singing the show's "It's a Perfect Relationship," "Just in Time" and (a cut song) "Boogie Woogie Shoogie, Baby of Mine" for a "publisher's demo."
There is additional dance music for two songs on the album: "Hello, Hello There!" and "Mu-Cha-Cha" both have extra minutes of music, not heard on the LP or previous CD issues. Thomas Z. Shepard produced this reissue. Goddard Lieberson was the original producer, for Columbia. The album was one of the early stereo discs of a Broadway show. According to liner notes, a mono recording was released immediately and, in 1958, the stereo version appeared.
The show represents the New York City of lyricist and co librettists Betty Comden and Adolph Green's imagination — where subway rides are friendly and an urban park at night is the perfect setting for a soft-shoe. The new revival opens April 12 at the Plymouth Theatre, with Faith Prince in the Holliday role. A revival cast album — with material not heard on this original cast album — will be recorded by DRG Records. The musical concerns a telephone answering service operator and how she meddles in the lives of her clients (and falls in love with one of them). The show's score produced two standards: "Just in Time" and "The Party's Over." The original cast includes Sydney Chaplin, Peter Gennaro, Jean Stapleton, Eddie Lawrence and Eddie Heim.
The Fiddler recording preserves the 1967 London cast of the Sheldon Harnick-Jerry Bock musical — Topol (who would play Tevye in the film), Miriam Karlin, Jonathan Lynn, Linda Gardner and Rosemary Nicols and Caryl Little. Thomas Z. Shepard also produced this reissue, unearthing rare demo recordings from composer Bock's collection, of Bock playing and singing musical fragments and ideas that would be the seeds for full songs. The bonus tracks include early sketches for "The Dream," an early version of "Sabbath Prayer," an early version of "Sunrise, Sunset," another early sketch for "The Dream" and the original opening of the show, "We Haven't Missed a Sabbath Yet" (with Bock and Harnick singing).
