By Steven Suskin
05 Feb 2012

	Original cover art for "David Merrick Presents Hits from His Broadway Hits"

David Merrick Presents Hits from His Broadway Hits [Masterworks Broadway 88691 91142]
Also rescued from oblivion — and I mean oblivion — is "David Merrick Presents Hits from His Broadway Hits." One of the strangest Broadway albums I've heard, all right. Imagine, a dozen songs not written by a particular songwriter, or introduced by a particular performer, but linked simply because the shows from which they hail happen to have been produced by the same person. Which means they are not in any way stylistically similar, other than be virtue of being written within an 11-year span. (As it happens, there is a Broadway revue en route which is compiled from unrelated songs from musicals produced by one of Merrick's main competitors.)

There was presumably a logical reason for this recording. My guess is that it was an overture to the blockbuster deal RCA made with Merrick following the opening of Hello, Dolly!, which RCA recorded (and which is the latest Merrick musical included on the album). RCA saw fit to give Merrick a cool $2 million to finance his next shows. What they got for their money, alas, was plenty of nothing. Breakfast at Tiffany's, anyone? Mata Hari? How Now, Dow Jones? And Broadway's first million-dollar loser, The Happy Time.

What makes this album so odd is not the song selection, it is the vocalists and the arrangements. The latter are very much of the recording studio — as opposed to the theatre — circa 1964. They take songs of different styles, written for shows set in different eras, and make them all sound the same. This is difficult enough, even before we get to the singers (who are billed in a size half that of Merrick): RCA recording artists John Gary and — get this — Ann-Margret.

That's right, Ann-Margret at 23, just after her breakthrough role in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie. If you ever wanted to hear A-M sing "Is It Really Me?" from 110 in the Shade, here's your chance. She also gives us "Love Makes the World Go Round" from Carnival! and "As Long As He Needs Me" from Oliver! Very dramatic. Gary does an adequate job on items such as "Small World" from Gypsy and "Anyone Would Love You" from Destry Rides Again. Four songs each, plus four from the Merrill Staton Voices, whoever they were. The album is arranged and conducted by Henri Rene and Joe Lipman.

The liner notes contain no less than five full-page, full-color studio shots of the performers. (Together in photos, but decidedly not singing with each other.) Each photo is very different, with Ms. Margret sporting diverse hair styles in diverse colors. There's one shot where she looks like Sally Bowles in Cabaret — this in 1964, before Cabaret was written — with a purple feather boa, sitting with Gary on a motorcycle. One has to wonder just which of Merrick's hit musicals this was meant to represent.

One of the songs included is "Comes Once in a Lifetime," from that Broadway hit of Merrick's called Subways Are for Sleeping. This is the sort of CD which comes once in a lifetime, too.

 

	Cover art for The Road to Qatar

The Road to Qatar [Jay CDJAY1423]
David Krane and Stephen Cole's spoof musical The Road to Qatar! had some fans when it was produced by the York Theatre Company in February 2011. I, alas, was not among them. This was a comic-book rendition of the true adventure the Messrs. Krane and Cole had in 2005, when they were imported to Qatar to write an original musical. The Road to Qatar attempted to turn the thing into a pint-size, campy musical, but that sort of thing turns treacherous when you miss the boat. Or miss the camel, as it were.

Fortunately, though, there is an audience of listeners out there for almost every professionally-produced musical. Jay Records, an independent U.K. label, has demonstrated continued dedication to the field. (This seems to be their 50th recording of a York Theatre musical.) So while I do not personally find The Road to Qatar to my taste, I am glad to spread the word that it has been recorded and is now available.

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(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released updated and expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He also pens Playbill.com's Book Shelf and DVD Shelf columns. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)