ON THE RECORD: Ethel Merman's "Balloon" and Bashville
By Steven Suskin
18 Sep 2005
This week's column discusses "Ethel Merman: The World Is Your Balloon" and an obscure British musical derived from a Shavian obscurity, Bashville.
ETHEL MERMAN: THE WORLD IS YOUR BALLOON [Decca Broadway B0005109]
We have become so used to CD releases of latter-day Merman — recordings made in the "Granny Get Your Gun" days, when Ethel was in her sixties and seventies — that one can't help but being hesitant at the arrival of yet another. And here comes "Ethel Merman: The World Is Your Balloon."
But wait! The subtitle, in small print, tells us these are "The Decca Singles 1950-1951." That phrase might not mean much at a glance, but in practical terms it means a whole lot. Here is Ethel in her prime, or at least at the far end of her prime; 12 of the 20 tracks were recorded by the 42-year old Merman before she undertook Call Me Madam, with the rest recorded during that show's run. So we have Merman sounding more or less like Merman, as opposed to the caricature preserved on those later albums. (Ethel Merman Goes Disco, anyone?)
"The World Is Your Balloon" is not a quite so brilliant that you'll want to replace your Gypsy cast album, but it will do. The CD collects 20 78 RPM singles, mostly novelty numbers. Ethel is joined by Jimmy (Durante) on three and Ray (Bolger) on eight; these are comedy turns by minor songwriters. The recordings, most of them, have probably gone unheard for more than 50 years; I think it safe to say that without the presence of Merman, they would remain buried in the archives for at least another 50. They give us a sense, though, of the friendly-rivalry duets that Merman used to sing in the thirties opposite the likes of Billy Gaxton, Bob Hope and this very same Durante. They also demonstrate that a little Bolger goes a long way. ("Ha-ha-ha-ha" he ad-libs, again and again and again.)
Mixed in with the novelties are Ethel's versions of five show tunes of the day. Merman was not in contention for the title role of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but she gives suitable renditions of Lorelei's two song hits, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and "A Little Girl from Little Rock." Yes, folks, Ethel knows how to deliver a comedy lyric. "The World Is Your Balloon," from Flahooley, seems a rather odd choice; you never know what show will be a hit, I suppose. As it turns out, it's a perfectly nice rendition of the Sammy Fain-Yip Harburg song, which proves to be far stronger than the rendition on that show's original cast album. Merman also gives us two songs from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. (Merman had starred in the earlier collaboration of songwriters Arthur Schwartz and Dorothy Fields, Stars in Your Eyes, as well as two hits with librettos by Fields.) Not surprisingly, she is quite at home with "Love is the Reason"; her "Make the Man Love Me" is far less delicate than the show version, but it works fairly well as a Mermanesque ballad.
Almost half the tracks are conducted by Sy Oliver, with Jay Blackton on the
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes tracks and an assortment of others on the others. Fans of obscure pop songs by Broadway composers will be happy to find one such item hidden away, Jule Styne's happy little paean to "Hawaii," with a lyric by Sol Meyer (published in 1950, although presumably written earlier).
Continued...
