Decca Broadway has repackaged, remastered and re-released the original cast album of Annie Get Your Gun, the 1946 production starring Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley.
July 25 was the release date for the new disc, which includes four tracks from the 1973 stereo release, "Ethel Merman Sings Annie Get Your Gun," with Stanley Black leading the London Festival Orchestra and Chorus. Benay Venuta (who was Dolly Tate in the film version) and Leslie Fyson are heard singing "Colonel Buffalo Bill," Neilson Taylor sings "I'm a Bad, Bad Man," Merman and Taylor sing "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" and Black conducts the overture, filling in the gaps left in the meat of the new disc, the 1946 mono cast recording.
Reissue notes are by Show Music editor Max O. Preeo. Louis Untermeyer's original notes are there, too.
Merman, Ray Middleton, Marty May, William O'Neal, John Garth III, Robert Lenn, Kathleen Carnes, Leon Bibb and Clyde Turner are all heard. Lenn and Carnes did not appear in the show. Preeo notes that sometimes Decca substituted other singers on early cast albums.
The original recordings were released on 78 rpm records, and a full long playing album came out a few years later. Songs on the disc include the 1946 score's "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," "The Girl That I Marry," "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun," "There's No Business Like Show Business," "They Say It's Wonderful," "Moonshine Lullaby," "My Defenses Are Down," "I'm an Indian, Too," "I Got Lost in His Arms," "Who Do You Love, I Hope," I Got the Sun in the Morning," "Anything You Can Do." "Colonel Buffalo Bill and "I'm a Bad, Bad Man" never made it onto the original release (hence the inclusion of the later recordings). "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" was written for the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center revival, which also starred Merman.
Other Annie Get Your Gun discs that are, or have been, available include an EMI Angel studio recording conducted by John McGlinn starring Kim Criswell, the 1999 Broadway revival with Peters and Wopat, a two disc 1995 studio recording on the Jay label with Judy Kaye and Barry Bostwick, the 1966 Merman cast album, a 1986 London revival with Suzi Quatro, the London cast with Dolores Gray, and a 1957 TV version with Mary Martin and John Raitt.
The film soundtrack is expected to be reissued this fall.
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In related Annie Get Your Gunnews, Marilu Henner and Rex Smith opened the new national tour of the Broadway revival July 25. In July, it was announced that the 1950 film version of the Irving Berlin tuner will be released on home video and DVD Nov. 14, after being held up for decades. Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat exit the Broadway production Sept. 3. No replacements have been named.
