Cast Albums Blog
REVIEW: Girl from the North Country - Original London Cast
Billed as a 'play with songs' rather than a musical, Conor McPherson's Girl from the North Country, now in the final week of a run at London's Old Vic, has proved to be one of the summer's sleeper hits. In the early part of the run, discounts were readily available, but the final performances are completely sold out. There's every chance the show will have some kind of further life elsewhere; in the meantime, the cast recording makes a strong case for it as an unusual, sometimes achingly beautiful piece of music theatre.
REVIEW: Stages - Josh Groban
Popera superstar Josh Groban is out with a new album - his seventh solo release - devoted to classics of the musical theatre world. His first album to feature only showtunes is sure to excite his fan base and some musical theatre fans, but theatre purists and the uninitiated will likely find that Stages grows weary after more than one listen.
REVIEW: Kristin Chenoweth's Coming Home
If there's one word that can describe Kristin Chenoweth's new live album Coming Home, it's "heartfelt." From a song about her father to a shout out to her beloved college vocal teacher Florence Birdwell, this concert, taped in Chenoweth's hometown of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is full of songs, people, and experiences that have touched and shaped Chenoweth's life and career in the theater.
Upcoming releases: London ON THE TOWN & Rosalyn Kind
Two premiere CD releases are coming from Masterworks Broadway: the original London cast recording of On the Town (8/19) and Give Me You/This is Roslyn Kind (7/22).
With music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, On The Town enjoyed a successful Broadway run during the 1940s. The London production opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1963 and starred Elliott Gould along with Don McKay, Carol Arthur, Andrea Jaffe and Gillian Lewis.
The Original London Cast Recording of On the Town has never before been available in the U.S. and arrives in advance of a new Broadway production this fall. The recording will be available exclusively from MasterworksBroadway.com starting August 19, followed by a September 16 release through ArkivMusic and digital music outlets.
On a late spring morning in 1968, seventeen-year-old Roslyn Kind (younger half-sister to Barbra Streisand) graduated from high school in Brooklyn and immediately began a new job later the same day. “I graduated to ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ in the morning,” she recalls, “and that evening I was in RCA Studio B, down around 23rd Street in Manhattan, making my first recording.”
Kind’s two RCA albums Give Me You and This Is Roslyn Kind are fascinating time capsules from a period – 1968-69 – when American popular music was undergoing seismic changes. There is a bit of Broadway to be heard, but most of the material reflects Kind’s own taste and then-current trends in popular music. Kind rarely looked back to the albums that started her career, until 2014. At the behest of her director, she began to sing some of the material from Give Me You and This Is Roslyn Kind in her live act. Audiences loved it. “It was a surprise to me that I could return to this,” Kind says. “But people love the vintage material. They love to know your history.”
Give Me You/This Is Roslyn Kind will be available exclusively from MasterworksBroadway.com starting July 22, followed by a August 19 release through ArkivMusic and digital music outlets.
First time on CD: A TIME FOR SINGING from Kritzerland
Kritzerland Records is releasing the original Broadway cast recording of A TIME FOR SINGING in late April. This first ever release on CD uses the original master tapes. Producer Bruce Kimmel writes "They were in pristine condition and the sound is absolutely stunning."
Like most Kritzerland reissues, this will be a limited edition of 1500 copies, so pre-order your copy today at Kritzerland.com.