Broadway Through the Gramophone, Vol. 3

Schrijf zelf je recensie

 

Although cast albums didn't catch on until the 1940s, they had a precursor: medleys of songs from stage musicals performed by the contracted artists of the major record labels. Victor launched the most successful of these with its 'Gems' series in 1909 and continued to place them in the charts well into the 1920s. This third volume of Broadway Through the Gramophone, British archival label Pearl's reissue of the Victor medleys (with a few other record companies' efforts thrown in) takes in the period 1914-20, including 32 recordings, each of them made within a year of the shows' openings on Broadway. As annotator Gerald Bordman suggests, with the onset of World War I, operettas transferred from Vienna and Berlin became unpopular, but there was plenty of native talent to replace them. In particular, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin emerged as major Broadway songwriters. Kern, whose name turns up on 12 of the tracks here, contributed his classic Princess Theater shows with collaborators P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, their efforts including Oh, Boy! (featuring the hit 'Till the Clouds Roll By') and Oh, Lady! Lady!. Berlin made the transition from Tin Pan Alley with shows like Watch Your Step and Stop! Look! Listen! (featuring the hit 'The Girl on the Magazine Cover'). And there were other, less-famous composers working, such as Harry Tierney, who produced Irene, with its hit 'Alice Blue Gown.' The singers are not identified, but they included some of the most popular recording artists of the day, such as Billy Murray (who doubtless re-creates his own hit version of 'I Love a Piano'). A few of the big shows of the period are missing. (Where's Miss Springtime? Victor released a 'Gems' record of it.) But most are included, performed in something like the style they were heard on stage.