With this score, the Original Broadway Cast recording (OBC) could quite nearly be described as "One Line To Rule Them All", as the dancers in the original cast were many of those originally involved in the interviews the show was based on/written about. In a forward-thinking stroke of casting veracity, Michael Bennett managed to get a show created and produced where 1970's Broadway gypsies were playing 1970's Broadway gypsies. Where can you go wrong?Even if Donna McKechnie wasn't singing her own story that was taped in the interview sessions (reportedly Maggie's Indian Chief fantasy was hers), the fact that these dancers were telling the group story of the Broadway they were living at the same time makes this recording a nearly incomparable snapshot of the lives of "anyone who has every danced in a chorus or marched in step...anywhere." Fortunately it's also a damn good show and an entertaining listen.
Ten years later, Sir Richard Attenborough directed the film. Even a cursory glance at the record cover can tell you which direction the film went. I'll say this -- it's not as bad as purists claim. But I'm just here to talk about the soundtrack album as a recording...Like many movie adaptations, songs are twisted, some of them gone altogether from the album. Cassie's "The Music and the Mirror" has been replaced with the straightforward lyric "Let Me Dance For You"; and the greater portions of the "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love" Montage are represented on this album by a new song called "Surprise, Surprise".
Overall, the sound of the soundtrack has moved from a 1970's New York where singers have to project to reach the director in the dark, to a soundstage where singers can whisper under 1980's orchestrations (even if they end up sometimes lost in the mist). And all the original stage orchestrations are replaced by Ralph Burns. It sounds as if someone hired Andrew Lloyd Webber to come in and rearrange anything that sounded remotely like a Broadway theatre. Hmm... Interesting choice. No slight intended, but perhaps a Brit wasn't the best choice to direct a show so embedded in the energy of pre-cleanup Times Square?
Which brings us to the 2006 Broadway Revival recording (BRev). This new CD highlights a few of the things that have changed since the original production opened in 1975 -- or for that matter since it closed 15 years later in 1990. (15 years on Broadway, 16 years gone, and then comes a revival! At least it was gone longer than it was there the first time, do you hear me Les Mis?)Times Square got scrubbed. Broadway dancers now train themselves in stricter vocal technique. Which is fine since they don't have to elbow their way past hookers to get to work, just tourists... but I digress.
What this album (and the revival) does best is highlight the parts of the dancers' stories that are still the same thirty years later. Whether you were on Broadway in the 70's, or just hitting it now, you still wanted it just as bad. You still climbed up that "steep and very narrow stairway" to work on your craft, and you still won't regret what you did to get where you've gotten.
Like most revival CD's, this recording is clean and polished up. (It was running down the street from Disney shows after all, and not the original production of Chicago -- the one with actual color in the even-skimpier costumes) The singers have a smoother, more trained tone, which is definitely pleasing, but lose something when they're making those few generational references. A crush on Steve McQueen from a dancer who came of age in the 90's?
And now for the playlist mix:
1. "I Hope I Get It" - OBC - The grit in the original cast is sweatily authentic.
2. "I Can Do That" - Film - This is one of the few tracks where the re-arrangements are really quite fun! (If you can ignore the echo-tunnel they made him sing in.)
3. "At the Ballet" - BRev - The cleaner edges of this album really bring out the sweet lilt in the harmonies, and lose none of the longing.
4. "Sing!" - BRev - Chryssie Whitehead pulls off a great trick, she manages to keep her speak-sing just close enough to the pitch that you think she might make it.
5. "Montage/Hello 12, Hello 13, Hello Love" - OBC - The scrappy messiness of puberty just sounds better in the 70's grind.
6. "Montage/Mother" - OBC - The growl on "Dance for Grandma, dance for Grandma!" wins!
7. "Montage/Gimme the Ball!" - I'm going to cheat on this one. If I could take this track off the Vienna recording (below) and magically translate it, I would. The energy is infectious! (For the record, they still sing "Shit, Richie!" in English.)
8. "Nothing" - OBC - Priscilla Lopez smacks it out of the park. (Also, this album takes it out of the Montage sequence, which is good for a record.)
9. "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" - Film - What can I say? Audrey Landers is the most vapid Val on record, which works.
10. "The Music and the Mirror" - OBC - It's true. That is all Donna McKechnie needs.
11. "One" - OBC - The balance between the orchestra and cast hits the perfect note for the inside-their-heads feeling the middle of this song needs.
12. "What I Did For Love" - BRev - The revival gets the edge for including the question that this song is the answer to: "If today were the day you had to stop dancing, how would you feel?" The question that brings a pang to every performer's heart, and makes this song more than the lift-out hit it became.
13. "One (Reprise)/Finale" - BRev - Because, well... it's where we are now. Clean and crisp and bright. And it feels just a little more anonymous.
