What’s Left of the ’60s?

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles — to quote a 1960s musical smash — we have a new CD of a ’60s musical disaster! Who would have expected La Strada, the one-performance fiasco of 1969, to show up on disc? For fans of ’60s musicals, the release of this recording (courtesy of Bayview) is a real surprise. Sure, ’60s flops as wretched as Christine and as powerful as Anyone Can Whistle not only were issued on LP in their day but were transferred to CD years later. Others, such as Let It Ride and Anya, at least made it to LP soon after they debuted. But La Strada has never before been available in any format.

Bernadette Peters fans know that she played Gelsomina in this musical version of Fellini’s 1954 film, but don’t get excited; she’s not on the recording. This is the demo that composer Lionel Bart had made of his score. As demos go, it’s lavishly produced, with an orchestra and chorus. It’s not compelling listening and it never convinces us that the musical is anywhere near as good — let alone better — than its source material. But for those who are curious about each and every musical that ever played on Broadway, La Strada is automatically of interest.

Way back then, we didn’t get cast albums of every ’60s musical. But some of these scores have since been recorded, such as Kelly, Sherry!, Foxy, Sophie, Her First Roman, and Drat! the Cat!. For Beg, Borrow or Steal, we at least have the Clara concept album; for Pickwick, two London cast albums; and for 13 Daughters, its Hawaiian cast album. (No kidding!) Some singers recorded enough selections from shows like Kicks & Co., Pousse-Café, Let’s Sing Yiddish, and Sing Israel Sing to count them as albums of their scores. And while there were never official recordings of Hot Spot, Zenda, or A Joyful Noise, you and I have seen vinyl and CD pressing of those in-theater tapings offered on various auction sites, or even in stores.

So, what’s left from the ’60s? Well, some of the shows were revues, which were always iffy prospects for recordings. If the 1958-59 New York Critics Circle winner and long-runner La Plume de Ma Tante couldn’t land a contract in the cast-album happy ’50s, how could we expect records of From A to Z (which opened 4-20-60, and ran 21 performances), Vintage ’60 (9-13-60; 8p), The Beast in Me (5-14-63; 4p), Double Dublin (12-24-63; 4p), or even La Grosse Valise (12-14-65; 7p)? (Mercury did sign to record the last of those.) As for Noël Coward’s Sweet Potato (9-29-68; 44p), we obviously have most of the songs from this revue on other Coward compilations. But there was one revue that must have been considered for recording — New Faces of 1962 (2-1-62; 28p) — given that two New Faces before it and even one after it yielded cast albums.

Hot September, Mata Hari, and Pleasures and Palaces all closed out of town but eventually got albums of one kind or another. A Mother’s Kisses is supposedly on the way. What other ’60s road kill? In chronological order: We Take the Town (1962), which had a score by the guys who wrote Happy Hunting and starred Robert Preston (he didn’t sing the one song that Streisand did on her fourth album, “How Does the Wine Taste?”); La Belle (1962), another show for which director Albert Marre hired his wife Joan Diener, this time to sing songs of Offenbach with new Marshall Barer lyrics; Cool Off (1964), a musical in which Stanley Holloway needed more than a little bit of luck; Royal Flush (1965), which might have been a fun disc, for Kaye Ballard, Eddie Foy, and Jane Connell were originally in it; and Love Match (1968), the Maltby and Shire show about Queen Victoria that first showcased some lovely songs later found in Starting Here, Starting Now: “Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life,” “I May Want to Remember Today,” and the heavenly “I Hear Bells.”

But what other ’60s book musicals did make it to Broadway yet went unrecorded? I say there are a sweet 16 that haven’t been immortalized, all of whose runs cumulatively add up to fewer performances (170) than even Ankles Aweigh amassed (176). In chronological order:

• The Conquering Hero (1-16-61; 8p). And you thought that composer Moose Charlap and lyricist Norman Gimbel suffered enough with Whoop-Up? This show ran a seventh as long as that one.
• Nowhere to Go But Up (11-10-62; 8p). The lyrics were by James Lipton, and while his Inside the Actors Studio money paid for much of the recent studio cast album of Sherry! he doesn’t seem inclined to do an album of this one.
• The Student Gypsy (9-30-63; 16p). Rick Besoyan’s quasi-sequel to his smash Off-Broadway Little Mary Sunshine — same type of operetta spoof, albeit with different characters — did get a couple of singles on RCA Victor, but that was that.
• Cafe Crown (4-17-64; 3p). If lyricist Lipton could pay for Sherry! from his TV money, why couldn’t composer Albert Hague do the same with his disposable income from his work as a regular cast member of TV’s Fame?
• Something More! (11-10-64; 15p). Perhaps the saddest omission of the lot, because Barbara Cook was in it and ABC-Paramount did contract to record it. Neva Small, who was in it, too, recently recorded “I Feel Like New Year’s Eve” — and if this is any indication of the score as a whole, the disc would have been a good listen.
• The Yearling (12-10-65; 3p). The aforementioned Streisand did no fewer than four songs from this on her early albums. Given that the title is a famous one (though Barry Kleinbort jokes that the musical should have been called, Oh, Deer!), it’s a bit surprising that no one’s ever taken the pains to record it. Composer Michael Leonard obviously blamed his bookwriter-lyricist Herbert Martin, for when Leonard did an evening of his songs — including those from The Yearling — he called it Words Fail Me.
• How to Be a Jewish Mother (12-28-67; 20p). Believe it or not, Herbert Martin’s words failed Michael Leonard one more time here. Molly Picon was in the show but no songs from it surfaced in Picon Pie.
• Here’s Where I Belong (3-3-68; 1p). If this show were announced to open this season, it would cause some excitement. Music by Robert Waldman, the composer of The Robber Bridegroom! Book by four-time Tony-winner Terrence McNally! Lyrics by Alfred Uhry — the only man to win a Tony, Oscar, and Pulitzer Prize! Based on Oprah’s book club selection East of Eden! But back then, all three collaborators were just starting out — and Oprah was a mere 14 years old. United Artists held the cast album rights and did issue a few singles. Where’s the rest of it?
• The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (4-4-68; 29p). The failure of this musical has been blamed on the fact that Martin Luther King was assassinated on opening night. I saw the show at a preview and can say that it was only pleasant, but it would have made a nice album. Maybe we’ll get one. As the score’s outstanding song says, “Anything Is Possible.”
• I’m Solomon (4-23-68; 7p). Ernest Gold, who wrote the stirring music to the movie Exodus (but did NOT write the musical version of Exodus, called Ari), penned the music for this romp, wherein Dick Shawn played two roles.
• The Fig Leaves Are Falling (1-2-69; 4p). Maybe this is the one that Albert Hague should have paid for; for that matter, his collaborator Allan Sherman made a lot of money from his parody albums, too. RCA held the rights for the cast album but let them go.
• Red, White, and Maddox (1-26-69; 41p). One song, called “Jubilee Joe,” got a few recordings, and that’s the extent of it.
• Come Summer (3-18-69; 7p). Will Holt, who wrote the folk hit “Lemon Tree,” came up with a lemon of a libretto for this show, with lyrics to match. Ray Bolger spoke and sang the words to David Baker’s music.
• Billy (1-22-69; 1p). A musical version of Billy Budd that’s not to be confused — ever — with the Benjamin Britten opera.
• Buck White (12-2-69; 7p). Millions upon millions of people heard one song from this show. That’s because, the Sunday after it closed, Ed Sullivan had star Cassius Clay, a/k/a Muhammad Ali — which is precisely the way he was billed — on his TV show as the centerpiece of the number “We Came in Chains.” Buddah was to have recorded and released the cast album; if they had done so, we all would have said, “Buddah make a miracle!”
• La Strada (12-14-69; 1p). Surprised to see this on the list, what with the CD release of the Bart recordings? But it really belongs here, for by the time the show limped into the Lunt-Fontanne, it had only three songs that are on the demo. Martin Charnin and Elliot Lawrence wrote the rest of the score. Wonder if it’s any better than what Bayview has put out?

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@theatermania.com]