Perform Their Own Songs

RELEASE
February 17, 1998
LABEL
DRG
GENRES
Soundtrack, Show Tunes, Cast Recordings

Album Review

In 1955, lyricists, librettists, and screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green recorded two albums for the small Heritage Records label. The first, Show Music at Its Best, Vol. 1, contained their renditions of songs they had written for five Broadway shows between 1944 and 1954, along with one song written for the film Good News; the second, It's Always Fair Weather, contained the songs they had written for the new movie musical of the same name. Veteran performers who had worked in nightclubs and been in their first stage musical, On the Town, the two were more than amateur singers, even if they were unlikely to give much of a fright to the likes of Frank Sinatra and Mary Martin, who were better remembered for the material. They had the enthusiasm and insight of the actual authors, knowing how to sing their patter-filled, witty lyrics for greatest comprehension, so that tunes like "Taxi Song" and "If" turned into minor comic masterpieces. And though the songs were written in character, to be sung by everyone from a lusty New York cabbie to Captain Hook, the authors' flip urban sensibility was always apparent. This CD reissue combines the two albums, though it's still the earlier performances that impress. It's Always Fair Weather was a flop, and while its songs are interesting as part of the Comden and Green catalog, they aren't really memorable.
William Ruhlmann, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. New York, New York! /Lonely Town
  2. Taxi Song
  3. Some Other Time
  4. Carried Away
  5. Bad Timing
  6. Broadway Blossom
  7. French Lesson
  8. If
  9. How Will He Know
  10. Catch Our Act at the Met
  11. Distant Melody
  12. Hook's Waltz
  13. Never-Never Land
  14. Mysterious Lady
  15. Ohio/It's Love/Quiet Girl
  16. Wrong Note Rag
  17. March March
  18. Stillman's Gym
  19. The Time for Parting
  20. Thanks a Lot, But No Thanks
  21. I Said Good Mornin'
  22. I Like Myself
  23. Love Is Nothing But a Racket
  24. Once upon a Time