shady pines ma
08-30-2015, 09:32 PM
1. Rex Harrison - Overture/Why Can't The English? (5:38)
2. Julie Andrews, Ensemble - Wouldn't It Be Loverly (3:56)
3. Stanley Holloway, Gordon Dilworth, Rod McLennan - With A Little Bit Of Luck (4:06)
4. Rex Harrison - I'm An Ordinary Man (4:37)
5. Julie Andrews - Just You Wait (2:42)
6. Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Robert Coote - The Rain In Spain (2:40)
7. Julie Andrews, Philippa Bevans, Ensemble - I Could Have Danced All Night (3:30)
8. Ensemble - Ascot Gavotte (3:14)
9. John Michael King - On The Street Where You Live (2:56)
10. Rex Harrison, Robert Coote, Philippa Bevans - You Did It (4:23)
11. Julie Andrews, John Michael King - Show Me (2:12)
12. Stanley Holloway, Ensemble - Get Me To The Church On Time (2:42)
13. Rex Harrison - A Hymn To Him (3:29)
14. Julie Andrews - Without You (2:03)
15. Rex Harrison - I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face/Finale (5:15)
FLAC:
https://mega.nz/#!ZQ9WhQ6Y!STGvsEao9Up-LlkEX3ZU4cz1oiBV61prd5wVYz8FEX8
password: yourfaveswillnever
VBR MP3:
https://mega.nz/#!tVl2QRgK!6jCyheco5xJDB9PhXNRgrwESnx840BZS4qLHq8BPSKg
password: yourfaveswillnever
My Fair Lady is one of the great musicals in the history of musical theater, point blank. Its original 1956 Broadway cast recording was the biggest selling record for two years in a row and the production won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The show also made an overnight star out of Julie Andrews nearly a decade before she became a pop culture icon for her Oscar-winning film performance in Mary Poppins (released, coincidentally, the same year as the film version of My Fair Lady) and her performance in the blockbuster hit The Sound Of Music.
The four principal stars - Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins, Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle, Stanley Holloway as Alfred Doolittle, and Robert Coote as Colonel Pickering - performed the show both on Broadway in New York City in 1956 and on London's West End in 1959, and all four made recordings for Columbia Records on each occasion. Same basic score, same four principals, but different technologies. While stereophonic recording for records had been experimented for quite some time at some companies such as RCA Victor, and had been becoming increasingly used for films since Cinemascope and other widescreen formats, most of which allowed for multi-channel sound, had started becoming popular, it wasn't yet commonplace for records to be recorded in stereo in 1956, and as a result, this recording was recorded in mono. The 1959 London recording was done to take advantage of the new stereophonic technologies, but many fans consider this original recording to be superior, myself included. (Although I happen to think the performances on the London recording are not as bad as some hyperbolic reviewers may say.) Julie's voice is pristine, supple, and youthful here, while Rex Harrison effortlessly glides through his talk-singing performances without the constant growling that seems to come through in the London recording. The arrangements don't seem quite as rushed here. It's truly a magnificent recording, and the Broadway and London recordings, along with a few TV appearances, are the only record we have of Julie Andrews in her breakout role. (I'm not sad she didn't get the film, though - can you imagine anyone else as Mary Poppins?) The album was a huge success upon its release, topping the Billboard album charts for 15 non-consecutive weeks, with at least one week at #1 in every year from 1956 through 1959, becoming the best-selling album of the year in 1957 and again in 1958.
This rip is mostly from my own vinyl copy of the original cast recording. That record is in fairly good shape, but it's not perfect. Sound quality is pretty good and most issues were cleared up with my usual passes through ClickRepair and DeNoise. Any leftover issues were dealt with manually. I recently discovered a FLAC CD rip I'd downloaded eons ago sitting on my computer, and on a few occasions, that CD rip was used to patch some problem areas I couldn't or didn't want to fool with fixing manually on the vinyl rip. No full track is replaced with a CD rip, just portions on the vinyl rip that weren't too hot, such as slight pops that I couldn't repair to my satisfaction any other way or thumps. (I had to do this quite a bit on "Wouldn't It Be Loverly. You can barely tell the mix-and-match of sources, if at all.) There's a slight warp near the end of "I Could Have Danced All Night" as well as a thump in that track, and both are on the CD rip I have as well as the LP, so it's probably in the master tape used for both. (The CD rip was of an earlier release - the more recent remaster with bonus tracks may not have it. I don't know, I don't have a copy of that.) I did improve the thump in the track a bit, but I couldn't completely cut it out without creating a jump. I wanted the majority of this rip to be vinyl sourced, as I wanted a digital copy of the record I'd paid for, and I'd say 90-95% of it is, with only 5-10% patched up with a CD rip, the biggest patch being the finale after the song "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" ends. It had several thumps and, with the slight inner groove distortion, I thought the patching might not be as seamless as I'd like, and I've tried to make the patches as seamless as possible, so I simply replaced the whole finale with the CD rip. Naturally, I'd prefer a 100% vinyl rip, but 90-95% is pretty good.
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1. Rex Harrison - Overture/Why Can't The English? (5:30)
2. Julie Andrews, Ensemble - Wouldn't It Be Loverly? (3:58)
3. Stanley Holloway, Alan Dudley, Bob Chisholm - With A Little Bit Of Luck (4:05)
4. Rex Harrison - I'm An Ordinary Man (4:34)
5. Julie Andrews - Just You Wait (2:48)
6. Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Robert Coote, Servants - The Rain In Spain (2:50)
7. Julie Andrews, Betty Woolfe, Maids - I Could Have Danced All Night (3:43)
8. Ensemble - Ascot Gavotte (3:08)
9. Leonard Weir - On The Street Where You Live (2:56)
10. Rex Harrison, Robert Coote, Betty Woolfe, Servants - You Did It (4:06)
11. Julie Andrews, Leonard Weir - Show Me (2:10)
12. Stanley Holloway, Ensemble - Get Me To The Church On Time (2:44)
13. Rex Harrison - A Hymn To Him (3:16)
14. Julie Andrews - Without You (2:07)
15. Rex Harrison - I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face/Finale (5:25)
FLAC:
https://mega.nz/#!INFyGa4T!KHrOdO01i3uldEeP9pHNKyF4hru9KDW7IqSBEgoFJfE
password: yourfaveswillnever
VBR MP3:
https://mega.nz/#!4ZdywAKB!JnSLnXL_W3M9if-pwrizqWzlXZ1gxbB6H4T376A8540
password: yourfaveswillnever
NOTE: In re-listening to this, I noticed that "Just You Wait" had some major issues from about 0:38-0:47, so I employed the same method to fix it as I did for "With A Little Bit Of Luck," which I mentioned in the essay below. Here are links to the fixed file - simply overwrite the old files. Hopefully the rest of the tracks really are clean and free of these issues. That makes two tracks now that use a digitally remastered CD version to fix a bad vinyl rip, but you can barely tell the difference. In fact, to my ear, it's even more seamless in "Just You Wait" than it is in "With A Little Bit Of Luck."
FLAC:
https://mega.nz/#!IQMiyZbZ!BkZzBQEKRUaeAQigrqx7WMuExLoC4lGuTRNigA4YaWk
password: yourfaveswillnever
VBR MP3:
https://mega.nz/#!kUknVaAS!8zHRr9Z3PIyZRKv4K-YKGDnyVcAc5097bdBEs1aQ6dE
password: yourfaveswillnever
My Fair Lady is one of the great musicals in the history of musical theater, point blank. Its original 1956 Broadway cast recording was the biggest selling record for two years in a row and the production won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The show also made an overnight star out of Julie Andrews nearly a decade before she became a pop culture icon for her Oscar-winning film performance in Mary Poppins (released, coincidentally, the same year as the film version of My Fair Lady) and her performance in the blockbuster hit The Sound Of Music.
When the cast album was recorded in 1956, stereophonic recording for records was still not commonplace, although several labels had experimented with it, and Columbia Records had not yet begun to record in stereo, so the cast album only exists in mono. By 1959, when the musical's four main stars - Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Robert Coote, and Stanley Holloway - went to London to open the show there, Columbia was recording albums in stereo and decided it was time to produce a new cast album in glorious stereo. Over the years, many fans of the musical have quibbled over which one is better - the original Broadway cast recording or the original London cast recording. Having heard both, I personally prefer the Broadway cast recording, as I find Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews' performances to be superior on that original album. That having been said, I don't have the vitriol for this one that some who cling desperately to the 1956 recording do. (Nor do I have any vitriol for the wonderful 1964 film and it's soundtrack. Yes, blah blah blah, Audrey couldn't sing the high notes, needed a ghost singer, they shoulda cast Julie Andrews, blah blah blah. We got Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins and The Sound Of Music didn't we?) Rex Harrison is talk-singing and growling more here than on the 1956 recording, Julie's voice is a bit tired, the arrangements are a bit sped up and rushed, but it's still a lovely recording of a lovely show, and deserves more credit for being a rare chance to preserve two different interpretations of the same musical with the same principal stars.
This is ripped from my own vinyl, which was in so-so shape. I have records in better shape and I have records in worse shape, so six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. It's not the best-sounding record I've ever owned either. There's some distortion here and there, especially in instrumental portions. Also, there were two skips in "With A Little Bit Of Luck" and couple of spots that were rough. I hate to say it, but the skips and rough spots were patched up with audio from a HQ YouTube video of the digitally remastered version. The difference in quality is not huge, but a careful listen will tell you which parts come from the digital version. I ran this through ClickRepair, which removed most of the pops and clicks, and the few bad ones left over were dealt with in a number of ways, although there's a few very minor oddities that I couldn't really fix, or didn't feel desperately needed fixing. I also ran this through DeNoise (made by the same person who makes ClickRepair), which removed a bunch of the surface noise, and then I smoothed out the silence between tracks and shortened the gap. The digitally remastered CD is probably your best bet, but there's an analogue charm in listening to this vinyl rip. Despite its issues, it still sounds fairly good, and it's a great recording. I hope to get the original Broadway cast album on vinyl and transfer it as well, simply because I believe having both is important. Download comes with PDF including my scan of the vinyl cover as well as scans from the 40th anniversary CD that I found online.