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[Amy]

I just ordered "The Brain" and "Stages" CDs from Kritzerland.com. The Paypal link worked fine. I also ordered pantyhose from www.onehanesplace.com. That worked well too!

[Amy]

PAGE 6 poodle-monkey DANCE!!!

[George]

Now this is funny!  Why didn't they show this during the Tony Broadcast?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntg_cW5C93M

This was hysterical!

[DERBRUCER]

And all I can think how awful those producers were of Grand Hotel putting off recording the cast album until Mr. Carroll on was literally on death's door step.

Probably better than no cast album at all:

WASHINGTON POST

Cast Aside
Despite a Smaller Role in Culture, The Show Goes On For Broadway Albums
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 7, 2009

Just as the Broadway musical has been pushed to the sidelines by other forms of mainstream American entertainment, so has the Broadway cast album declined as a cultural force. It still has important functions: as a marketing tool, a historical document, a memento of an evening to be cherished.

But as a vital facet of the recording industry, those who make the records say, the cast album is in a precarious state. Buffeted by high production costs, the ever-widening problem of piracy and a reluctance by established record companies to produce CDs for many shows, the cast album seems to survive today largely on the will of a few people determined to keep show music enshrined.

No one is saying, of course, that the recordings will disappear. Yet more and more, the question of whether the songs from a musical you like will find their way into recorded immortality is coming down to the taste and business acumen of a few entrepreneurs and producers who have a special passion for theater music.

"The whole business model has altered," says Kurt Deutsch, a onetime actor -- married to the Broadway musical actress Sherie Rene Scott -- who runs nine-year-old Sh-K-Boom Records and its spinoff label, Ghostlight. "The music industry has changed so drastically, even from the time I started my company. I had no background in the music industry. And so all of this has been done out of the need to preserve and salvage, out of the love for what Sherie and I do."
…
Once a recording industry staple, the kind of project that might be scooped up willy-nilly by a Columbia Records or an RCA, the Broadway cast album has become more like an exotic dessert, a niche venture taken on at great risk and with not much hope of a substantial payday.
…
Broadway is not viewed as musically relevant "The general public doesn't necessarily buy into the Broadway mainstream," says Deutsch, whose firm, along with PS Classics, is in the vanguard of the small labels focusing on theater music. (Full disclosure: I contributed liner notes -- gratis -- a few years ago for Ghostlight's CD of the musical version of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.")

Some musicals, like last spring's short-lived "Cry-Baby," for instance, do not even make a recording. The current revival of "Guys and Dolls" with Craig Bierko and Lauren Graham -- up for a nomination for best musical revival at tonight's Tony Awards (CBS at -- apparently will leave town, too, without a disc of its own.
 
With the expense of producing a cast album so exorbitant -- a big show can cost as much as $400,000 to record these days -- the concern increasingly is not only finding someone to foot the bill, but also determining whether it's worth making a recording at all.

The nuts-and-bolts aspects of making cast albums have become more difficult, too, because New York's large recording studios, with enough space for a sizable cast and big orchestra, have closed: Film-score recording is now virtually all done in Los Angeles and London, says Bill Rosenfield, a former BMG executive who now consults on cast albums. "When we recently did 'Hair,' we had actors in one room, musicians in another, the control in a third," he says. "It was not a happy way to make an album."

I suspect this article could have been enriched by an interview with BK

der Brucer

[JMK]

Fred, doesn't it stand to reason that your YouTube "nemesis" is on CASTRECL?   There are several rather boorish types there, IMHO. 

[MBarnum]

FJL, I would imagine it is some untalent who is green with envy.

[Ron Pulliam]

Michael S - Yeah, i disabled the ratings after it got back up to over 4 stars. 

I'm not sure what kind of perverse pleasure anonymous people get on youtube and imdb and such out of giving 1's to make their power over others felt, but it works.  (Even with ratings disabled, the rating sort-of matters since the rating before it was disabled still shows up on google and on my general menu anyway.)

I think it must be that they think that "you" are "me"...

[DERBRUCER]

FJL, I would imagine it is some untalent who is green with envy.

[DERBRUCER]

Spending priorities in Delaware:

A. Money to finish refurbishment of Rehoboth Beach boardwalk.

B. Cut in Medicaid funds for prescription drugs - now Walgreens will no longer fill Medicaid prescriptions.

der Brucer

[DAW]

The Tonys Abridged - a comic recap 

[DAW]

Bonnie Franklin and the original cast perform Applause.

[Cillaliz]

The Singer KENNY RANKIN  has died

Here is his obituary from The New York Times:

Kenny Rankin, Melder of Jazz and Pop, Dies at 69

I've always liked Kenny Rankin, sad to see this

[Dan (the Man)]

I'm going to write for just a bit and then head back down to rejoin Jack and company on LOST island.

WBBL.

That would be a good contest--name the LOST island.

[Cillaliz]

I find it interesting that they chose to do Sit Down Your Rockin The Boat for the Tony Award 2009 as they did the same number for the last revival.

I was wondering why the chose that over some of the other numbers from the show.

BTW I have been watching select moments from the Tony Awards on You Tube

Likewise, why did Legally Blonde decide to showcase the same number that was done two years ago on the awards broadcast?

It suddenly strikes me as funny that Legally Blonde has managed to get the same number featured on the Tonys in two different years despite the fact that it was never nominated as a Best Musical in the first place.

I think the reason "they" chose to perform "So Much Better" from Legally Blonde - as well as "Dancing Queen", "Sit Down Your Rockin' The Boat" and even the Jersey Boys medley - is that those songs are the "Greatest Hits".  If Wicked had been featured, I have a feeling "Defying Gravity" would have been performed again too.  (And I would not have minded seeing that again.)

Some people don't mind seeing - and hearing - the same songs over and over again.  -How many YouTube clips have you watched more than once?  Additionally, I'm sure that there was a good chunk - well, maybe a small chunk - of the viewing audience that hadn't seen those numbers before. -I've actually missed the previous televised performances of "What's Up, Duloc?" from Shrek.  However...

I think both "Dancing Queen" and "So Much Better" were not well-served by the staging - having the soloist(s) out on the dais, and the rest of the company back on the stage.  Just too much "space".

bk - The key for "Dancing Queen" has always been that "low" - lots of mixing, no belt.  It's not meant to be a "show-off" number in the show - it's a fun, friendly, "girl power", woman-bonding number.  In the show proper, it's sung in the bedroom (like it was in the movie), and in the curtain call it's meant to feature the spandex. The curtain call version of "Waterloo" would have had more energy.

I enjoyed So Much Better and Dancing Queen and I love the song Sit Down You're Rockin the Boat. I don't think the singers were the strongest I've heard, but I'm not clear that they could hear the band that well.

[S. Woody White]

I find it interesting that they chose to do Sit Down Your Rockin The Boat for the Tony Award 2009 as they did the same number for the last revival.

I was wondering why the chose that over some of the other numbers from the show.

That is basically what i meant. It's nothing against the guy who sang on the Tonys.

It's just that to me you want to show something that will get people wanting to see the show. I would have put something with the 4 leads. .....

The two numbers Der Brucer can think of from Guys and Dolls that stand out other than "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" are "Adelaide's Lament" (a solo) and "Take Back Your Mink" (which is for Adelaide and the chorus girls).  There really isn't anything for Sky or Sarah or Nathan that stands out in the same way.  Maybe "Marry the Man Today," but it's Nicely Nicely's number that most lends itself to a featured presentation on the televised Tonys.

Interestingly, another Frank Loesser musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, has a similarly placed, rousing number towards the end of the show, "The Brotherhood of Men."  When H2S had it's revival a few years ago, what number did they pick to represent the show?  "Brotherhood of Men."

Most Happy Fella doesn't have a number like it.  I can't remember what they used on the Tonys when that show was revived.

[Ginny]

We are back from our Tuesday night date - dinner at City Barbecue, dessert at Graeter's (both in Centerville) and the Lincoln program at the Kettering-Moraine branch library.

[Dan (the Man)]

Warning - panic ahead:

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WHO MAY DECLARE FIRST PANDEMIC IN 41 YEARS

That's what I'm trying TO FIND OUT!!!

[bk]

I'm back from an exhausting day and am ready to hit the couch just because I need to hit something.  Rehearsal was fun and I really like our mighty ensemble.  We didn't quite get through all the music but we're sending them mp3s so they can learn it from there.  I did pick up a few packages at the mail place and I did finish addressing all the packages and postage is being affixed - some this morning, and some tomorrow afternoon.  We should be able to get all the CDs shipped Thursday morning.

[bk]

I'm taken both aback and afront that we are still on page six.

[bk]

No one interviews me about cast albums - why would they?  I only brought their popularity back after many years of dormancy.  The article, funnily, says nothing about how cast albums are funded today - not by the record labels but by the producers of the shows.

[bk]

Glad people seem to like the site.  We'll probably make the covers clickable at some point, but I had to just let Doug get the basics done first.  And Amy's order came through fine and got forwarded correctly, so that's faboo.

[bk]

Before rehearsal, I went to Jerry's and had a small turkey sandwich (they now do two sizes, four ounces and eight).  I'm having cupcakes for dessert.  Don't ask me why, but I had a hankerin'.  And I jogged so why not?

[Kerry]

Spending priorities in Delaware:

A. Money to finish refurbishment of Rehoboth Beach boardwalk.

B. Cut in Medicaid funds for prescription drugs - now Walgreens will no longer fill Medicaid prescriptions.

der Brucer

As long as they have their priorities right!

[S. Woody White]

Kitichen disasters?

My most recent involved bread.

Dad and Stepmom had told us they would be arriving Wednesday (last week), so I decided it would be great to bake a fresh loaf of bread (or two).  I got the bread started, and left it to rise while I went to the store for other stuff for our dinner that night.

I'm in line to check out when der B shows up... out of breath.  "You forgot to leave the car keys on the shelf!" he finally grumbles.  "And your Dad is here!"

A day early.

Well, that's a double oops.

Der B and I hoof it back home, get cleaned up a bit, and get ahold of Dad and Stepmom.  A very good evening was had by all.

Until we get home again.  The dough is in it's bowl, sulking.  "You left me all alone, and now I'm too tired to rise again after you punch me down."  And when I did punch it down, it blew a raspberry at me.

The resulting loaves were... well, they loafed.  They were dense, and grumpy, and not something I could give my family.  Dad and Paulann never did get any bread from me.  I threw it out for the birds instead.

[S. Woody White]

No one interviews me about cast albums - why would they?  I only brought their popularity back after many years of dormancy.  The article, funnily, says nothing about how cast albums are funded today - not by the record labels but by the producers of the shows.

That funding explains a lot.  Unfortunately.

[DAW]

I threw it out for the birds instead.

So?  If you had a bad loaf, why should they suffer?         

[almost a Fiddler on the Roof reference!]

[TCB]

DR TCB:       Tubby Kaye made me laugh out loud!     

Thank you, DAW, I do my best.

[S. Woody White]

I've got a der B to feed.

Lamb shoulder chops, and fresh pasta with cherry tomatoes.

[TCB]

I'm beginning to really understand that I have some real enemies or haters out there regarding my YouTube stuff. 

I posted Skip's recording of the late great David Carroll singing TIME AND TIME AGAIN with Janie Smulyan on YouTube last night,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p28LS2ztGQo

and already someone's starting with the "one star" ratings to bring the rating down - and on Skip's song yet! 

If you watch and listen and like it enough to be inclined to rate or comment, as always, it's very much appreciated!!!

I listened and then tried to rate it, but the ratings had been disabled.

[Michael]

BK

Does it really cost $400,000 to record a cast album.

How can one make there money??  If a cd cost $20  you need to 40,000 units just to break even.

When you did Hello Dolly or The King and I were the cost that much.