In summer 1998, I orchestrated a terrible production of Redhead at Goodspeed. The book's mess, and the director and choreographer did nothing to fix it. Bob Fosse clearly was more concerned in creating a vehicle for Gwen Verdon than fixing it in 1958. I cannot listen to her opn the recording because her inept attempts at a Brit accent irritate me.
To my lunatic mother's credit, because we were poor white trash, she knew I loved muscal theatre, so she always looked in bargain bin in drug stores and groceries for inexpensive show albums. Two of my earliest albums were Hill Bowen's British recordings of Redhead and The Music Man on RCA Camden. I justr got on eBay, the CD of Bowen's Redhead, coupled with the 1959 Mexican cast recording. So, I listened to that along wioth the OBC recording. The score is better than I remembered, and the Russell Bennett-Phil Lang orchestrations are quite wonderful.
