The Pajama Game 14
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120878bk Pajama Game:MASTER 3+3 18/9/08 11:03 AM Page 2 The Pajama Game 14. Seven-And-A-Half Cents 4:32 19. Which Witch? 3:41 All selections recorded in New York Original Broadway Cast 1954 Janis Paige, Stanley Prager, Ensemble (Alan Melville–Charles Zwar) Transfers & Production: David Lennick 15. Finale 0:53 Hermione Gingold with Buster Davis & Digital Restoration: Alan Bunting 1. Overture 4:56 Entire Company Orchestra Cover image © Yvanovich / Dreamstime.com Orchestra Dolphin 7, mx FB 521-N3 Lyrics and Music by 2. The Pajama Game—Racing With The Recorded 1956 Richard Adler and Jerry Ross Clock 3:01 20. When Am I Gonna Meet Your Mother? Eddie Foy Jr—Ensemble Orchestra conducted by Hal Hastings Columbia ML 4840 1:37 3. A New Town Is A Blue Town 2:52 Recorded 16 May 1954 (Richard Adler–Jerry Ross) John Raitt Cyril Ritchard and Elaine Dunn; 4. I’m Not At All In Love 3:51 John Murray Anderson’s Stuart Ross, piano Janis Paige, Girls Almanac – Selections Dolphin 1, mx EB 2545-N1 5. I’ll Never Be Jealous Again 3:12 Recorded 1955 Eddie Foy Jr, Reta Shaw 16. You’re So Much A Part Of Me 1:45 (Richard Adler–Jerry Ross) 6. Hey There 3:33 Cyril Ritchard and Elaine Dunn; John Raitt Stuart Ross, piano 7. Her Is 2:48 Dolphin 1, mx EB 2544-N1 Stanley Prager, Carol Haney Recorded 1955 8. Once-A-Year-Day! 3:14 17. Acorn In The Meadow 2:41 Also available in the Naxos Broadway Musicals series ... John Raitt, Janis Paige, Ensemble (Richard Adler–Jerry Ross) 9. Small Talk 3:49 Harry Belafonte with Hugo Winterhalter’s John Raitt, Janis Paige Orchestra 10. There Once Was A Man 3:08 RCA Victor 20-5722, mx E4-VB-2805 John Raitt, Janis Paige Recorded 4 January 1954 11. Steam Heat 4:24 18. Merry Little Minuet 2:25 Carol Haney, Buzz Miller, Peter Gennaro (Sheldon Harnick) 12. Think Of The Time I Save 2:40 Charlotte Rae with John Strauss & His Eddie Foy Jr, Girls Baroque Bearcats C 13. Hernando’s Hideaway 3:45 Vanguard VRS 9004, mx F8-OP-8331 Carol Haney, Ensemble Recorded 1955 M 8.120847 8.120876 8.120877 These titles are not for retail sale in the USA Y 5 8.120878 6 8.120878 K 120878bk Pajama Game:MASTER 3+3 18/9/08 11:03 AM Page 1 The Newfoundland-born Anderson was 68 would prove extreme even by his standards. At All In Love and the sizzling There Once earning unanimous raves from the New York and near the end of his life when he Two of the producers, Robert Griffith and Was A Man. critics after its 13 May 1954 opening, going on The Pajama Game Original Broadway Cast 1954 commissioned Adler and Ross to write the score Harold Prince, were stage managers who had They also understand beautifully the art of to win three Tony Awards, including Best Music and Lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross for what was to be his swansong, John Murray never produced before. In fact, on opening the novelty song, as witnessed by their Musical, and running for 1,063 performances. Anderson’s Almanac. night, they were the actual stage managers for idiosyncratic Steam Heat and the production The next Adler–Ross musical, Damn John Murray Anderson’s Almanac Anderson had made his New York début as the show, supervising it in their tuxedos. number Hernando’s Hideaway, which actually Yankees, (again with Griffith, Prince, Abbott and writer, director and producer of The Greenwich Abbott’s co-author on the book was a rode onto the pop charts. Fosse) would open almost a year to the day after Selections 1954–56 Village Follies in 1919, going on to work for fledgling novelist named Richard Bissell, whose But their biggest hit was the straight-ahead The Pajama Game and prove to be an even everyone from Florenz Ziegfeld to the Ringling Seven and a Half Cents, the story of labour ballad Hey There, given a new twist by having bigger hit. Richard Adler and Jerry Ross only knew each tunesmiths in those days – there was no Brothers Circus. unrest in an Iowa pajama factory, would provide John Raitt sing it into a Dictaphone, allowing him But six months after its opening, Jerry Ross other for five years, from 1950 to 1955. But stopping them. The revue that he hired Adler and Ross to the basis for the story. to share a duet with his own rich baritone voice. would be dead and what began as one of the during that time, they wrote a hit Broadway Composer Frank Loesser took them under work on had an amazing cast, including Cyril Although Jerome Robbins was hovering in One of the biggest successes of 1954, Hey most promising of all Broadway partnerships revue (John Murray Anderson’s Almanac) and his wing, signed them to his publishing company Ritchard, Hermione Gingold, Harry Belafonte and the wings as insurance, the choreography was There actually had two recordings on the would now become a footnote in the land of two of the most enduring musicals in the and helped them through a few rough patches at Charlotte Rae, all heard on this recording. officially credited to Bob Fosse, in his first Billboard chart, with Rosemary Clooney’s hitting might-have-been. modern canon (The Pajama Game and Damn the beginning. But the magpie Anderson could never leave Broadway staging assignment. No. 1, while Sammy Davis Jr’s went to No. 16. Yankees). In 1952, they wrote the score for a mini- well enough alone and he kept fussing with the And then there were Adler and Ross. Their The Pajama Game itself was a glorious hit, Richard Ouzounian Their all-too-brief collaboration yielded songs musical called Six on a Honeymoon (guess how show right through to its opening in Manhattan joy at getting the job wasn’t diluted by later that are still standards over fifty years later (“Rags many were in the cast?) which starred a young on 10 December 1953, changing the order, finding out that it had been turned down by to Riches”, “Heart”, “Hey There”) and one has to woman named Barbara Cook with book, reassigning songs and adding numbers by other Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Jule wonder what they might have accomplished had direction and choreography by Herbert Ross. authors. Styne, Comden and Green, Harold Rome, Burton Ross not died of lung disease at the age of 29. It opened at a Chicago steakhouse/nightclub Despite mixed critical reviews, which Lane and Cole Porter. The two men were both from New York City called The Black Hawk to excellent reviews, but praised Gingold and Belafonte but panned Adler But the fledgling team not only rose to the (Adler, the elder by five years, was born in 1921), the run was cut short when the Board of Health and Ross’s songs as ‘routine’, the show managed occasion, they turned out a score which endures but they had very different backgrounds. closed the restaurant down for using horsemeat a decent run of 229 performances. to this day, as the Tony Award winning 2006 Whereas Ross was the son of Russian and passing it off as steak. Listening to Belafonte make his own patented Broadway revival proved. immigrants and spent his childhood as a Bloody, but unbowed,Adler and Ross came kind of magic with Acorn In The Meadow, From Eddie Foy Jr’s sassy ‘here’s what the successful performer in the Yiddish theatre, Adler up with a pop song called “Rags to Riches”, but however, it’s hard to see how the tinniest of ears show’s about’ rendition of the title song, through came from a more culturally patrician their friend, superstar Eddie Fisher, refused to could have failed to appreciate this music. the snappy Racing With The Clock number for upbringing, with his father being the renowned record it. No problem. Mitch Miller, the guru of Adler and Ross didn’t have time to ponder the workers on the assembly line, The Pajama classical pianist Clarence Adler. Columbia Records, passed it on to Tony Bennett, their fate, because veteran director George Game gets off to a sizzling beginning that The one thing the two men had in common who made it a No. 1 hit. Abbott tapped them to write the score for his seldom droops, with Adler and Ross carrying was that they both wanted to be songwriters That’s when Broadway began calling, in the next musical, The Pajama Game. much of the energy. and from that day in 1950 when they met at the antiquated but still persuasive person of John Abbott, who was then already 66, liked Instead of making every love song a sleepy Brill Building in New York – the Mecca for Murray Anderson. working with young talent, but this production ballad, Adler and Ross give us the perky I’m Not 2 8.120878 3 8.120878 4 8.120878 120878bk Pajama Game:MASTER 3+3 18/9/08 11:03 AM Page 1 The Newfoundland-born Anderson was 68 would prove extreme even by his standards. At All In Love and the sizzling There Once earning unanimous raves from the New York and near the end of his life when he Two of the producers, Robert Griffith and Was A Man. critics after its 13 May 1954 opening, going on The Pajama Game Original Broadway Cast 1954 commissioned Adler and Ross to write the score Harold Prince, were stage managers who had They also understand beautifully the art of to win three Tony Awards, including Best Music and Lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross for what was to be his swansong, John Murray never produced before.