120876bk My Fair Lady:MASTER 3+3 15/4/08 10:27 AM Page 2 My Fair Lady 11. You Did It 4:23 Lyrics By Lerner 22. There But For You Go I 2:20 Rex Harrison, Robert Coote, From Brigadoon Original Broadway Cast 1956 19. A Jug Of Wine 4:00 Philippa Bevans, Servants Alan Jay Lerner 1. Overture 3:01 From The Day Before Spring 12. Show Me 2:12 Kaye Ballard 23. Love Of My Life 3:15 Orchestra Julie Andrews, John Michael King From Brigadoon 20. Almost Like Being In Love 1:54 2. Why Can’t The English 2:41 13. Get Me To The Church On Time 2:43 Kaye Ballard Rex Harrison, Robert Coote, Julie Andrews From Brigadoon Stanley Holloway, Gordon Dilworth, Kaye Ballard Tracks 19–23: Heritage H 0060 3. Wouldn’t It Be Loverly 3:58 Rod McLennan, Chorus Billy Taylor, piano; Allen Hanlon, guitar; 21. The Heather On The Hill 3:07 Julie Andrews, Reid Shelton, Glenn Kezer, Milt Hinton or Clyde Lombardi, bass; 14. A Hymn To Him 3:30 From Brigadoon James Morris, Herb Surface Herb Harris or Percy Brice, drums Rex Harrison Kaye Ballard 4. With A Little Bit Of Luck 4:08 15. Without You 2:03 Recorded 1955 Stanley Holloway, Gordon Dilworth, Julie Andrews Rod McLennan, Chorus More ‘Lyrics By Lerner’ will be found with the cast recording of Paint Your Wagon (8.120877) 16. I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face All lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner • All music by Frederick Loewe 5. I’m An Ordinary Man 4:39 4:04 All selections recorded in New York Rex Harrison Rex Harrison Transfers & Production: David Lennick • Digital Restoration: Graham Newton 6. Just You Wait 2:43 17. Finale 1:10 Julie Andrews Cover image: Mrs Patrick Campbell as Eliza in Shaw’s Pygmalion, by Kate Carew, 1914 Orchestra (Mary Evans Picture Library) 7. The Rain In Spain 2:41 Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Robert Coote, Orchestra Conducted by Franz Allers Servants Columbia OL 5090, mx XLP 37804/5 Recorded 26 March 1956 Also available in the Naxos Broadway Musicals series ... 8. I Could Have Danced All Night 3:30 Julie Andrews, Philippa Bevans, Maids 18. The Embassy Waltz 2:44 9. Ascot Gavotte 3:15 Percy Faith & His Orchestra Ensemble Columbia CL 895, mx CO 55848 10. On The Street Where You Live 2:57 Recorded 17 April 1956 John Michael King C M 8.120791 8.120847 8.120848 These titles are not for retail sale in the USA Y 5 8.120876 6 8.120876 K 120876bk My Fair Lady:MASTER 3+3 15/4/08 10:27 AM Page 1 ‘I realized,’ said Lerner, ‘that all I had to do several years later.) The first was a saucy comedy about hero, Tommy, There But For You Go I, Lerner Original Broadway Cast 1956 was write the things that Shaw said were When the show opened in New York on college swains returning to the stomping makes us evaluate his entire romantic life, past My Fair Lady happening offstage.’ 15 March 1956, it was hailed as one of the grounds of their youth to rediscover the truth and present. Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner • Music by Frederick Loewe From that moment on, the writing flowed grandest hits of all time. about romance and from it, the marsala-voiced It’s one of those revealing moments when swimmingly, but it was still no cakewalk to get Seats became so hard to get that stories such Kaye Ballard offers us the rueful truths behind an author allows himself to put his feelings on Lyrics By Lerner the show onto the stage. In perhaps the as the following one were accepted as gospel. A Jug Of Wine. the line and let us understand what he was Music by Loewe • Kaye Ballard & Alan Jay Lerner, vocals 1955 smartest move anyone ever made, they hired A woman was at My Fair Lady with an Brigadoon is something else, a major hit really thinking all along. Moss Hart as the director, one of the few men empty seat next to her. Everyone wondered show at the time which has slipped into quaint Anyone interested in the life of Alan Jay who could move equally between West End how it could happen. She explained that her period piece status ever since. A new New Lerner and how it impacted on the shows he Alan Jay Lerner had eight wives; Frederick embraced it all and loved it all. elegance and Broadway glitz. husband had recently died. Other theatergoers York production with a strong anti-war message wrote, ought to listen to There But For You Loewe had almost as many yachts. Together Perhaps nowhere did the cultural marriage Noel Coward, the first choice for Henry wondered if one of her closer personal friends is being planned as we speak, but in the mean- Go I and listen carefully. they wrote some of the most glorious musicals of these two odd men out come to such perfect Higgins, declined rapidly and it was only after could have accompanied her. time, we have to content ourselves with the The line that runs straight through to My of the 20th century. fruition as in My Fair Lady, their 1956 musical months of searching and pleading that Rex ‘Oh no,’ she demurred, ‘They’re at the funeral.’ original and its more subtle links to the past. Fair Lady’s I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her One would have thought that the man with which still stands as the perfect piece of Harrison took on the role. The original My Fair Lady ran for six and a On this recording, Ballard takes the major Face is straight and clear and undeniable. the wives was the romantic and the one with musical theatre composition. As Eliza Doolittle, Hart insisted that a fresh half years on Broadway, a record for its time. female solos such us The Heather On The These men knew how to write from the the yachts was the realist, but in truth, it The amazing thing was how close it came new talent was needed and he convinced The quality and excitement of the performances Hill and Love Of My Life, but the astonishing heart, about the heart. worked the other way around. to not happening, and how hairpin-sharp were everyone that 19 year old Julie Andrews, who from Andrews, Harrison, Stanley Holloway and single job of autobiographical reclamation goes Loewe, whose personal affairs were always the turnings of fate that allowed it to continue. had just dazzled Manhattan in The Boy Friend the rest of the cast are easily audible on this to Lerner. Singing the revelatory solo of his Richard Ouzounian kept shadowy at best, was the one who Shortly after George Bernard Shaw died in was the perfect choice. recording, one of the best recorded shows of all provided the rich, emotional music that allowed 1950, Hungarian impresario Gabriel Pascal, who But one of the many problems was that time. their shows to sail off to Nirvana, while Lerner, had acquired the film and theatre rights to Andrews’ fresh-faced innocence couldn’t stand An extra bonus on this recording is Percy the one who seemed to keep Cupid in his vest many of the bearded genius’s works, started up to the decades of Harrison’s stage and Faith and his Orchestra playing The Embassy pocket, wrote the tart, worldly lyrics that made trying to generate a stage musical version of My screen experience, Waltz, which brings down the Act I curtain. their songs such a perfect match. Fair Lady. In what has now become a legendary saga, Due to problems of how much could be fitted Lerner grew up in a world of Eastern Rodgers and Hammerstein laboured long Hart and Andrews spent a weekend alone in the on a standard LP disc in those days, it wasn't American wealth and privilege, with a and hard, only to finally throw in the towel, but theatre, working on Eliza Doolittle night and day. included in either of the original cast recordings philandering father who used to pretend he when Lerner and Loewe picked up the torch, When she emerged, the result was – Broadway or London – but it makes a fine and was at the boxing matches when he was they found it scorching their fingers as well. triumphant. complete addition to the score. visiting his mistress. One morning, Lerner’s Three songs they auditioned for Mary Despite some technical glitches at the New The joys of lesser Lerner are also available mother asked who won the match. Lerner Sr Martin caused her to lament that ‘the poor boys Haven opening, and the complaint of on this CD in the selection “Lyrics by Lerner”, guessed wrong and moved out that day. have lost their talent’ and they were about to overlength, the show was clearly a hit. which includes the composer and Kaye Ballard Loewe, on the other hand came from a give the whole project up when Lerner (One of the casualties of the show’s performing numbers from earlier shows such as background of music, both highbrow suddenly came up with a brilliant solution for running time, a lovely ballad called “Say a Prayer The Day Before Spring (1945) and Brigadoon symphonic and lowbrow coffee house. He musicalizing Shaw’s work. for Me Tonight” wound up in the score of Gigi, (1947). 2 8.120876 3 8.120876 4 8.120876 120876bk My Fair Lady:MASTER 3+3 15/4/08 10:27 AM Page 1 ‘I realized,’ said Lerner, ‘that all I had to do several years later.) The first was a saucy comedy about hero, Tommy, There But For You Go I, Lerner Original Broadway Cast 1956 was write the things that Shaw said were When the show opened in New York on college swains returning to the stomping makes us evaluate his entire romantic life, past My Fair Lady happening offstage.’ 15 March 1956, it was hailed as one of the grounds of their youth to rediscover the truth and present.