Styne: Gentleman Prefer Blondes

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Cat No: 8120793

Release Date: 30 June 2006

Label: Naxos - Nostalgia / Naxos Nostalgic

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943279328

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: STYNE

Description
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Original Cast 1949) Music by Jule Styne Lyrics by Leo Robin Lorelei Lee - Carol Channing Dorothy Shaw - Yvonne Adair Henry Spofford -Eric Brotherson Gus Esmond - Jack McCauley Josephus Gage - George S. Irving Sir Francis Beekman -Rex Evans Mrs Ella Spofford - Alice Pearce Dance Team - Honi Coles, Cholly Atkins High Button Shoes (Original Cast 1947) Music by Jule Styne Lyrics by Sammy Cahn Harrison Floy - Phil Silvers Sara Longstreet - Nanette Fabray Hubert Oglethorpe -Mark Dawson Fran - Lois Lee Stevie Longstreet - Johnny Stewart Henry Longstreet - Jack McCauley For nearly fifty years, Jule Styne was the composer who best represented 'the sound of Broadway'. He wasn't the most successful, although he had his share of hits, and he wasn't the most consistent, because he switched collaborators the way some guys change their socks. But there was something in the distinctive, brassy bleat of his tunes that eventually made him the go-to guy for that special New York sound. 'Whenever I think of a Broadway musical', said Michael Feinstein, 'I hear a Jule Styne overture in my mind'. And the two shows featured on this recording - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and High Button Shoes - are the ones that made his reputation on the Great White Way in the late 1940s. He was born Jules Stein to a poor family in London, England on 31 December 1905. In 1912, they relocated to Chicago, where young Jules became known as a classical piano prodigy, making his debut with the Chicago Symphony at the age of nine. Early in his teens, he suffered an accident with a drill press that damaged one finger permanently and sent him from the concert stage to the orchestra pit of the local burlesque houses. (When he wrote the score for Gypsy forty years later, he didn't have to do any research.) He went on to become a popular player and conductor for dance bands in the Windy City, but after he penned a popular hit called "Sunday" in 1926, he started to dream of bigger things. Early in the 1930s he moved to New York to find he could only get work as a vocal coach. But he did so well that in 1938, he was sent to Hollywood to instruct and provide special material for child star Shirley Temple. He was slaving away at Republic Studios, home of the B-Movies, when he got paired up with Frank Loesser. In 1941, they wrote the smash hit 'I Don't Want to Walk Without You,' and continued to turn out winners, until Styne switched over to Sammy Cahn as his lyricist. They became Frank Sinatra's unofficial songwriters for a time, providing him with tunes like 'I Fall In Love Too Easily' and 'Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry.' Emboldened by their Hollywood success, Styne and Cahn headed east in 1944 to write a Broadway musical. Called Glad To See You!, it proved to be a horrible disaster (directed by Busby Berkeley on the way down), closing out of town in Philadelphia. The songwriting duo licked their wounds for a while, but were
Tracklisting