I don't know/remember all the details of the history of WHERE'S CHARLEY?, but what I do know/remember is a story of very bad luck and missed opportunities in terms of video and audio documentation:
1) I have read that no original Broadway cast album was made due to a musicians' strike at the time. I looked it up and, indeed, there was a musicians' strike against the recording industry that lasted for almost a year.
2) As we have noted, the 1952 film version of WHERE'S CHARLEY? has been unavailable for years, and apparently no film soundtrack album was released. That's not too surprising in itself, as I believe issuing such albums was not common practice at the time. But on the other hand, the fact that there was no Broadway cast album might have been viewed as all the more reason to release a soundtrack LP.
3) Again, a cast album released for the 1958 London production was released, but it's even more severely truncated than was typical for cast albums of that era. One positive note is that it was recorded in early stereo, I guess in the same year as the London cast album of MY FAIR LADY.
4) The 1974 Broadway revival of WHERE'S CHARLEY? at Circle in the Square, which starred Raul Julia, yielded no cast album.
5) The 2011 Encores! presentation yielded no cast album. One might have thought such a recording would have been funded by the Loesser estate as the first full recording of the score. I'm very surprised that didn't happen. |
