I think you'd have to go back to the 1930s to hear Merman completely unamplified, or maybe the earliest shows in the 1940s. There was some amplification here and there — in revues and in very large theatres — during the 1930s. I mean floor mics and area mics, of course, not body mics, although body mics were being talked about as a possibility as early as the early 1940s. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the original AGYG had floor mics.
in Hello, Dolly! she was not miked (miced?) on the runway as she was not wearing a mic, at least according to the press at the time, although Brian Kellow's bio of Merman said she did a wear a mic. Anyway, I saw her in it, and she sounded completely unamplified on the runway. |
