As the original Broadway cast albums of the 1940s and early '50s have fallen, one by one, into the public domain in Europe (where there is a 50-year copyright limit on recordings), reissue labels have tended to focus on the big hits and big sellers in putting out unlicensed discs mastered from old records. But Britain's Sepia Records has shown an interest in the more obscure titles, while cleaning up the sometimes murky, scratchy sound of old 78s and adding good annotations to create packages of high interest to show music fans. A good example is this disc, which combines two somewhat similar cast albums, those for the 1951 musical Seventeen and for 1947's High Button Shoes. Both shows have turn-of-the-century, pre-World War I settings, Seventeen occurring in 1907 Indianapolis and based on a Booth Tarkington novel, High Button Shoes in 1913 New Brunswick, NJ, and drawing on librettist Stephen Longstreet's short stories. The settings lead to musical similarities, as both composers Walter Kent and Jule Styne draw upon some of the Tin Pan Alley sounds of the era, and lyricists Kim Gannon and Sammy Cahn partake of the innocent charm thought to imbue life in early-20th century America. High Button Shoes was by far the more successful of the two, becoming the biggest hit of the 1947-1948 season, while Seventeen ran only 180 performances, probably not enough to pay back investors. And the Styne/Cahn score is certainly superior, boasting the minor hits "I Still Get Jealous" and "Papa, Won't You Dance With Me?" (presented in pop covers by Gordon MacRae and Doris Day included as bonus tracks), but the show also benefited from the star casting of comedian Phil Silvers and the staging of Jerome Robbins. Seventeen, however, contains some pleasant material and winning performances as well, and the two together make for an excellent value. (Although nominally not for sale in the U.S., where RCA Victor claims copyright on both cast albums, the disc was readily available at a reasonable price upon release by mail order and at some retail outlets.)
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