Shirley Jones, the young star of the
Rodgers & Hammerstein movie musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel, married
Jack Cassidy, the Broadway stage musical performer whose featured appearances included Wish You Were Here and Shangri-La, on August 5, 1956, and the following year the couple released this LP of songs from musicals and operettas that had played in New York and London between 1905 ("Kiss Me Again" from
Victor Herbert's Mlle. Modiste) and 1934 ("I'll Follow My Secret Heart" from
Noel Coward's Conversation Piece). By 1957, such material, the work of composers like
Rudolf Friml,
Jerome Kern, and
Sigmund Romberg, was out of date on stage and film, but
Jones and
Cassidy applied their trained voices --
Jones' pure soprano,
Cassidy's soaring tenor -- to it with sincerity and fervor, and
Percy Faith gave them an accompaniment to support their best efforts. They didn't quite bring back the age of the operetta, but they showed that it could have a contemporary meaning, especially in its romantic sentiments.
Cassidy soloed brilliantly on
Kern and
Oscar Hammerstein II's "The Song Is You" from Music in the Air, taking the title back from such pop craftsmen as
Frank Sinatra, and
Jones had her way with
Herbert and B.G. DeSylva's "A Kiss in the Dark" from Orange Blossoms. But the rest of the tracks were duets, and the couple's real-life romance turned
Kern and
Hammerstein's "You Are Love" from Show Boat and
Romberg and
Hammerstein's "Lover, Come Back to Me!" from New Moon into impassioned musical statements. The interpretations bordered on classical music rather than pop, but they also brought new life to a virtually moribund form.