Paint Your Wagon: Original Broadway Cast

Product Details

The leads do not posess the most musical voices but they sound so right for the characters. The mens chorus gets to sing quite a bit and they sond properly robust. The recording has been laid out to include some bits of dialogue and these segments help give the disc some theatricality.

The CD transfer has very good sound and comes with good background notes and a detailed synopsis.

The boom for PAINT YOUR WAGON was the main problem which is why it has never been revived, but since the score contains such gems as "I Talk to the Trees"; "They Call the Wind Maria" and "Wand'rin' Star" it would seem an ideal candidate for Encores or some other group that specializes in concert stagings of forgotten shows.

Product Reviews

(4 stars) - Excellent Up-grade
Hello,

The copy of the LP that I have owned for years was in phony stereo. It is really good to hear the re-mastered version of this show. It has an astonishingly low price as well.

(5 stars) - Remebering the good stuff
This was a treat for me - the show dates back to the 50's when my parents got this album to play on their first "hi-fi". I don't think it is widely known but this show is the source of the song "They Call the Wind Maria". The movie (with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin) was not the same story line and the singing (I still love you Clint) was not the same level as the Broadway version.

The backdrop is the struggles and lonliness of the miners who have left everything behind in hopes of striking it rich. Humor is built around the coming into maturity of a miner's daughter, who finds the men in the camps in which she has grown up suddenly treating her differently, setting the stage for the song "What's Going on Here". She finds love with a sympathetic young Mexican man who sings "I Talk to the Trees", however her father does not approve and she is sent away to boarding school. Love triumphs after all (of course) and the finale is the song "I was Born under a Wandering Star".

The poignancy came through to me even though I only had the story from the liner notes. One song which touched me particularly was "I Still See Elisa" as the father remembers his lost wife. I hope others will enjoy it as much as I have.

(4 stars) - Excellent score; weak story
Having never seen "Paint Your Wagon" on stage, my familiarity is from the synopsis in the recording notes and the movie of the same name (same name and not much same anything else). Story-wise, this musical seems to have the same weakness most of the books written by Lerner have, a strong first act, then, where do we go from here?
Fortunately, the score will carry the load for those of us who listen by recording, although it did not for the original play-goers.
Several stand-out numbers--"I Talk to the Trees," "They Call the Wind Maria," and "Wand'rin' Star" in particular. And for lighter, more directed to fun numbers--"What's Goin' on Here" and "Hand Me Down That Can o' Beans."
As for the cast, James Barton is just right as Ben Rumson. Tony Bavaar certainly deserved his Theatre World Award as best supporting actor, and perhaps even more. Olga San Juan, however, is an enigma to me. Her voice has a sharp edge to it that is less than musical, and yet seems so fitting for a young lady reared in the midst of 400 rough miners. Then, in the "Carino Mio" duet with Bavaar, she becomes very musical.
I do wish that there had been a movie, or even a television production, that would have presented "Paint Your Wagon" as it was intended.
But, one question has bothered me for fifty years--Why do they call the wind Maria?

(4 stars) - Tony Bavaar Award
According to IMDB.com, what Tony Bavaar won was the 1952 Theatre World Award for his work in Paint Your Wagon.

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