CD REVIEW: HAIR/THE NEW BROADWAY CAST RECORDING

I have always found it fascinating that in the Musical Theatre world, just as in Pop Music, there are artists who produce what have come to be known as "one-hit-wonders." And just as in popular music where a singer scores performing someone else’s tunes, sometimes collaborators on Broadway Musicals produce just one, sometimes brilliant, legendary show (as well as the artists who comeup with a singular hit all on their own). Such was the case with the landmark 1967 musical Hair.  Others that come immediately to mind are Man of La Mancha, Dreamgirls, Oliver.           

Hair  was particuarly groundbreaking in it’s day being one of the very first "rock" musicals to land and succeed on the Great White Way. Reviving the show in these modern times has always been a challenge, somewhat due to the author’s reticence to allow a full-scale Broadway revival, and also with fears of the material being hopelessly dated. Sadly, the years we are now experiencing have produced the ideal climate to bring back this powerful show with it’s heartbreaking anti-war message. I had the fortune to see this production last year in its second run in Central Park, where parts of the story actually occur, and it was magical.

Besides all of that, the issue here is the music and most signifigantly, this new recording. Granted, there have been a great number of enjoyable albums made from this material over the years, but this one strikes me in a singular way. In addition to the subtly updated arrangements, the greatest achievement is the fact, that for the first time, you can actually understand every terrific lyric (and also maybe the very first time the entire score has been preserved). These songs are some of the most brilliant, succinct and affecting ever written for a musical theatre piece, and they haven’t faded with time. Several of the selections consistently bring tears to my eyes, even while strolling the city streets with my iPhone plugged into my ears, with the simplicity and directness of their lyrics and stirring melodies.

The performers are uniformly excellent, but the standouts are Sasha Allen, who tears up her bits of “Aquarius,” “White Boys,” “Walking in Space” and “The Flesh Failures” with equal measure (the tears I mentioned before), and Gavin Creel, who more than does right by classics such as the title number, “I Got Life” and “Where Do I Go?” (tears here, too). This gorgeously packaged disc (Ghostlight Records) was Grammy-nominated, and rightly so. This seems the perfect time to begin what I hope will be a recurring tag to my CD reviews. Having to listen to a great deal of music, it is rare that one finds a permanent place in my "favorites" that I return to when not spinning the current project for the third or fourth time. This collection will be one of them. The other I just can’t seem to get enough of lately is Liz Callaway’s Passage of Time. Hope you’ll check them both out!