"Broadway: America's Music 1935-2005" (10/18/2005) Pop Vocal Original Cast, Decca (USA)Lyricists: Clark Gesner; Cole Porter; Dorothy Fields; DuBose Heyward; Marsha Norman; Marshall Barer; Susan Birkenhead; Harold Rome; Herbert Kretzmer; Howard Ashman; Irving Berlin; Adolph Green; Johnny Mercer; Leslie Bricusse; Lucy Simon; Sandy Wilson; Sheldon Harnick; Stephen Schwartz; T.S. Eliot; Trevor Nunn; Walter Melrose; Lynn Ahrens; Lionel Bart; Marc Blitzstein; Alain Boublil; Benny Andersson; Joe Darion; Al Dubin; Bertolt Brecht; Betty Comden; Douglas Furber; Ira Gershwin; Oscar Hammerstein II; Lorenz Hart; Jerry Herman; John Latouche; Anthony Newley; Leo Robin; Richard Stilgoe; Tim Rice; Bj?rn Ulvaeus; Carol Hall; Carole Bayer Sager; Charles Hart. Personnel: Crista Moore, Daniel Jenkins, Dick Foran, Dick Haymes, Dolores Gray, David Shiner, Toni Collette , Earl Oxford, Elaine Paige, Ellen Greene, Robert E. Preston, Ethel Merman, Keith Hamshere, Anita Louise Combe, Frances Ruffelle, Linda Kendrick, Gregory Hines, Harvey Evans, Daniel Massey, Joe Bova, Siobh n McCarthy, Martin Horsey, Annabel Leventon, Jan Clayton, Jerry Orbach, John Raitt, Johnny Desmond, Julie Warren, Kay Coulter, Kaye Ballard, Lee Wilkof, Lucie Arnaz, Alfred Drake, Mandy Barnett, Alice Playten, Marty May, Patti LuPone, Pearl Bailey, Peter Marshall, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Anne Brown, Ray Bolger, Ray Middleton, Richard Kiley, Robert Alda, Robert Klein, Robert Lindsay, Rosalind Russell, Sandy Duncan, Sarah Brightman, Shirley Ross, Barbara Dickson, Vivian Blaine, Yul Brynner, Yvonne Elliman, Bebe Neuwirth, Ben Vereen, Ren?e Fleming, Betty Buckley, Gertrude Lawrence, Anthony Newley, Jonathan Pryce, Gerald H. Price, Hugh Jackman, Adam Garcia, Edith Adams, Bobby Van, Bonnie Franklin, Bryn Terfel, Carmen Miranda, Carol Burnett, Carol Channing (vocals). Audio Remasterer: Doug Pomeroy. Photographer: Joan Marcus. Spanning the years 1935 to 2005, THE BEST OF BROADWAY is a six-disc box set that covers many of the greatest musical moments from the Great White Way's storied history. From canonical stage classics like OKLAHOMA and PORGY AND BESS, to the peace-&-love generation's infiltrations with JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR and HAIR, to mega-musicals like CATS, LES MISERABLES, RENT, and THE BOY FROM OZ, this spectacular package features selections from some of the biggest shows of all time in their original-cast-recording versions. This is absolutely essential for anyone remotely interested in the legacy of Broadway. When record executive Jack Kapp left Brunswick Records to found the American Decca label in 1934, one of the innovations he took with him was having film stars like the company's flagship artist, Bing Crosby, record the songs they were singing in movie musicals. A related idea was to have Broadway musical stars do the same thing. The record business had long borrowed material from Broadway, but less often employed the actual stage performers as recording artists. In an industry largely devoted to singles, Kapp's efforts at first were restricted to a couple of songs from a show, but in 1943 he took the step of having the cast of the hit musical Oklahoma! record an entire album of the show's songs. That album's success marked the birth of the "Original Broadway Cast" recording as a record industry staple, and such recordings (along with "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" albums) dominated pop music for the next 20 years. Decca's main rivals, Columbia and RCA Victor (their catalogs since combined in Sony BMG), came to surpass it in contracting with Broadway producers, but it still had a healthy number of recordings over the decades. In 1996, MCA, Decca's successor, issued the five-hour, four-CD, 93-track box set Front Row Center: The Broadway Gold Box, 1935-1988 to celebrate the company's show music heritage comprehensively. Nine years later, the goals of six budget-priced CDs (A Time of Hope: Broadway 1935-1946, Center Stage: Broadway 1947-1958, Put on a Happy Face: Broadway 1959-1967, Broadway Magic: Broadway 1968-1980, The British Invasion: Broadway 1981-1992, and Broadway Today: Broadway 1993-2005) released as individual titles by Universal Music Gr