The Desert Song (MacRae)

This really looks like one of those 2-for-1 deals that packages two LPs onto one CD. But instead it is an early LP that packages two 10-inch records onto one 12-inch record.

In this case, it is two operettas starring Gordon MacRae and Lucille Norman. The first side is The Desert Song. MacRae starred in the 1953 film of that Romberg work with Kathryn Grayson. You can find her version of the songs (made with Tony Martin) a few posts below this one.

This Capitol recording is presented less as a string of songs and more as a potted version of the operetta, complete with overture and a supporting cast of Bob Sands and the great Thurl Ravenscroft, who is heard in Let Love Come.

The Kern-Harbach Roberta takes up the other side of the record. MacRae and Norman (a very good singer who also had an acting career) are joined by character singer Anne Triola, who has a little too much character for my taste. The arrangements and musical direction on both sides are by George Greeley.

The problem with trying to cram a great score like Roberta into 25 minutes is that the individual items don't get much time. That's OK with me when it comes to Yesterdays, which has been recorded by everybody from Washboard Sam to Helen Traubel (or so it seems), but not so with The Touch of Your Hand, a gorgeous song that is too little heard, perhaps because it is not easy to sing. This record includes the hit songs both from the stage show and two that were interpolated into the 1935 film (Lovely to Look At and I Won't Dance).

In an ideal world, with an ideal record collection, I would be able to complete the circle by offering the Kathryn Grayson version of Roberta, which was released in 1952 under the title of Lovely to Look At. It would indeed be lovely to look at that particular record in my hands, but I don't have it, alas.

Instead I am preparing the 78 album that Irene Dunne made of Jerome Kern songs in 1941, including Smoke Gets in Your Eyes from this score. She, of course, was the star of the 1935 film version of Roberta. Look for that soon.