About the Database

Show Music on Record provides discographic information for all commercially-released recordings of theatrical musicals, film and television musicals, and other productions that included songs. In addition to listings of original cast recordings of American shows produced for the stage, screen, and television (and of foreign shows that played in the U.S.), the database includes commercial recordings of later albums and medleys from shows, individual show tunes performed by members of original, revival, and studio casts, records of composers performing their own show songs, and selected additional recordings of related interest.

Which Shows Are Included?

Stage Shows

• All American stage shows with songs, whether operetta, book musical, or revue.
• Foreign shows that played in the U.S. or were written by American composers.

Motion Pictures and Television Programs

• American motion picture or television programs significantly influenced by the musical theater tradition.
• Film musicals from England, France, and Germany, since many of these were released in the U.S.

Additional Types of Shows

• College shows, amateur shows, and industrial shows, if they are of special interest, such as having well-known composers or performers.
• "Concept musicals" or productions originally conceived as sound recordings.
• Puppet shows with songs, popular oratorios, pageants, and cantatas, if they are in the tradition of the American musical theater.

Which Shows Are Not Included?

• Shows that generally are classified as operas.
• Foreign shows, unless they played in the U.S. or were written by American composers.
• Foreign television material.
• Motion picture and television soundtracks that lack songs or have no significant connection with the American musical theater tradition.

Which Albums and Medleys Are Included?

In general, any English-language album or medley that contains representative selections from a show's score, including:

• Modern long-playing discs (LPs) and compact discs (CDs).
• 78-rpm show albums.
• Early vocal medleys of songs from shows, usually recorded on 12-inch 78-rpm discs, and often performed by "light opera companies" assembled by the recording companies.
• Medleys of songs from shows performed by dance bands and sung by the singers of the band.

Which Albums and Medleys Are Not Included?

• Strictly orchestral versions of a show's score.
• Most jazz and dance-tempo vocal versions of scores.
• Demonstration records, unless they later had a commercial release.
• Foreign-language recordings, although there are exceptions . . .
  For example:
  - The Paris production of Man of La Mancha is included because Joan Diener of the New York cast was also in the Paris production;
  - The original Berlin production of The Threepenny Opera is included, as are the Rome productions of Rugantino.

Which Individual Records Are Included?

• Individual songs recorded by a cast member, composer, or lyricist from a stage, screen, or television production, including:
• any song from a show recorded by a person who was in the show, whether or not that person sang the particular song in the show.

Which Individual Records Are Not Included?

Show songs performed by people who had nothing to do with a production of the show.

A Few Anomalies

If a well-known American star made records of songs he or she sang in a London show, those records are listed even though the show does not otherwise qualify for inclusion, and even though other songs from the show are not listed.

Although practically all of the original cast performances listed are songs, a few sketches of special interest are also provided, including Reginald Gardiner's records of his "Trains" monologue from At Home Abroad; Richard Haydn's "Fish Mimicry" from Set to Music; and Willie Howard's "Comes the Revolution!" from My Dear Public.

A few original cast recordings produced in limited pressings for members of the production have been included, despite the fact that they are not "commercial" recordings.