First, Sepia Records, a British public domain label, will release the London recording of Mary Rodger’s Once Upon a Mattress, the musical retelling of The Princess and the Pea.  Due on 9th November, the recording includes the same numbers as the LP release of the original Broadway cast, interpreted by performers including comedian Max Wall as the Jester and character actress Jane Connell as Princess Winnifred.  On CD, it is paired with the studio recording of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves 40, which Rodgers wrote with Sammy Cahn.  Sung and narrated by Bing Crosby, this curiosity (intended for a child audience) is also making its CD debut.

Later in the month, Stage Door Records will release the original cast recording of Mutiny!, a show which starred David Essex, who also wrote the score with Richard Crane.  Based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty, the show also starred veteran actor Frank Finlay and pop diva Sinitta just prior to her career-making meeting with Simon Cowell.  It was modestly popular, running for over a year in the mid 1980s  This release is remastered from the original tapes.

For our September releases, we revisit three musicals that played in the West End in 1960. Firstly, the CD reissue of The Most Happy Fella celebrates composer Frank Loesser‘s centenary. The original London cast included leading names of the day such as Inia Te Wiata, Helena Scott, and Art Lund, who bring their unique interpretations to this important score. Our release also features five bonus tracks from the show sung by Edmund Hockridge.

Winner of the 1959 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical, Make Me an Offer reunited David Heneker and Monty Norman, two of the leading figures in British musical theatre. Here, we couple the original cast album with the first-ever release of excerpts from a live TV performance of the show. This reissue is also enhanced by extensive liner notes written by Monty Norman, who has also contributed photographs from his private archive.

Our third cast album is a newly-remastered version of Julian Slade’s 1960 hit Follow That Girl. Our new release features not only the cast album but also seven bonus tracks, including cut songs and production images.

A stalwart of the West End, Millicent Martin‘s career has spanned six decades. As our fourth release in this batch, we are proud to release her debut solo CD, which was recorded at the peak of her career on the British stage. As well as enjoying numerous successes as an actress in musical theatre, Martin has also won popularity in recent years for her TV appearances, and we hope that this CD release will serve as a useful tribute to her musical roots.

Beginning with the release of Regina on July 20, these titles will be available as digital downloads  through all major digital service providers and as disc-on-demand, each with the original cover art and liner notes, exclusively through Arkivmusic.com.  These cast recordings will be the first in a long-range plan to issue a “new” classic Masterworks Broadway title each month, transferred from the original masters in the Sony Music Archives.  In most  instances, these will be the first authorized releases of these recordings in  the digital era, and the first time they have been available directly from the original masters since the LP era.  Future releases will be announced in the fall.