Merman Sings Merman

by William RuhlmannWhen she wasn't appearing on Broadway, Ethel Merman made occasional forays into the recording studio; usually, all that record executives wanted her to do was record new versions of songs from her Broadway shows and films. She acquiesced to this request many times, resulting in such collections of re-recordings as Ethel Merman Sings Songs She Has Made Famous (Decca, 1949), Merman -- Her Greatest! (Reprise, 1961), and this LP, the first of three recorded in London in the early 1970s for one or the other of Decca's labels, backed by the London Festival Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Stanley Black. In her early 60s, Merman reveals some vocal wear and tear as she digs into her catalog, going all the way back to her 1930 Broadway debut for "I Got Rhythm" from Girl Crazy. "Eadie Was a Lady" comes from the 1932 musical Take a Chance; "You're the Top," "I Get a Kick Out of You," and "Blow, Gabriel Blow" are from 1934's Anything Goes; "It's De-Lovely" from 1936's Red, Hot and Blue!; "Alexander's Ragtime Band" is the title song from a 1938 movie musical in which she starred; "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "They Say It's Wonderful" are from 1946's Annie Get Your Gun; "You're Just in Love" is from 1950's Call Me Madam; and "Everything's Coming Up Roses" is from 1959's Gypsy. Her vibrato is occasionally pronounced on these performances of songs she has sung hundreds, if not thousands, of times, but she can still hit her notes. And she even re-creates her long-held notes on "I Got Rhythm." Listeners may prefer the earlier recordings of these standards by the singer who introduced them, but Merman retains her command of the material here.